Andrew: Three messages before we get started.
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Here’s the program.
Hey there, freedom fighters. My name is Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy.com, home of the ambitious upstart and you know what I do here. I bring on entrepreneurs to talk about how they built their businesses with kind of a greedy purpose. I’m greedily looking . . . is “greedily” a word? I’m looking in a very greedy way to pull as much of their knowledge and as much of their ideas as possible, partially for myself, but mostly for my audience so that you who is listening to me can go out there and use what you’ve learned and then hopefully give me some credit, which will mean that my life has purpose. That’s my whole mission here, Dustin.
Dustin: OK.
Andrew: So the big question for this interview is, how does a single guy in his 20’s generate over a half a million dollars in annual revenue by helping moms get fit? Dustin Maher is America’s trainer to moms. He helps them get into shape through his DVDs, in-person boot camps and his new book, “Fit Moms for Life”. I invited him to talk about how he built a business around his love for fitness. I’m also curious about how he gets on T.V. so much and also I know that he believes in sharing his mission, which is why I said that at the top of the interview. I want to find out why he does that and how we can do it right. But first of all, Dustin, I notice when I said the name of the book that you leaned back a little bit. Why? What happened?
Dustin: That’s a good question. I think I was just repositioning my body.
Andrew: Oh, OK. All right. I thought maybe, Andrew, you shouldn’t be talking about it, maybe I got the title wrong.
Dustin: No, no, no, [??} that’s probably my most proud probably accomplishment right now.
Andrew: Having written a book?
Dustin: Yes.
Andrew: And look at how I’m just going to brush right over it in the intro and I’m going to go to, and you tell me if this is a jerky move to do, but I’m going to ask you . . . I said over half a million dollars in revenue last year . . . how much? What was the revenue last year in 2011?
Dustin: In 2011, I just closed it out; I think it was around $650,000-700,000, somewhere around there with profit margins well over 50% though, so not too bad.
Andrew: So if it’s $600,000, or let’s say $700,000, forget conservative, let’s go to the high limit, that means you pocketed $350,000 in profit at the end of last year.
Dustin: Somewhere around there.
Andrew: Selling DVDs to moms? Selling what else?
Dustin: Boot camps, fitness classes, so fitness programs, I’ve got 10 locations here in the Madison, Wisconsin area and DVDs. Those are my two main sources right now. I’ve done a little bit of speaking, but those really haven’t paid quite so much right now. It’s just building my following, building my lists, but those are my two big sources.
Andrew: OK. All right. Well, congratulations on the book. Tell me a little bit about why you’re so proud of that and then we’ll find out how you got here. And you and I talked before the interview about specific things that you did to build your business so I want to learn your story, but I want, as I said at the top of the interview, to pull out the specific tactics that you took to get here. But you’re proud of the book and you should be. Tell me about that.
Dustin: Yeah. The book has, it’s a how-to book, so how to get in the best shape of your lives and for moms, specifically. And I’m proud of it because there are 31 transformational stories in there. I think we all learn best by stories. We can all relate to them. So I featured 31 clients who all had really different stories. Some of them lost 10 pounds and look amazing now in a bikini. Some of them have lost 100, 10 or 20 pounds. Some have five kids, some have one kid. It’s a really wide range of ages and abilities, and so I wanted people to really connect with those stories. They share their story, but then also give their specific tips that the readers can use to help to get into the best shape.
Plus, it’s part of my 5-part formula for being fit, which you guys can go on my website and see all that. I’m not going to sit here and talk about how to get in shape on this interview, but I’m really proud of it because of the combination of 8 years of training well over 5000 clients that I can document and I’m sure there’s many more that I can’t. It’s just putting the formula together that I found that works the best.
Getting people to change their behaviors. I’m sure on this show you guys talk a lot about changing your behaviors, your mindset and ultimately, I think that’s the biggest challenge for me as a trainer, but also for coaches out there and business people is getting your team to change behaviors, getting your customers to try to buy into your system and that’s what I’m most excited and proud about.
Andrew: I’m going to add that note here and see if we can even squeeze that in, a conversation about how to change behaviors. Here’s what I have on my notepad for us to talk about. How you used public speaking to build up your audience, why you started local and that helped you grow and build a connection with your customers, how you used the media so well as I said at the top of the interview, why you blog regularly and how you use it. You mentioned your email list and we’ll talk about that.
The niche that you picked, I’m going to start off probably with that and you talk very openly about your mission and your desire to become a self-made millionaire, which it seems like you’re getting closer and closer to every day. I want to know about that part, the financial part of the mission, but also the bigger vision behind your mission. Let me ask you this. You went to The University of Wisconsin. You studied kinesiology, exercise science right? Basically you studied how to get fit and how to make other people fit.
Dustin: Right.
Andrew: Then you come out and right away you start this business aiming at moms?
Dustin: Yeah. It’s an interesting story. I did get a business certificate, business minor, but when I looked back at my life my mom and dad are not business people. My mom is a stay-at-home mom, my dad works on a research farm and so I don’t really come from a line of entrepreneurs, never really thought about it, but when I decided to become a trainer my freshman year of college I knew I wanted to have a big impact in the world.
That’s really all I knew. I knew being a one-on-one trainer, although you can make amazing impact on a few people’s lives, I knew that was a flawed system. I knew that most people can’t afford personal training 3-4 times a week. I knew my income was going to be capped at a certain amount and I could help maybe a dozen people a day. So that’s all I knew and with the passion of wanting to make the biggest imprint like I said, the business just kind of fell into place.
I wanted to make things affordable. I wanted to bring people together. I was a huge believer the thing that’s missing, with most things in life, but especially exercise, is community and support. So right after college I graduated, like you said, I had a degree in kinesiology. I had been training for about 2-3 years on campus working with professors and students and that was great, I really learned a lot.
I started a class called MamaTone Fitness because I wanted a class for stay-at-home moms, my mom was a stay-at-home mom, I’m the oldest of four kids, I’m very close to her. I thought, what can I do to serve moms? I believe they’re the most overworked and under appreciated people. How can I create a program that is affordable for them and that’s how I did it. I started off working at a gym, created this MamaTone program for stay-at-home moms.
Andrew: I’m sorry, let me pause the story right there and just talk a little bit more about the moms and here’s why. I know that after I finished my work at Bradford & Reed, sold off the last big piece of it, it was time for me to think about how do I make a big impact on the world, kind of like what you did after school, but it took me a little bit of time to get there. To figure out who I was going to help was tough. Do I go to offline businesses and tell them about the magic of the Internet? Do I go to Internet companies where I have some experience?
I don’t even know. There’s so many places that I could’ve directed my energy and I knew that I needed to pick a niche and you know what I did? I said, I’m not going to pick a niche, I should be helping everyone. Then I ended up helping nobody as you can imagine.
Dustin: Right.
Andrew: Picking that niche was so tough that I basically abdicated my responsibility to do it and here, you picked a niche, you’ve stuck with that niche and it’s been very lucrative and also impactful for you. How did you pick moms? And how does a person who’s listening to us who might be struggling the way I was learn from your experience?
Dustin: It was very innocent. It wasn’t, oh these moms are going to tell everyone and I’m going to make millions of dollars. I had no business sense really when I started this whole thing. Basically, I was passionate about helping moms. I felt like I was giving back to my own mom and I got along well with moms. I think that’s important. You’ve got to get along well with your customer. If you can’t stand your customer, you’re probably not in the right business.
Andrew: But did you do any analysis? Like, how big is this market? How likely am I, as a man who hasn’t had a baby yet, going to be…did you do any of that? Or you just said, “I’m passionate about this. Let’s just go for it.”
Dustin: Yeah. No. I just saw a need. I saw a need there and it wasn’t being filled to the best of, I felt, the ability of the people. And I looked at my competition and no one was really focusing on just mom. Some focus on women, women’s only work-outs and stuff, but not just moms. And I know child care is a big issue, so I had free child care for my stay at home moms. And I knew isolation was an issue. So, I looked at more of the problems that these moms are facing besides just the fact that they need to get in shape, or they wanted to get in shape, that’s obvious. But what are their other challenges? And I tried to provide a service. They don’t have enough money…
Andrew: How’d you know that isolation was a problem? I understand money, it’s an issue for everyone, but isolation I wouldn’t think of someone who just had a baby and could go to “Mommy and Me” classes and all kinds of stuff.
Dustin: Sure. You know, I think it was when I was in college, I had started to work with some moms, I worked with a lot of wide-range, and just having conversations with people, and then I think my mom and her friends, and just maybe looking back at my mom, she certainly had a little group of friends, but I didn’t feel like it was a very large community. And so I think it was just talking to people and talking to my current clients, because I had already trained about 100 clients during my time in college to get to know my clientele base a little bit and hear their needs.
And it’s become more and more apparent that, especially stay at home moms, they think that having a child is going to fulfill them, but then they’re disappointed that being a stay at home mom isn’t all that they thought it was going to be and they still need that adult interaction, and that’s what we provide.
Andrew: OK. So, you were starting to say then, what you did once you discovered this…MamaTone Fitness was the business, what specifically was MamaTone?
Dustin: MamaTone was basically a boot camp program, so we met five days a week but we would encourage people to come three times a week. Strength training, interval training, core training, really intense, heavy weights, that’s my philosophies on transforming the body, and after class we’d allow time to hang out and chat and we’d do social events outside of class to build that community and just really pour it into their lives and try to develop friendships. That’s the biggest thing.
Andrew: How’d you find your clients, the mamas?
Dustin: Well, the first 20 or 30 probably just through word of mouth and through the gym I was at. Now here’s a big thing, we all have customers that are kind of, our super refers, you know, our biggest fans. And I had a couple of them. And they really wanted me to start this MamaTone program. They said, “You know what? We’ve got 10 or 15 friends in my neighborhood that I think I could all get to do this. So, I had a free week or a free couple weeks of class to get them exposed to it and finding those super customers that are your biggest fans and really rewarding them. So I gave them free boot camps and different bonuses and gifts to encourage them to keep sharing my program with others.
Andrew: OK. Bonuses, encourage them to do it, but I feel like, I was just at a coffee shop yesterday and they gave me a cookie, hoping that I would tell my friends about it. I said, “Great. Thanks for the cookie.” I actually, I didn’t tell anyone about it.
Dustin: Yeah.
Andrew: So, unless there’s a real incentive, people tend not to do things. They want to do things but they don’t get to them.
Dustin: I think the incentive I gave them was that this is an awesome program that your friends are going to love. I think that was more their thing than any other bonuses or gifts I gave them, free classes was like an extra little bonus. But you’re right. You can bribe people to some degree, but it’s hard to bribe them. They have to believe in me, as the person, as the entrepreneur, as the business owner of the company, and also believe that it’s of their best interest to share it with their friends.
Andrew: All right. So, you built this up all very local. Your business now is nationwide, worldwide actually, all on-line. Tell me about the benefit of starting local. I tend to think of it as just a tough way to start and you’re saying, “No.” Is it tough?
Dustin: I think it’s the other way around. I haven’t done it the other way but I see a lot of on-line entrepreneurs, really struggling to get those first few sales because they don’t have a reputation built up. And we can talk about blogging and stuff and building that reputation but I feel like, and I’m a social person, so I think if someone is very unsocial, if they don’t like being around people, if they’re not good around people, this might not be a good strategy. But I feel like if I can get someone face-to-face, they’ll know, like, and trust me within a short amount of time, because my intentions are pure.
And so I find that if I can meet someone, I can really spread my message easier and more powerfully. And then create a person that will spread the message more than if they just randomly come across my website. You know, as they’re surfing the Net, and maybe stop by for a couple of minutes. And then from there, we’ll talk about the speaking and all the media by creating a really tight community.
This is what I’ve found was, I built that up over a three or four year period. And then when I went online, I had this really tight community that was still talking about me online but all these other people were like, “Man, I wish I lived in Madison to take your program in person” and that’s kind of what we created was like the sense of, “Wow! I wish I was there. What can I do to have a half or a tenth of what Dustin has in Madison? ” And that’s when I started coming up with my DVD programs and now support groups around the country that meet.
Andrew: So, you get to meet all these moms and you keep saying your building a community. How did you build a community for them? What kind of things would you do together?
Dustin: We would, like, go out to eat together dinner, picnics. I know it sounds weird for a guy to be saying. But just like big, you know . . . at the park and try to include . . . some nights were like women only or moms only, some were bring your whole family. I loved to do that. I loved meeting the husbands and significant others and just try. . . I feel like you learn a lot by meeting their spouse and I don’t want them to think, “Oh, they’re just going off to this class with some single guy and stuff.”
So I want to build that relationship with both of them. Plus, a lot of times the husbands are the ones paying for it too, if they’re a stay-at-home mom. So just, outings, you know, a lot of times . . .this is the cool part, a lot of the women then become friends and then they do things on their own so I don’t have to be involved. I don’t have to plan things. And those are the coolest stories, is when I hear. . .We just had five couples go out together who had never known each other but through my boot camps. To me, that gets me excited.
Andrew: Yeah. That is kind of cool. I know that it’s tough for couples to meet other couples and then for parents to meet other parents, especially when they’re new parents, it must be even tougher.
Dustin: Yeah. And having the love of fitness or at least the desire to be healthy, that’s such an important thing. Because they may have other friends in their lives but they don’t really get it. Because kind of we create a culture, I guess, I don’t like to call it a cult at all, we don’t have a cult but we have a really strong culture of hardworking, intense, you know, strong women and their friends who aren’t part of it, they don’t really get it. And so being around people that get it, like CrossFit, for example, they have created a great culture within their workouts. But that’s what I think. It’s creating a culture and a community that you’re customers really latch onto.
Andrew: All right. And what are some of the characteristics of your community, beyond the fact that they’re all moms and one thing you said was, “They all get fitness.” And so if they’re going to go out with other couples that they met through your program, they’re not going to go out to Burger King. They’re going to eat a little healthier and not feel guilty about it around their friends.
Dustin: That’s right. Yeah.
Andrew: What other characteristics?
Dustin: That’s a good question. They’re all hard working. I mean, my programs are. . .we weed out the weak so if they want to take, I’m not going to name any other names of workouts out there, but, you know, people are like, “Oh, I’ve done this and this” and I’m like, “OK, that’s great.” And then they’re like come to my class and hate it because it’s too hard. So we weed out the ones who aren’t . . . who are looking for a shortcut, we weed out those.
So they’re hard working. They realize there’s no quick fix, that they have to live the lifestyle and not just, you know, spend 20 minutes in the gym and eat whatever they want, for example. Positivity, we really focus on mindset, positive affirmations, positive self-image. Kind of my focus is putting yourself first is the least selfish thing you could do. That’s kind of my message, I try to put out there. And they’ve really latched onto that. I can’t be the best mom, the best friend, the best wife unless I’m fit, healthy, and feel sexy, basically, have confidence.
Andrew: All right. So you built up this local community, this local client base and you said that then you took it online. What was the next step? What did you do to take it online?
Dustin: So during the first three years, I’ve been. . . I’ve had my business for about five or six years now. I graduated college about five years ago but, two years into it, is when I transitioned to starting my own blog. It was recommended to me by a friend. And if you guys haven’t started a blog, don’t have a website that . . . if you just have a static website, those are so 1990’s or 2000’s. You’ve got to have a blog that has personality, that’s one big tip. Have personality; don’t be afraid to offend people. Have a strong viewpoint. One of my viewpoints is cardio makes you fat, marathons make you fat.
Andrew: Really?
Dustin: Yeah, that’s my belief. I mean, ‘you do a marathon, you’re going to get fat’, I’m not saying that necessarily, but a lot of my clients that have done marathons and halves and they get fatter. So, that’s. .
Andrew: Why, I’m sorry to distract from. . .
Dustin: Sure.
Andrew: . . . the core story here, but why is that? I used to go these Road Runner club races on Sunday in New York City and just look at these guys who have big bellies and if they’re out on a Sunday running and talking about the marathon that they did or they’re training for, they’re running consistently. Why are they still fat?
Dustin: [laughs] A couple of reasons: one is they’re probably not eating the greatest, I mean, that’s definitely the biggest part of it. And then also, I’ll try to say this as simple as simple as it gets, it’s more explained in the book, but when we go at lower intensity exercise, which running a long distance is lower intensity, you burn a higher percentage of fat during the workout, so you would think intuitively, ‘OK. If I’m burning more fat that’s a good thing, I should do more running.’ Well, what the problem is is that overall calories you’re not burning quite as much fat as doing short intense bursts of exercise or strength training, which changes your metabolism long-term.
Also, because your body is having to utilize more fat during your longer runs, for example, I think, we don’t know for sure, but this is my theory and a lot of people’s theory is that, your body is all about survival, it’s great at surviving, so, it knows that, ‘OK. I’ve got to store some more fat out, because I’ve got to do this long race or I’ve got to train an hour or two a day’. Compare that with intense sprints for example or weight training you burn almost all sugar during a workout, it’s a little bit of fat, but it’s not too much fat, percentage of fat, but you’re burning more calories overall.
Also, again, in my theory is that your body is like, ‘I don’t need to be burning this fat for two hours of my run, so I can burn fat during [??] of my day and keep my sugar intake, you know, just keep my carbs a little bit more.’ So, it changes the units of energy, that’s the theory. But the last five or ten years, I mean, every study of short interval burst training has been five to nine times more effective at burning fat. So, for any busy entrepreneur, sprint 30 seconds, rest and recover for about 90 seconds, sprint 30 seconds. Do that five to ten times and that’s a great cardiovascular workout.
Andrew: You know what, my theory has been is that guys who run a lot give themselves an excuse for eating a lot.
Dustin: Sure, yep.
Andrew: And I’m no different, I did this just the other day, I said, ‘I’m going to go for a long run on Sunday, maybe do eighteen miles.’ So, Friday night, Saturday night, I might as well just keep eating. . .
Dustin: Yeah.
Andrew: . . . because I’m going to burn it all off. . .
Dustin: Yeah.
Andrew: . . . and then instead of doing my eighteen miles, something came up, I did ten miles and, you know, that happens often. . .
Dustin: Right.
Andrew: . . . or maybe you don’t do any running at all. And I see the same thing in business, people who stay at work ’til, like, eight, nine p.m…
Dustin: Yeah.
Andrew: . . .they find more excuses during the day to say, ‘Hey, you know what, I should go and check out Reddit or I could read this other site over there or I should go shopping online because, Hey, I work all the time and so. . .
Dustin: Right.
Andrew: I could take this little opportunity here and there.
Dustin: Yeah, it’s definitely an easy way to justify it [??].
Andrew: All right. So, what’s interesting is, you’re saying that you wanted to stand for something and push some buttons, and here you illustrated how effective that is. I didn’t want to engage in a fitness conversation, but because you took such a sharp position that was. . .
Dustin: Right.
Andrew: . . . so controversial, in my mind I had to. . .
Dustin: . . . [??]
Andrew: . . . engage in it and I’m guessing that’s what happened on your blog.
Dustin: Yeah, exactly, now I [??] what I do is I attract people who hate cardio and [??] cardio. And I also attract the person who [??] but is not happy with the way their body looks.
Andrew: Who does what? I’m sorry, do you have anything running in the background, like, Dropbox or back-, or [??] or [??] or email?
Dustin: I don’t know, I can, let’s see here, I can get out of. . .
Andrew: There we go, something seems to have suddenly taken. . .
Dustin: . . . [??]
Andrew: . . . your, uh. . .
Dustin: Let’s try this here. Sorry about that. OK. We’ll try that, we’ll [??].
Andrew: What was it, out of curiosity?
Dustin: It was just all of my Internet [??] my Firefox [??].
Andrew: Oh, that’s a killer.
Dustin: So, is it better now?
Andrew: Yeah, it seems to be. So, you were saying you attract people who hate cardio and what other kind of people.
Dustin: But who do cardio, but don’t like the way their body looks, which is another pretty large subset. So, really the only ones that I really repel are the ones who love cardio and think it’s the best way to transform their body and they’re convinced of that and that’s fine, I can repel them away. But the rest of them I connect with those who just hate cardio and then they fall in love with the resistance training is basically what they do once they get exposed to my stuff and so, yeah, that’s been one strong stance.
Andrew: All right. So, let me ask you this, though, I understand how engaging it can be to take a strong stance, we just illustrated it with my reaction to your position, but I also know that it’s tough to get customers to a business and it’s even tougher I think, sometimes, to get people to read a blog. And here you are, because you’ve got both the business and the blog, going in two different directions, trying to win people over in two different places. How do you do it? Let’s focus on the blog, how do you get people to come to your blog when you’re just another blogger in a sea full of people…
Dustin: Sure.
Andrew:…who are blogging and some of them are professionals who do nothing but blog, and you’ve got to compete with them for the attention of people online. How do you do it?
Dustin: Yeah, well, again, I think it’s coming back to those relationships I’ve built, so when they meet [??] me in person, and I say, “Hey, I’ve got this great fat loss newsletter, would you be interested in… you know, thousands of people read this.” I’ve only been turned down a handful of times, I’ve done this, probably, 500,000 times. So I just get their name and email, I put them on my newsletter, my [??] newsletter list, and that’s how I send out my blogs, you know, just a little teaser email, pretty typical, send them to a blog. So I think, building those relationships, and then from there a lot of it’s still word-of-mouth. I mean, I get about close to 1000 visitors a day on my site, my blog, and I would say, you know, 3 or 4 hundred of those search just random words, I mean, I’ve been doing 450 or 500 blog posts out there, so a little bit of SDL, I don’t really focus on SDL much at all, but I have a lot of links out there. And, just having something interesting to say, and again, meeting them in person, I don’t know the percentage of people who read my blog who weren’t referred by a friend. And so it’d be an interesting question to see people who come back on a regular basis, who’ve heard about me, just through randomly finding me online.
Andrew: All right, well you said something interesting there, you didn’t just start a blog, but you also started an email list. And you didn’t, when you met someone, say, “Hey, you should check out my blog.”, or, “You should join my email list.”, even, which is a little bit bigger. You said, “Can I add you to my email list?” and you took their name and email address, and you added them to the list. And that’s a tighter, longer term relationship, so that you don’t have to count on them coming to your blog one day, and remembering it the next day or the next week.
Dustin: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, email marketing is a huge part of my business style. You know, I don’t have a massive…I mean, it depends, it’s all relative, I know the big internet guys will get friends with [??] 500,000 online customers, but I have, like, 7000 on my newsletter list, I get about 25 to 28% open rate, so I figure, 2 to 2 1/2 thousand, you know, read just what I read. I at least open up the emails I send out. So it’s not that big, but, it’s still pretty cool, I have a couple thousand people reading anything you write. I don’t know, to me that’s pretty powerful.
Andrew: And so what you’re saying is that…actually, was your email list nothing but your blog posts?
Dustin: Oh, what do you mean?
Andrew: What I would do I is, I would send out a link to my blog post or I would write a whole other kind of article for email instead of…in addition to what’s on the site and, seems like what you’re saying is, “Andrew, I blogged and I sent those blog posts out to people who subscribed to my email list. I didn’t create a whole other kind of project…”
Dustin: So what I would do, is, I would put, you know, I would do blog posts, do articles, do videos on my blog, and then I would just send just a little teaser email to them saying, “Hey”. What I try to do, here’s another thing that I think is really good, building those relationships, in my newsletter, like, the first paragraph, say, “Hey, I hope you’re doing awesome, Happy Friday!” or whatever it is, and then I usually, one or two sentences of something about my life, something that I’m doing, I’m traveling a lot, maybe I’m interviewing this person, I started my own radio show, I just put little things in that kind of help build up my, what’s the word, curiosity or, like my celebrity status, maybe that’s the right word. People want to follow people that they’re interested in. My interest factor, I guess.
Andrew: How do you build up, you know what, I’ve seen a lot of people online who have this celebrity status within their world. How do you do it by putting little bits of information about yourself at the top of the emails you send out? What do you do? You say something like, “I understand I’m going to be on T.V. next Tuesday, you guys might want to check this out.” Yeah, that adds a little bit of credibility, but it also…
Dustin: Sure.
Andrew:…makes people feel, “Oh, this guy’s just bragging.” But you’re adding other things. What kind of…
Dustin: Yeah, like, for example, let’s say, like, you know, “Hey guys, I’m out here in California right now at a fitness conference,” maybe, “I met Jillian Michaels…”, or something like that. Just throwing out, little, like, celebrities or “I’m speaking at this event, and I look forward to…” Here’s a thing to make it [??], “I look forward to posting some of what I talked about.”, or posting that interview, or “I’m going to get a video with this person,” so kind of like showing what I’m doing, but also how does it benefit them.
Andrew: I see.
Dustin: Yeah, so, like, “I met this amazing quadriplegic and I can’t wait to share his story with you,” maybe, “next week.” So I try to tie both in, or I’ll, you know, be like, “Hey, I’ll be on, next week, on NBC, tune in if you can, otherwise I’ll get a video out to you guys next week about it.”
Andrew: Interesting. All right, so for example, let’s pick someone out of my audience.
Dustin: Sure.
Andrew: If they were running web-based software, a web app, they might e-mail out a link to a blog post, but at the top of the e-mail they might say, “Hey, I’m at my in-laws this weekend, just enjoying whatever, the Florida sun. I’m also going to be sketching out some new designs for that page that you guys had trouble with. I think I can make it much more user friendly, but we’ll see it next week. Here’s a link to the blog post, whatever. That kind of feel is what you’re going for.
Dustin: That’s good because what it is is developing a personal story and a personal relationship. Some of my most well received videos and blog posts I’ve done, I did one last winter when I went home to Minnesota and showed my girlfriend a trailer house
. And I introduced my whole family and my grandmother who was 97 at the time, and I just kind of said, “Hey, this is who I am” and just really open. I still get e-mails from people saying, I loved that video from you.
It doesn’t always have to be content based on your product, and I think that’s a big thing that I got in a rut. For a couple of years I just would put out information; the five best toning exercises, the five best fat burning foods. I still do that occasionally, but now it’s more content, personality driven. I don’t know, the percentage is probably like 75-80% content-based, then 20-30% personality based.
Andrew: OK.
Dustin: Here’s another thing. You asked about how to become a celebrity kind of status. I think it’s letting your customers speak for you. That’s one thing I’ve done. On my website there’s a tab for transformations on the right-hand side, and I’ve got like 45 amazing before and afters and stories. And I have guest bloggers. Usually, it’s my clients who blog.
And then, I’ll send my teaser e-mail out saying, “Hey, here is a story of how Susie lost 50 pounds” and I let my successes, I let my clients tell my successes for me and sell my program, and it’s more relatable that way, too. So, really you can never have enough – I don’t want to call them testimonials just because a blatant one sentence quote, I don’t think, is that powerful. Some may argue, but I think telling a story with it and really understanding that person as a whole and not just as a one line blurb is way more powerful.
Andrew: All right. So, chat at the top that lets people get to know you and makes them feel like you’re a celebrity or just makes them feel like you’re approachable, then some kind of teaser content that links over to the blog post where the meat is. The blog post often is a testimonial, but a testimonial can feel like an ad. It feels like you just sent me an e-mal that links me to an ad, and I don’t want to click over from my e-mail to read ads. How do you not make it feel like an ad so that you keep people engaged?
Dustin: Yeah. A lot of times I don’t necessarily sell anything on my blog posts. If a woman’s done boot camps and she mentions boot camps, Dustin’s Boot Camps, I’ll hyperlink that boot camp website, for example or I’ve been doing Dustin’s core DVDs for the last year. I’ll hyperlink that or maybe put an image in there, but that’s about it.
Maybe, sometimes at the bottom of the e-mail or bottom of the blog post, I might say, “Hey, if you’re wanting more information about how she did this, this is the program she did” or “This is a similar program”, but I don’t really pitch that much on it. On the sides of my columns of my blog I have my products that they can click on at any point if they want to.
I’ve even really backed away more because there are kind of some gurus that I really looked up to. What happened is they started getting – I don’t want to say got cocky, but they started pitching every single time, and I got sick of it. I didn’t even open up their e-mails anymore, and all my friends who also looked up to these guys got sick of it. And I’ve heard their businesses have really struggled because of it.
I really like Tim Ferriss. I went to his Opening the Kimono event, and I have a lot of respect for what Tim has done. He doesn’t really sell at all, obviously, on his blog, and he told me, he was like, “I really focus my blog, I’m just building good will, karma, whatever you want to call it, good quality information. I was like, that’s great.
So, last year I pitched way less than I ever have. And so, I’ve really focused on using my blog as just my community, my friends, my family that I can ask them, “Could you take this survey for me? I’m thinking about doing this” or “I need a name for a product” or something. I’ll get hundreds of responses, and that’s pretty cool even more than the monetary aspects of it.
Andrew: OK. So, you go to the University of Wisconsin, graduate, create MamaTone Fitness, those in-person classes. You then create FitFun boot camps.
Dustin: Yeah.
Andrew: What’s the difference between MamaTone and FitFun?
Dustin: Really, there is no difference in the workouts themselves. The difference is it’s early mornings generally or in the evenings. So, I cater towards a working mom, a full-time working mom, and I wanted to also make them co-ed. So, it’s co-ed but it’s about 80%, 85% women. We just don’t get that many guys coming, part of it because our message is all female orientated.
Also, I just think that guys don’t really like to take classes for the most part. They’re more macho, do it on their own. So, it’s a combination of both, but I think an important lesson is every step I’ve taken my business I’m listening to my customers’ needs. I was getting flooded with e-mails and calls, saying I heard about this great MamaTone program, but I work full-time. I can’t take off at 9:00 in the morning. Do you have anything for me?
Like, OK, well, I’ll do 5:30 in the morning classes before you go to work. And so, that’s how that happened. I started off with one location. We did it at a park, finding something unique. That was unique. There was no one doing boot camps in parks in Madison at the time, and that was basically my unique selling proposition. I was starting to get on TV by that time, getting a name for myself, and then that grew within two or three years to 10 to 11 locations, depending on the time of year.
Andrew: When I lived in Santa Monica, I used to see trainers train in the park or in stadiums. I used to think, boy, that’s so clever of them. They don’t have to wait to get their own gyms. They could just build their community. It doesn’t matter if only two people show up when they get started because they have no expenses. They would often do it on the beach which was kind of inspiring and, maybe bring in new customers because I think they used to have those big signs outside of where they were training.
Dustin: Yeah. I think they’ve cracked down a little bit on all that.
Andrew: Oh, have they?
Dustin: It’s getting over populated, especially in California.
Andrew: You were up at 5:00 today? At 5:00 a.m. you were training people?
Dustin: I get up every day at 4:40.
Andrew: 4:40?
Dustin: Yep.
Andrew: Wow. The DVDs then came, right?
Dustin: Yeah. So, again, based on customer feedback. Clients of mine were telling people, friends, family, around the country and obviously I couldn’t train them, or they couldn’t either afford my boot camps or just the times didn’t work with those in Madison. They’re like, can you write me out a program? Well, the last thing I want to do is spend more time on the computer writing out individual programs.
So, I asked myself, OK, I want to basically go in their home and train them. What would a DVD look like, a follow along DVD? What I created was workouts that I would train my clients in. My DVDs are structured where I would have a mom that I’m training in the DVD, and she goes through the full workout and all that kind of stuff. So, I’m not doing the workout; she’s doing the workout. And, of course, it’s a mom who’s gotten great results over the past few years with me. Usually, I have a huge weight loss story but also is incredibly strong, so they might be using 30 or 40 pound dumbbells.
Andrew: Is it just her, or are you on the screen as much as she is?
Dustin: Yeah. We’re both on the screen.
Andrew: OK. The first one that you did though, how much money did it cost you? What was the production quality?
Dustin: I’ve become kind of an expert at creating low cost DVDs, bootstrapping it. My DVDs basically all cost me $500 each. It’s about an hour and 20 minute DVD. We have a cooking segment, an interview segment, an hour long workout that’s broken up into a lot of chunks. I found a friend/videographer who does weddings and was looking for some extra business. I found a client’s home that was really nice, and they let me use it to videotape and film, and we filmed four DVDs per day.
So, I have 28 DVDs out. I filmed the first 14 DVDs in, I think, four days. And then, a year later I filmed the rest of them in a three or four day period. So, I only filmed eight days of my life for those DVDs.
Andrew: What about when you’re doing video? I remember even for my wedding we had two photographers, one capturing this side, one from the other.
Dustin: Yeah.
Andrew: And for video, it’s even more important so you can cut and keep it interesting. What do you do for that?
Dustin: Yeah. That’s a great point. The first 12 DVDs was just a one camera shot. It was straight up and it worked. I mean, it was fine. The second 12 or 14, I had a new film crew come in and negotiate because I was doing 14 DVDs. I always negotiate. Anything is negotiable. They had two cameras with two angles, so two videographers and that was about $1,000 a DVD, and they were definitely giving me a good deal for that.
But you know what? I’ve sold, probably pretty similarly equal to the new DVDs and the old DVDs. I’ve not heard one person say, “Those first 12 really sucked because you only had one camera” and there was just one shot, basically. I don’t know, maybe it is because my clients love me and are not going to give me that feedback, but I have sold well over ten thousand DVD’s, and I have had one return ever, so I am pretty proud of that, only one time.
Andrew: Did you feel bad about it? I know that as a creative person, you have this vision.
Dustin: Yeah.
Andrew: So as a creative person, you have this vision of how beautiful your product can be, about how great the world will be if what was in your head was out there, and the first product can never live up to this greatness that you have in your head. To this need you have to change the world, as you mentioned in the top of the interview, did you feel that discrepancy between what you wanted and what you got?
Dustin: I think, we can always be critical on ourselves, I look back and its painful to watch those first couple of videos because I am not very comfortable on camera, it is like I say the same words over and over again, but you know, I think the biggest thing, the biggest lesson, people get wrapped up on trying to be perfect, I am sure you guys talk about this a lot and you just got to get it out there.
So yes there were things that I wasn’t particularly happy with, but I am like, this is a DVD and this is going to be able to help people and I don’t care if it is not perfect and I went into it knowing that I was like, this is low budget, I am not going to be editing much, I am going straight through, so if I mess up a couple of words here and there, we are not going to stop and re-take and I also wanted to make it genuine and I looked at other DVD’s out there and, you know, they got the women who are all, the fake boobs and they are all models and they got their spray sweat going on, you know they have edited tremendously, so they are probably doing ten seconds of exercise then resting for a while and I wanted a straight shot like, this is a mom who is going through a brutal hour long workout and we had a few almost throw up on camera, and we kept that on, just to show the realness of it.
And so, that is one of my unique selling propositions with my DVDs. I am like, hey, this is not fancy Hollywood type, this is real moms doing real workouts, getting real results and if you want your Jillian Michaels DVDs, you can buy them at Wal-Mart for six dollars right now, but you won’t be able to contact her, and I know, people will want to buy from people that they can trust and I think, that is what I felt.
Andrew: I find that a lot, that if you don’t have high production value, go for high genuineness.
Dustin: Yeah. Absolutely.
Andrew: Right? And I found that even here. I can’t do all the screen shots that people would want and all the cut always, but what I can do is really want to, and really go after useful information for the audience. And I see the same thing even with software programs, they might say, I don’t have all the features of a Microsoft product, but I do have this real concern with this one problem that you have, and that almost works as an asset. All right. Public speaking. When did you start it, how do you use public speaking to build up your business?
Dustin: I started out small. It still is pretty small. I don’t make that much direct money of it, I want to become a key note speaker and speak nationally at five to ten thousand seat auditoriums. That is my goal coming up, but I just started off with mom’s groups, like little groups of ten or fifteen women, who get together, maybe church groups, and I say, hey I am a fitness guy in town, I have got this class called MamaTone. I would love to come and speak to your group on how to be in shape and be a mom. Hardly ever get turned down on that and then at the end, what I do is, I get every single e-mail address, every single name, and back then I did not have any product to sell, I just had my classes, so it was more like, hey I have got a great news letter, tons of free fitness information, would you be interested?
Yeah, and that is how I built my list up and then from there, once you are in business for a while, again locally, Madison is about two hundred and fifty thousand people, I think within Madison and surrounding, everything is about half a million. So it is not big, not small, and word gets around after a while, and so maybe I will be speaking at a group and three or four other women already know me because their friends take my programs or something, so I already got that built in level of trust and expertness, I guess. And I just started out small, doing [??], just local events, I have just local stuff at this point.
Andrew: First of all, I got to tell you, this is a really inspiring interview, there is more of it coming up, I am not cutting it here, but I have to stop here and say, dude, this is inspiring, and I like how you break down what you have done in such a easy to understand way, and useful way. I got someone to criticize me yesterday for not being tactical enough in my interviews and that is the way to really hurt me, you can say my hair looks bad, and frankly I need a hair cut, you can say there is nothing going on in the background, books are kind of an old fashioned thing to have in the background, I might as well have a typewriter over my other shoulder…
Speaker: I would like to see what books you got there.
Interviewer: These are from my past guests, people I interviewed like, Seth Godin from Linchpin. The founder of Threadless, Jake, sent me his book in preparation for his interview and so on. I figured I’d leave them there stacked up.
Dustin: Yeah.
Andrew: Tactics, I love and you’re especially helpful that way. Let me ask you this. Local events, I’ve heard several interviewees say that speaking at local events helped them, that having one-on-one conversations and interviews have helped them. To me, to my mind, it wants to go big. It wants to get thousands of customers and millions of people and so on.
Talking to a few dozen mommies seems like a let down, or not enough to build a business, but you’re telling me it is. Why?
Dustin: That’s a great point. I’m at that point where I’m struggling with this, too, because I’ve had some good success and now I’m ready to take this huge. I think we’re going to talk about our mission a little later. And so, it’s like, wow, is it still worth my time to talk to 15 moms here and there?
From a business standpoint, I think it still is, but this is kind of starting out, my journey. I think it’s crucial, especially those first few years when you’re bootstrapping it. It makes it easier to build up, but also you get to know your clients more. If you don’t know your clients intimately, I can speak women’s language, mom language very well, I must say. And I write that way, and it’s because I’ve spent thousands and thousands and thousands of hours speaking and listening to them.
I think that’s a huge key. If you can’t speak the language, like I would not train power lifters, for example, because I’ve never been one. I know some power lifters, but I just can’t speak their language very well, and I can’t relate to them. And so, if you’re going to try to go after a business or a niche that you can’t relate to yourself . . . And me as a single guy, it could be a hard thing to relate to, but I’m able to do it because I’m able to speak their language to empathize with them.
I’ll videotape me spending 30 hours taking care of four kids just so I can like . . . just those types of things. I’ll showcase, “Hey, I’m going to be a mom for a day. I’m going to try and take care of these four kids, babysit them” and things like that. They love it, too.
Andrew: OK. This is helpful to know. First of all, when you’re starting out, every customer counts. You want them, and when you meet people one-on-one, you’re much more likely to close the sale than if they just hit your website. You’re also going beyond just meeting them. You’re adding them to a list so you can build that relationship with them.
And the last thing that I’m learning is yeah, you’re right. When you’re in that community, even if you’re having just a conversation with one person for an hour, if they’re in your target audience, you’re learning about them. You’re learning what she wants in a way that, maybe she couldn’t express online. You’re learning how she lives her life in a way that you wouldn’t necessarily notice if you saw big demographic data on her. That’s really helpful to know.
Dustin: Yeah. You never know. Right now, I’m promoting my book big time, and Jack Canfield gave me some great advice. He says, “It took me 18 months almost to get the book to the New York Times. He says, “Every day I was doing interview after interview after interview”, a radio interview, whatever. He was like, “I would not turn down an interview because you never know who is going to be listening.”
So, you never know who that conversation is going to lead to you. She may be the head of Mary Kay, for example, or maybe not, but I have clients that . . . one woman found me on Craigslist about places because I had posted some things about my classes there. She’s referred me to, I bet you, 30 people and probably brought in, I don’t know, a $100,000, $200,000, probably $100,000, $50-100,000 over the last few years to my business. So, you never know what that one conversation will lead to.
Andrew: Here’s the other thing that I’m noticing is that if you talk, whether it’s to large groups or small groups over and over again, you get better at explaining your ideas. You get better at speaking to people. I’ve noticed several times here in this interview that you’re just a really good speaker.
Entrepreneurs often are not great speakers. They’re great at what they do, but it’s a challenge for me sometimes with some of these guys in the audience, they can feel it, to just pull out the words from them. Frankly, I had this issue because I did all of these interviews, too.
Dustin: Yeah.
Andrew: I can see how that helps. Speaking also helps build up your confidence.
Dustin: Yeah. I consider myself pretty highly confident now in myself, but I had low self-esteem in high school. I had some friends, but I was not the most popular jock-type guy. Into college I started to develop my skills, and yeah, I was terrified to speak. I looked at my skill sets, where I wanted to go, and I think you’ve got to look at what are the most important skill sets to have as a business person, as an entrepreneur. I looked at those, and which ones do you need to work on?
So, I think public speaking is key. I think writing, persuasive writing, copy writing is key. Understanding your demographics and selling it in person. I think some of those are the biggest ones up there. There’s still some other ones, but then it’s like, how can you improve those skills? I took speech classes in college, which basically just forced me to stand in front of my peers and talk. I haven’t done Toastmasters, but a lot of people have done Toastmasters and really enjoy it. But start off small, who cares if you screw up. It’s not a big deal and you’ll learn from it. Watch yourself on video, that’s another big thing. Videotape yourself.
I’ll watch this interview once you post it so that I can see things that I need to do better on my own radio show I now have. I listen to it afterward. Every one of my TV shows that I do I watch after and try to make some small, minor adjustments each time.
Andrew: I could never do that.
Dustin: Just do it. It’s so easy to stay comfortable behind the computer, especially for entrepreneurs who are online a lot. You’ve just got to get your butt off the computer and get it in front of people, that’s my advice with that.
Andrew: I get too self-conscious if I start listening to myself, but I do want to learn from the interviews, so what I do is I have, can you really even see it on the screen?
Dustin: Yeah, you can put it up.
Andrew: I don’t even have anything that enlightening today on my notes, but this little bottom section here for improvement for next time.
Dustin: OK.
Andrew: So if there’s a challenge that I had in this interview, like maybe I couldn’t ask you a question properly or I couldn’t get you to give me a specific kind of answer, I want to spend a minute after the interview and think about how could I have asked it better? How could I have done a better job with that? All I have now on my list, which is why I was a little embarrassed to hold it up, is I need a separate mute button because I’m going to be switching to a new layout and I need a way to access that, and I need to buy pencils because now that I switched to a pen it’s smudging a little.
Dustin: That’s a good tip. I’ll use that.
Andrew: Why didn’t I get the founder of Dropbox to tell me what makes Dropbox better than iCloud? I thought, I probably didn’t ask that question right. I wanted to take a little time afterward to think about it, so that’s what that section is about.
Dustin: That’s great.
Andrew: Media. So we talked about talking one-on-one with customers, now let’s talk about going broader. When I went to your website, one of the things that really impressed me was there’s this little video clip of just you on what seemed like a billion different TV shows. All they would do is do the intros, like you on the news going, and now Dustin Maher is going to teach us how to, and now Dustin Maher, Dustin Maher, Dustin Maher, all these reports and I wanted to find out. Forget about all of them. Take me to the first one. How did you get the first one and then we’ll learn about the rest?
Dustin: I remember that one well.
Andrew: You do?
Dustin: It was about five years ago, four years ago. I just started Mamatone Fitness and I really had no idea how to get on the media, but I knew that a press release was something that a lot of people are doing. I think I just Googled how to write a good press release or something and it said, create a good headline, write a little bit about what it is, why it’s important, who needs it, put a quote in there somewhere and send it off.
What I did was I collected all the different media in Madison, I just started local. It took me about an hour to create a list of about 35 contacts. If you want to TV you want to look at producers, you want to look at news anchors, those are your main ones that you really want to focus on. Morning show producers are going to have more flexibility generally, more time that they can have and then I did editors at magazines and newspapers.
I haven’t really done much local radio, but I’ve done a lot more national radio shows. What I did was, I focused on the moms that were producers and the mom on air ladies. I sent it out to about 20 different people and said, hey this is MamaTone, a new program in Madison just focusing on moms and it got picked up by this one woman, Sarah Carlson, she was on NBC. She was the top news anchor. She had had her second child 9 months before and was not able to get rid of her baby weight. She was very frustrated and of course very self-conscious being on the news.
She’s like, I love this, this is something unique, I want you on TV. I was like, really? She’s like, yeah come in the studio tomorrow. So I brought one of my clients with me, which is something I really recommend you do. I just about always bring a guest on the show with me. Whatever the topic is, I’ll have them demonstrate an exercise or I’ll have them help me make oatmeal or whatever it is because then we can show the before and after usually, or I think for the first one I showed her pants. She put her pants on and she pulled them out and they were a foot too big and that was my first one.
The key here is to try to be good the first time, which is hard to do a lot of times, because on TV, locally you can get away with it a little bit, but if you’re doing a national TV show you only got one chance. That’s why I recommend starting off small with a local show because if you screw up, if you’re awful on camera they’re going to look at that video because most of the time they want to see that you’ve done other TV and you’re like, “Oh, he’s awkward on camera” or whatever, and they’re not going to have you back.
So try to really put a good first impression on TV. They must have liked me enough. I followed up with a “Thank you.” I said, “Hey, I’ve got these other show ideas.” And here’s kind of going into how to become a regular, how to just pitch it for the first time. You have to come up with something unique, timely, tying into a celebrity is always great. They never can get enough celebrity stuff. And those are the big three things: something unique, something timely. You know, it’s New Year’s resolutions now, of course, but, tying into Valentine’s Day, for example, just different holidays, different things that are in the news.
Andrew: Let’s take a look at that and see how that plays out. Let’s suppose that you’re looking at Valentine’s Day 2012.
Dustin: Yes.
Andrew: That makes it timely if you connect it to Valentine’s and you make it timely. How do you come up with something unique? There have been billions of hours of television already produced and you have to come up with something that stands out. How do you do that?
Dustin: So, I don’t think I’ve done a Valentine’s one but here’s what I would do. Partner stretches that you could do with your loved one, something like that. Five partner stretches you can do at home tonight, keeping it PG, with your significant other.
Andrew: So you would bring on your client and your client’s husband?
Dustin: Potentially, yeah, something like that or if I just wanted to bring on my client I could do it with her.
Andrew: I see.
Dustin: It wouldn’t be very sexual. Or just like five active dates you can do tonight for Valentine’s Day.
Andrew: Active dates. Oh, I see, interesting. And then if you wanted to tie in a celebrity, what would you do there?
Dustin: So a celebrity, I don’t know about Valentine’s, necessarily but, an easy one for me in fitness is if a woman has just given birth and gone really quickly back into shape. So how Heidi Klum was able to lose her baby weight and get in a bikini one month after having a baby.
Andrew: I see.
Dustin: And I don’t necessarily have to have trained Heidi Klum, I can just give what I think is the best. One of mine that I’m going to be using really soon, if I can stay up here in the fitness industry, is something like what do Kelly Ripa, Michelle Obama and J.Lo all have in common? They got body parts that women would die for. So then, on the show I would show . . . And then you got to talk about what your segment’s going to be. And on TV it’s visual, so you’ve got to explain what the show’s going to look like. You know, I’m going to demonstrate three exercises you can do to lift your butt and make it look like J.Lo’s, or three exercises that are going to tone your arms and make them look like Kelly Ripa’s, something like that. So tying it in, yeah.
Andrew: I could see how that would work. All right. One more and then I’ll do a quick plug. Mission: I went to your website and I saw a list of the things that you wanted to do and that you did do. Things like, you wanted to go to Trinidad in Tobago. Did I get that right?
Dustin: Yeah. Trinidad, Tobago. Yeah.
Andrew: You wanted to meet Jack Canfield, which you crossed off. You wanted to meet Tony Robbins, you have not crossed that off. You wanted to become a self-made millionaire; you have not crossed that off. Why share all your . . . In fact, why put this list together in the first place and then share it with the world?
Dustin: I just started that about six months ago and, you know, I read a lot about bucket list and I’ve seen on MTV some sort of bucket list show. And so, yes, it could be a private thing and I was like, “OK”. I did it for two reasons: one, I wanted to inspire other people to create a bucket list. I think its . . . If I die and I didn’t accomplish all them, I don’t want to say, like, “My life would be miserable”. So it’s not like that. It’s like these are cool things that I would like to do and it’s just fun to say, “Wow! I’ve done all this.” Because as entrepreneurs, I think a lot of us are Type A personalities. We set a high goal. We reach it. We set a new goal without appreciating.
For example, it’s kind of off topic, but I bought myself one of my dream cars, BMW Z4. You know, I easily afford it, not a big deal, but I did that to anchor, to show myself I came from a trailer park, you know, and to this, and it’s just every time I sit in it, it’s a reminder for me. So that’s kind of what my bucket list is. And when I cross things off, it’s a reminder,” Wow! I went to the Olympics this year, that’s pretty cool. I did this, I did this or I met this person.”
Andrew: One of the items on the list is, “I want to help a million mothers get into shape.”
Dustin: Yep.
Andrew: That’s what you mean by mission. You told me before the interview started that you believe in having a clear mission and saying it to the world.
Dustin: Yeah. Absolutely. I think that when you put stuff out there, people like people who are out there going for things, who are exceptional people and people want to gravitate towards that. So just like I put the bucket list together, I have people now email me “Hey, I saw you want to go to New Zealand. I’ve got a place in New Zealand, come for free.” I mean, I’m getting offers for anything, it’s amazing.
And with the mission, it’s like this person might say, “Like, I’ve got a company with 10,000 female customers. I would love to figure out a way to help you reach your mission and you add value to our company, so putting it out there. And then also, for you moms out there, to talk about who this Dustin guy is. Instead of just saying, “Oh, he’s just a trainer, he’s my trainer, This Dustin is America’s trainer to the moms, and his mission is to help change the lives of one million moms, and I’m really excited to be a part of that”.
Andrew: All right. I am inspired by that, too. It’s funny how many of those items I remember. I don’t have the best memory which is why I always write things down and take notes.
Dustin: Yeah. That was pretty good.
Andrew: Let me do a quick plug, and then I want to ask you one final question as a follow-up to something I said earlier in the interview. I’m looking down at my notes to make sure that I get it right.
So, here’s the plug. First of all, I want to read an e-mail from a Mixergy Premium customer. She said . . . This is from Kathy Borkoski who took Mixergy’s copyrighting course, and she said, “Andrew, I have been struggling writing copy for my website. I know what I want to say, but I haven’t been able to put a structure that works for customers. I used to think that people who could write copy well were mythical and God-like, but now I realized that they’re normal, passionate writers with a better structuring method. Thanks” says Kathy.
She learned that structure by going to Mixergy.com/premium and taking the copyrighting course. The reason I’m reading her e-mail specifically is because I think she’s showing exactly what our mission is with these courses, to take someone who does something really well, like an entrepreneur who can write great copy, and put a structure around the system that he uses and then teach that structure to other entrepreneurs who want to follow along.
Dustin: Yeah.
Andrew: If you’re struggling to create copy, we’ve got a structure there for you to take. You have to kind of follow it and I’m sure a lot of entrepreneurs will deviate from it in their own ways and make it their own, but first we’ll give you an outline of what to do.
And the same is true if you want to build an e-mail list, if you want to get in front of the media, all of those things are taught by real people who have done it, not just people who are teaching other people how to do it but they’ve done it. One of the first things I ask in the courses is that the person who’s teaching show on the screen how he did it or how she did it and show specific results that they achieved. And then, we go and show how they did it and how others can to.
So, if you’re a Premium member, take that course or any one of the dozens of other courses that are available to you at Mixergy.com/premium. You don’t have to pay for any more. Then, they’re all yours. If you’re not, I hope you join us by going to the same place: Mixergy.com/premium and take one of these courses.
Frankly, whether you learn from us or somewhere else, I want you to see what Kathy saw, which is that all of these things that you think are available to only God-like, mythical people are available to you. You can go to Amazon and get a book on this stuff. You can go take a course offline. You can sit down with someone who has done it really well, but you can learn it. You don’t have to look out at the rest of the world and say, “Boy, I wish I had that where those people were phenomenal at having that”.
You can get it, and I want you to get it because that’s the point of this life, not to sit around and watch other people do it; watch them on stage while you’re sitting in the audience but really get up there and do it yourself. That’s the whole idea behind my vision for Mixergy Premium to teach these things in a simple to follow way.
All right. So, here’s a note that I have here that some people might have seen on my sheet that I want to bring up, behaviors. I can’t believe that you get up before 5:00. I admire how you did it. That’s a behavioral change that a lot of us feel we can’t make, and they are lots of other behavioral changes that we can’t make because we don’t know how to do it. Teach us. How do we change our behaviors the way that you’ve done? How do we master them the way that you have?
Dustin: Sure. I think having the big “why” that’s what I teach my clients if it’s wanting to lose weight. Why do you want to make that behavior change? Why is it important to you? If it’s just getting up at 4:30 in the morning, if that’s just because, oh, some guy says you’re going to be more productive. That’s probably not a good enough reason to get you up in the morning, but because I feel like between 4:30 and 6:00 in the morning I’m going to be able to get more done and help more people, inspire more lives in the next two hours than I could for the next six hours between noon and 6:00 p.m., that might get you a little more excited to want to do it.
And then, Tony Robbins talks about it a lot. You’ve got to create enough pain in your current situation, so we’ll use sleeping as an example since you brought that up. Why is going to bed at 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m. and getting up at noon, how is that creating a lot of pain in your life right now? We’re not changing because we look at the pain of changing greater than our current state of pain, right?
Use a smoker as an example. People don’t stop smoking until they get lung cancer, and then generally they stop smoking because the pain of not stopping smoking, that is worse than the pain of their beliefs of changing that habit of smoking.
For the sleep example, my recommendation – I’ve helped a lot of people switch their sleep patterns. If you are a night owl, generally, they really are a night owl. And that’s the whole program, we pick out the best for you. But, if you look at the most successful people, you’d agree that autobiographies through the ages a common theme for most is that they are early to rise. And I get to bed around 9:30 every night, for the most part.
So, there are certainly things in the evening that I did sacrifice, that I can’t do, that at 8:00 I’m starting to wind down, starting to yawn, get tired. But what I would say, if you go to bed at 1:00 am right now and get up at 9:00. Start by cutting it back by 20 or 30 minutes a week. So go to bed at midnight or 12:30. And consistency is key, if you are all over the board, if you go to bed at 10:00 pm one night and then stay up to 2:00 a.m. the next night and then go back to 10:00 p.m. It’s going to be a nightmare trying to switch. So you want to be consistently dialing it back to the point you want to go.
I really recommend, at least, seven hours of sleep. And there are certainly some people who can get away with less. There’s been so much research on sleeping, as research gets more specific, we’re going to see more important emphasis on sleep and quality of sleep. And I know for myself, if I get less than seven hours, if I get six hours or less, within a couple days of that, I’m crabbier, I have a worse outlook on life, I don’t have as much energy, I can’t focus as much. So I recommend getting seven hours to eight hours of sleep.
Andrew: So here’s what I got. If you want to change your behavior you have to get really clear on the why, why are you doing this, not just because you should be doing it, not that you heard Dustin do it. Why are you doing it, be very clear on it. Second, you want to get in touch with the pain of not doing it. What sucks about your life. Don’t try to brush it away, don’t like every thing is cheery and happy. Be really clear about why life without this change stinks, or what about life without this change stinks.
Next thing you said was, try to step into it. So don’t try to make this change overnight and wonder why you couldn’t do it. Step into it a little at a time. We talked about how maybe you go to sleep one day at 1:00 am and the next day at midnight then eleven, et cetera. And you also, finally, said be consistent about it, don’t expect to do this for three days and then not for five days and then come back again. You know, back and forth. You want to be really consistent about this new behavior. If you do those four things you’ll have a much better chance of creating a new behavior. Then if you just wished it happened. In fact you’ll have an infinitely better chance then just wishing.
Dustin: That was a very good recap of that.
Andrew: Thank you. So, Dustin, first of all, let me say that the book is ‘Fit Moms for Life’. We’ve got a copy of it, let’s bring it up here. Great book to buy if you are a mom, if you’ve got a mom. Actually would anyone listening to us have a mom who is a new mom all over again? Who knows?
Dustin: Here’s the thing, it’s not for new moms either, it can be, but it’s for moms of any age. I would say, up until 55 years old. It really is targeting them, so it’s for any moms.
Andrew: Now, I also want my audience to check out your website and see everything we’ve talked about in action. What’s the website?
Dustin: DustinMaherFitness. D-u-s-t-i-n-m-a-h-e-r fitness dot com. If you want to sign up for a news letter on the right hand side there, you can see how I market. Just giving a lot of great content. Three to four times a week, just trying to show personality and ‘Fit Moms for Life’. That’s f-o-r, fitmomsforlife.com. Right now that’s kind of my book page. It’s not really a squeeze page, it’s where my communities are going to be built from. But right now it’s just selling the book and promoting that. So if you want to see a decently done book trailer. I invested a lot of money in a book trailer that I’m not sure is paying off or now. But…
Andrew: How much did you invest in the book trailer?
Dustin: It was 4,000.
Andrew: $4,000, all right, go to fitmomsforlife.com and see what a $4,000 trailer looks like.
Dustin: That’s probably more like 8-10,000, or should have been.
Andrew: And check out Dustin Maher fitness. And as always, don’t just be listening to this stuff, don’t just enjoy this for entertainment. I’m not putting on a show, I’m not a showman, because look at me,, a showman would have a much better look then me, look at this. What I am here is about getting results into the game of life, on to the stadium.
And I think we’ve got a really lot of tactical, useful tactics here in this interview. If you could just take one and implement them in your life I promise that you are going to see results. And I hope you do that. And I also hope that if you got anything out of this that you find a way to contact Dustin and say ‘hey Dustin, watched you’. You don’t even have to remember what the name of the program is. You can call it mix energy, which a lot of people use as a name for Mixergy. I don’t give a rat’s ass for that.
But if you got something out of this or any other program, that you contact the person you learned from and say ‘Hey thanks’. I think you’ll get a lot out of that and that’s why I keep recommending it. So I’m going to say the same thing to Dustin and you who’s watching us right now. Thank you, thank you all for watching. Dustin, thank you for being a part of it.
Dustin: Thanks for having me, Andrew.
