How to Unlock the Secrets to Rapid Growth with Dustin Riechmann

On this episode of the Chasing Financial Freedom Podcast, we have special guest Dustin Riechmann. In this conversation, Dustin will share valuable insights into his Partnership Marketing System—a proven methodology he uses to help mission-driven entrepreneurs rapidly increase profits and grow their networks without relying on paid ads. Please tune in to hear about Dustin's strategies for boosting business performance and his inspiring story of growing three successful online businesses. Learn how to turbocharge your success with the Partnership Marketing System.

Looking to Share Your Story? Be a Guest on the Show

Transcript

How to Unlock the Secrets to Rapid Growth with Dustin Reichmann

[00:00:00] Ryan: Hey guys, Ryan Dement from Chasing Financial Freedom Podcast. I hope you guys are having a wonderful day today on the podcast, we have Dustin Reman, and I think we got it close. We mispronounced names here on this podcast, and I'm the problem. Dustin helps mission-driven entrepreneurs rapidly increase profits without paid ads using partnership marketing systems.

Dustin, 

[00:00:23] Dustin: welcome to the. Thanks, Ryan. You nailed the last name. You're probably in the 10% of people who get it correct, so I appreciate it, . 

[00:00:30] Ryan: Not a problem. Sorry about the weight. I know it's been a little bit of a weight, but it's good to have you on. So before we get into your journey and you, how you help entrepreneurs, a little bit about your background and what got you into the space.

Yeah, 

[00:00:42] Dustin: so I have a pretty interesting journey. I'll go through quickly and we can dive in if there's anything of interest in there, but my professional career was engineering, so I have a civil engineering. specialized in traffic engineering and did that for over 15 years as a consultant. And so while I was doing that, I had quite a few side hustles and different online businesses that sprung up.

The very first one was engaged marriage back in 2009, and that grew out of marriage ministry that my wife and I were doing. And I just felt this calling to bring it online. And it was the heyday of blogging. So I did a lot of writing, wrote a book, eventually turned it in into digital courses and a membership site.

And that resource still exists today. So that got me into digital marketing. And so digital marketing became a passion of mine, and I saw that was really the path out of engineering and having a nine to. So from 2017, I resigned from my engineering position, jumped full-time into marketing consulting, and basically took on every client I could get to pay the bills with three kids and this stay-at-home wife.

And it was successful so I was able to sustain that. And one of the clients that I had was a local butcher shop, and so that local butcher shop owner was a third generation owner. We actually were from the same hometown, just didn't know each other growing up, but. Found that out and had a lot of really cool commonalities between our families, and so we hit it off.

The brick and mortar marketing was going well for his butcher shops. And he said, Hey, I've got this product. He literally built a hickory smokehouse behind his business and created these snack sticks called Fire Creek Snacks. And so he said, do you know how to sell online? They're selling great locally.

And I said, as a matter of fact, I do. So I created a Shopify store and eventually we became business partners in Fire Creek snacks. So that's one of the things I do today is have an e-commerce brand that's also a lot of brick and mortar. We did a lot of trade shows and learned all about the wholesale game, and we recently got into Walmart, so that's been a really interesting journey since about 2018.

19 is when I got started in that, and When Covid happened I lost half my marketing clients because they were like dentists and restaurants and things that in my state were closed for six weeks and a lot of things changed with Fire Creek. And I was literally driving to Chicago for an Ace Hardware trade show and got a phone call that it was canceled in, March, 2020.

So what that did though was allow us to think differently and. . And so that got me starting to get featured on podcasts. And so I started getting on podcasts with the intent of selling snack sticks, , and just promoting Fire Creek and talking about our business story. And it really took off. We ended up getting into seven figures of sales without paid ads, and I ended up being, I've been on over 50 podcasts now, but about half of those were all about Fire Creek.

And in Marketing Fire Creek in that way. I got a lot of inbound interest on people saying, how'd you get on that show? Where'd you come up with the offer? Those stories are super interesting. I love how you showed up for the interview and you helped me with that. And so I ultimately started doing a lot of one-on-one business coaching with people specifically around partnerships and podcast guesting, which has turned into its own business.

And it's about 80% of what I spend my time on now is actually the coaching. And so I have a brand called Simple Success Coaching and our flagship. Offer there as a 90 day mastermind where we help other entrepreneurs use the vehicle of podcast guesting and make more sales and get more clients from it.

, that's my engineering marriage, meet Sticks marketing and ultimately podcast guesting and partnership marketing is falls under that umbrella in the way that, that, I think 

[00:04:05] Ryan: we got a lot to unpack there, but I gotta ask. Yeah, I gotta ask the. What's your favorite business? Definit? Which one do you, what's your favorite kid?

[00:04:14] Dustin: Yeah, definitely the coaching. I feel like each of these steps has been an evolution towards more and more of what really fulfills me. And so I've stepped out of the day-today with Fire Creek and I have a strategic role there, which I really enjoy. But my passion is really leading these mastermind groups of other entrepreneurs.

Like getting paid to pour into them of course, but also learn from them and see the inner workings of their businesses like that. I really love. I'm very fortunate to have this varied past that I unpacked in part just now, and that really helps me. Have a diversity in the way I think about marketing and growth.

And I've seen a lot of different businesses. I've had a lot of different businesses, and I've worked as a consultant with a lot of different types of businesses. So it really, I think, I feel like that's really, I've been uniquely gifted with those experiences, which make me a good mastermind leader. Although and looking forward, I would've never thought that path was available or possible.

In hindsight, the dots do connect for me, 

[00:05:06] Ryan: is it all entrepreneurs that you're working with in this mastermind or are there other subsets? 

[00:05:12] Dustin: It's primarily about 80, 90% like solopreneurs, so a lot of coaches, consultants, agency owners, B2B service providers, speakers, authors, those types of folks. There are though, typically in every group, there's at least one.

that's different. Like I had in my previous recent group, I had a guy that was a top salesperson at a software company that uses, that's wrapped around LinkedIn on the, an upcoming group. I have someone, it's like a Christian men's app and program. So this is corporatey, but he is the brand ambassador for that company.

It doesn't have to be entrepreneurs, but it typically is. And even if it's not those individuals that are raising their hand within the company saying, I wanna go be part of this, they're almost always entrepreneurial. Even if they do work for a company. 

[00:05:54] Ryan: That's interesting. I'm with you on the podcasting cuz that's come out of.

I, I guess for me it's dumb luck because I'm in the real estate space. We develop affordable homes, workforce housing, from ground up infield lots. Yeah. And then from that came, I had 25 years prior to that in finance and corporate America, running call centers, collection agency, any finance instrument I touched.

But the thing that came out of podcasting was how can you help others with a mission or being able to move things forward in the finance world? Change. And a couple other aspects that I've started to explore. So today I have two podcasts and you're on one of 'em. The other one is Chasing Happiness Podcasts.

But the funny thing is never thought I'd be in podcasting. Zero, zero, no concept whatsoever. And I'll and someone just came out and told, asked me about four years ago, why don't you have a podcast? And I'm like, podcast, when do I have time to do that? And it's a totally different world than I've ever been in.

And so this podcast has been around for four years and I would probably say it is the most interesting group of people that I've met like yourself. Come on and hear the, your Journeys. But it's. Podcasting is a pretty large industry, but it's quite small. Yeah. The success rate on podcasts are like 20%, 25%.

Somewhere. I read during the pandemic, I think one over 1 million podcasts started during the pandemic, and only 10 or 15% are still actively putting out an episode in a frequency basis. And it's . That's a lot that just shut down and it's crazy. And what we do. But, sorry, I digress.

And I like talking about these numbers and going through stuff, but for you, how did that journey go from engineer all the way to where you're at today? What were some of those steps and maybe share some tips and tricks and maybe some failures along the way? 

[00:07:40] Dustin: Sure. Yeah, I would say, So I'll start by saying in engineering, I was a civil engineer.

I had a master's degree. I taught at the university, so I certainly was an engineer, but I was in the specialty, which was interesting. It was traffic engineering. And so ultimately what happened with my career is I did a lot of public speaking. I had to do a lot of presentations in front of like angry residents and city councils and things like that.

Talking about everyone passionate about traffic in their neighborhoods. And and then I also, I started up a new group for a company. . So it's kind of a startup of an engineering group within a larger company. So that felt a bit entrepreneurial. So I guess what I would say is I did a lot of like creative writing, speaking sales proposals.

So even though it was in a more corporate environment I felt I was scratching my entrepreneurial itch a bit. But it wasn't enough. And so eventually I got burned out, capped out, and what I could do there, I was a manager and had 20 people working for me, and it was like, what do I woke up, I was like, what am I.

This is horrible. This is not what I, this is not the part of the job I enjoy, but that's, that's the trap you get when you get promoted. Major milestones for me, again, starting engaged marriage as a passion project that made me I've had to Google and learn how to start a website, right?

And I had to, I started getting into collaborations. I did a lot of partnerships back then. This was pre me even thinking about podcasts, but the same kind of mindset that of where's my audience already hanging? And where, how can I access them and like, how can I make a win-win, win relationship with another influencer, another person in the space.

So I did a lot of that early on and grew engaged marriage quite quickly with that. And again, we wrote a book and got into speaking and so it was of an extension, but I was doing all that while I was a full-time engineer and started, we were having our family at that point. So I'd say the next.

Pinnacle moment was 2015. I took a vacation from work and went to a digital marketing conference, which my wife was not super happy about, but she she supported it. And so that's I feel like that's when I decided, I don't know when, but I'm gonna go all in on this at some point. So that was a real important event in my trajectory.

It took me two years. So I said at that point, I want to quit engineering. I gotta figure out how. So then in 2017 is when I. Summer 2017, I kinda had this epiphany moment where I've been holding back and holding back. I feel like I probably did engineering maybe four or five years too long, and I just had this realization and like this hopefully be a takeaway For people listening.

It seems obvious, but it wasn't to me is that with few exceptions, like maybe your religious vocation, hope your marriage with, if you accept almost none of these decisions that we make are permanent. I said to myself, I could go try to be employed and then if I'm really bad at it, I could just come back and be an engineer.

What am I like holding myself back for? So I, I made that decision summer of 2017. Had a lot of open communication with my wife and my kids and said, Hey, you know what? I work a lot already at the job. I've got already got a side hustle, but I six months, gimme six months. I'm gonna be like insane, busy and work all day the time, get on any client I can get and see if this same, why build up a.

That sort of thing. So that's what we did. And so by January 1st, 2018 the, six months later, I was able to resign my job. And and I go on from there. So that, I feel like that period 2015 to 2017 was really instrumental. It made me really, get over some fear, some limiting beliefs.

And I dunno, just finally had the courage. And there was things happening at, through a church group I was in, it was really making me feel called to make this change. And so it just felt like the right time to finally pull that trigger. 

[00:11:04] Ryan: So when you're working on that side hustle and you're still in engineer, What were some key takeaways that you could share with the listeners about how you solidified yourself and then took that leap off?

And when I say leap off, I mean it's like pulling the bandaid off. I know that feeling cuz I left after 25 years of being in Yeah. Corporate America and that was scary. So what could be some tips? or some ideas and then maybe some, failure is always good to hear and learn from because ultimately we don't wanna make the same mistake.

But what could we do when we're ready to make that leap like you did? What were some things that you did for yourself? 

[00:11:39] Dustin: Yeah, I think, like I said, if I look back and, of course there's mistakes in every, in everything I think my mistake was holding on too long and not taking, not having the clarity to take the risk soon enough.

I never, I ne I never invested, like in coaching or being a part of a group. I never, I was always around engineers and like my neighbors or bankers and insurance guys, and. This idea of being self-employed and figuring out insurance and again, my wife is a stay-at-home mom, and it was like, is this responsible?

It's is this a responsible thing to do? So for me I would say my number one takeaway and tip is mindset. If someone is interesting in having a side business or they're feeling like they do want to get out of corporate, a corporate environment, even make a job change, but they're.

Scared fear, like that's totally fine to acknowledge that. And I, speaking to myself now what, eight years later, seven years later, I would say. Go get a coach, go get involved in a group that of people with similar ambitions and find that external support. My wife was very supportive and helpful, but she doesn't have the same mindset like she was.

She basically, I trust you, I hope you don't screw this up, but I didn't have anyone speaking into me about how to actually do it successfully. So I think that's one. I think two is if you have a family, Very open communication. I made that mistake a lot through through the years. Ironically in growing a marriage brand we had some bad issues in our own marriage because of a lack of communication.

I, I was too ambitious at times and, working very late at night on the side business and waking up, going to work the next day and not prioritizing quality time with my wife. And when we had kids, So I think that's okay to do that. If you're driven and you've really gotta put it in the extra hours to make something happen, that's okay.

Just be open about it. Make sure that everyone's on the same page and understands it's going to end. That this is not, you're, I'm not keeping up this intensity forever. It's a six month season to reach a big goal in, in my case. And I think that was super key. So you've noticed the things I'm talking about are more like relational and mindset.

Cause I really feel like that's where I made my mistakes strategically, business wise. I think yeah, it's like having really distinct plans and having go and no-go decision points. So for me it was, I'm starting in the summer. By the end of the year, I need to have achieved X, Y, and Z to feel comfortable resigning my engineering job,

and I did do that, but if I hadn't, then I have to make another decision. Do I go three more months? Do I forget this idea? Do I look for a different engineering job with less stress? But I had a marker in the sand to say when I hit that point. That's a new decision point and we had criteria set up, basically our savings and the number of the monthly income I was generating outside of engineering to know that it was gonna be sustainable for at least six months.

That was my whole thing. If I can survive for six months, Then I'll know if this was the right choice. And then if it's not, I'll go back to the same company or a different one and reverse that decision. 

[00:14:22] Ryan: And the key in there, you talk about communication in, it's that work life balance that you have and Yeah.

God, I can't remember the quote exactly, but the quote basically is rich. There's rich people out there that have all the money in the world, but they're lonely and have no fulfillment. And if you can't keep your family around to be able to enjoy the things that you're trying to do and your passions, it's gonna be a long journey by yourself.

And it's like, why not just sit back, try to figure that out. I'm with you. It's just it's very hard to balance that out, especially when you have two jobs going on. You had a young, you had a young family going at the time. Your wife stayed at home. I get all that and it's tough to bounce that out, especially when you were used to working every hour and being able to spend that quality time and family life is huge for us.

And it, in balancing that out is critical. And especially in this stage in life because you're like, you're teeter tottering back and forth and it's oh my. what's gonna break, right? And you don't want the family life to break. And I know you don't want the business, but it's like your family is your support mechanism.

And that's a huge key in success. 

[00:15:27] Dustin: Yes. Yeah. It's, health, wealth and relationships, right? So you can have all the wealth, material, wealth in the world, but if either your health fails or your relationships fail, what's the point? Yeah, and I was aware of that and again we talked a lot about those things and of worked our way through it.

Not to say there. Really rough weeks in that period where I was, was overworked, overstressed got a know from a client. Those sort of things where it's like, ah, we're almost there. And then, there's a a setback and you've seen those diagrams of the entrepreneurial journey where people see it's down here and then it's straight up into the right at some point later.

But the reality is these huge zigzags of ups and downs and valleys and peaks that you have to, you find yourself in valleys pretty often. and you have to learn how to pull yourself out or have some support system around you to help pull you out of those valleys cuz it's inevitable. Like you can't avoid that in any, in these types of journeys where whether you're.

Taking on new types of risk and new, you're making decisions about things you've never had to think about or make a decision about before. It's it can be scary, but in hindsight, it's certainly worth it. I'm, I would've the only, like I said, the only thing I would've done is maybe do it five years earlier if I would've had the courage and the foresight.

But I'm not sure that I was ready for it. Everything happened at the right time for me and the situations I was in with my family and, . 

[00:16:40] Ryan: So with your current role that you're working with entrepreneurs what would be the biggest obstacle that you're seeing in that mastermind group when you have entrepreneurs come to that group?

[00:16:51] Dustin: I'd say clarity. Clarity around numerous things. So most people that come into my group, they're successful. So they're often like doing six figures. They may be, have an aspiration to eventually get seven figures or at least close to it with just themselves or a small team. And so that's. , like I mentioned earlier, coaches, consultants, B2B service providers, those types of folks.

And so when that is your business model, you have to have a really clear offer. You have to have a really clear target market. You have to have something that's scalable, that you're not just trading time for dollars and doing everything one-on-one. So I find a lot of people come in and they love the idea of podcast guesting because they are relational people.

They have some great stories. They're engag. They value, again, relationships, both business and personal. So they check those boxes. So that's a prerequisite for even being allowed into the group because that's the environment I wanna foster and the community I wanna have.

And so they come in thinking, Hey, I've got, I already do coaching, I already have consulting. I just need to ramp it up. I just need more marketing. I need more leads. And they do they need more consistent leads. But before we talk about getting more leads, what we actually do is say, let's talk about your offer.

Let's talk about who you're serving. Let's talk about how you're deliver. If we can make that a lot better, the number of leads that you have now actually is great. And then the podcast guesting will grow the leads and the relationships and help scale that up. So I feel like that's what most of the, most of our members ultimately get.

That's not what they think they need, which I think is pretty interesting. And then the other twin with that and this actually came out, so I'll just present it this. In a previous group, I was trying to get the right language to put on a sales page and describe what this experience is like.

Cause some people haven't been in a mastermind, they don't really understand what that is. Again, they're just like, I wanna be on podcasts and make more sales, and we deliver that. But, They were being interviewed by someone on my behalf. And the last question was simply, anything you'd like to add about this ex, this experience?

And everyone, 12. Outta 12 said, yeah, like I came here for marketing, but what I got was a community. What I got was like a new online family. What I got was entrepreneurs who get me and be able to see inside their businesses. And They actually got relationships and community, but that was not, if I would've asked any one of them before they signed up, do you want that?

They would've said, no, I got enough friends. I'm too busy. I don't need to know anyone else. I just wanted to have the strategy and the system to do marketing and so it, it's an interesting thing to. It's like selling 'em what they want and give 'em what they need, right? So I'm selling them the strategy and the system which they get.

But really what a lot of people need is community, and they need support, and they need coaching, and they need a place to share their wins. A place when they get stuck to, to have a hot seat and have people rally around them and help them get unstuck. So that's, you can probably hear that coming up from you like, You asked about what was my favorite thing?

It's , it's like providing that experience to people is like nothing else I've ever been able to do. It's just it's really powerful and that's what fires me up about the whole thing. 

[00:19:34] Ryan: Community is huge. I'm with you. On that journey, the entrepreneur journey, I just, for me has.

like you said, peaks and valleys and it's, when you hit a valley it's tough. And having a community to be able to back you up and support you is big. And probably in the last two years I really found several communities. Prior to that, I struggled with finding community. Cause there's not a lot of, in the space that we're in real estate, at least, there's not a lot of for-profit.

they're all nonprofits. So what did I do? I decided, okay, if I can't go fit in, let me go create a nonprofit that focuses on some of this stuff so I can find a community that I can work on. And then that's translated into other communities within the real estate space. But prior to that, I would probably say I was lost without, with zero community.

 Coaching having somebody there as a coach I call coaching the wild west. Because everybody's a coach today. Yes. I joke about it. I'm the unco. If you want to come to me, I'm not looking to charge you $60,000 for a year. If you want to come in and you want change in your life I'll charge you for a couple hours of my time and let's figure it out and get you going and move on.

But outside of that I really don't do that. And coaching can be tough at times. and when entrepreneurs are first starting out, if they're prepared properly, they could probably, take on five, $10,000 of coaching costs. But I'm starting to hear and see more entrepreneurs starting and they're not being financially sound when they're coming out.

Like you were talking about they don't have 6, 8, 9 months of money in the. and they're struggling already, and it's now you're gonna strap on $10,000 in coaching. That's a core group of people, I think is very underserved in coaching from what I'm seeing. And it's like those people need help big time.

I 

[00:21:11] Dustin: agree. Yeah. I I, so I, for the longest time I didn't have coach anywhere near my title or on my website because of, I, I have a very similar attitude to you. It seems like 90% of the coaches in the world , are like coaches who train other coaches how to be coaches. That's it. , whereas obviously I have three actual businesses and what I call coaching is a different experience.

If you ask. Coaches, they'll all, all I do is ask questions. The client answers their own questions, and I get there's a role for some of that. But I'm, I guess I'm more of a consultant, right? Like it's more here's, let's build this together. Like it's a done, my groups are done with you experience, like you're actually building a marketing system.

You're actually. Getting that community support. But it's not a Dustin show. It's not I'm the guru and you guys can come to me and ask questions. You can course ask me questions, but I really facilitate a peer-to-peer and like just a group dynamic that's different than what most people would call coaching.

And I, as you were talking, I realized that yeah, I've never until. Last year, I guess I've never invested in coaching at all, and I think that was a mistake to not do it at all. But I think bigger mistake would be what you said, someone who's coming out and has these wild dreams about how great an entrepreneurial the entrepreneurial life's gonna be, and then they plunk down, 10 grand, 20 grand on a coach when they don't actually even have a business yet that could benefit from the coaching.

, you can have the best coach in the world, but if you don't actually have a business built, it's pointless to go invest in that because no one's gonna build a business for you. They can just help you optimize the business that you have. 

[00:22:37] Ryan: And the thing that's out there when I talk to entrepreneurs and they're trying to do something, especially if it's a brick and mortar business that they wanna do, maybe like a restaurant or some, a food truck, whatever.

I'm thinking food cause I'm hungry, , but whatever that case is, and I'm like, my first question to them typically is, have you gone to go work in the industry? . No. Yeah. Why not? Somebody, there's, someone's gonna pay you to learn the industry and you like, they're like, I don't have that time. I gotta get my business up and going.

I'm like, you don't have a business plan, you don't have anything going yet. Why not go work in that industry and try to figure it out? What, for whatever you're doing. Yeah I know there's a lot of online stuff going on too, but there seems to be a lot more people coming back to the brick and mortar and trying to start something different in the, I like that.

but they're not willing to put themselves out there to be able to learn the industry that they're gonna go in. Is that any type of struggle that you have within your mastermind group at all? 

[00:23:29] Dustin: I would say not within my Mastermind so much, just because of the, it's like an application only sort of thing.

So I screen for that sort of things. I don't want anyone to be a bad apple and kind of ruin the bunch. So if someone's not in a place where they should be, investing in a mastermind, they're not operating at a level where they can like, Easily get an ROI out of it. Then I'm like, not, this isn't for you.

I have a course, I have other things you can do if you just want to get into podcast guesting and start doing it, but if you have a legitimate, successful business that you are wanting to scale up and you like relationships and podcast guesting, then that's what this group is for. I wouldn't say that in my group, but I will say, echoing what you just said, like I, I had one of my best friends actually is a neighbor.

He has a banking career and a military career, and then his wife is a teacher. We've been struggling. There's a lot of ti I have after Covid and he's yeah, you know what? I think what I'm gonna do is buy a coffee franchise and have her run it. I'm like, have you asked her about that ? Like for one thing and it's number two.

Maybe she should, if she, if that's something you're really interested in, maybe she should go be a manager or work at one of those coffee shops and make sure she likes it. She likes the experience, the people, the. Before you like quit a job and go spend a bunch of money on a franchise and buy a land and develop it, and all the stuff that's involved in that.

So I, yeah, that was, that was like a month ago. So that what you just said about people thinking about brick and mortar and people just having this fantasy that I'm sure I'll like it, I'll just go do it, instead of stepping into the environment and making sure it's something they really have a passion for before they go make that kind of leap.

So that was my advice to him. And he hasn't done. Either like they haven't bought a franchise and she also hasn't quit yet. . So we'll see where that goes. , it's 

[00:25:06] Ryan: It's pretty amazing cuz on the other side of my life when I was early on in my teens, I worked at a full service carwash and gas station.

Then I ended up running three of them, four of them those owners are baby boomers and they're retiring and they've reached out and said, Hey, do you wanna buy these? And I'm. . I gotta think about that because that is just, it's a whole nother game. It's car wash, it's gas station, it's convenience store.

Yeah. It's too much. So it made me think, okay, maybe I can get into the self-service, car washing business, but it's, I'm gonna be 50 here soon. Yeah. I haven't done that in 30 years. So guess what? I gotta go work in the industry if I'm gonna go figure that out and understand what I'm gonna do with that.

And that's probably what stopped me from doing. It's cuz I don't have the time right now to do it and I'm not looking to invest all that money and then I blow it up. Just because I had the experience in the past doesn't mean I'm on it today. And that's one of the things I'm looking at is are there other businesses that I potentially could go work in part-time, quarter-time, whatever that I can learn and then ultimately buy.

People think I'm crazy and I'm like, you know what? I don't know. And this is just me. I don't know of very many people that have created a 7, 8, 9 figure income with one revenue stream. Yeah. Typically they got 5, 6, 7, 8 revenue streams. Yeah. So if I get 2000 here, 5,000 there, 8,000 there, it starts adding up pretty quickly.

Yeah. And that's where I'm at, is that's why I have several businesses already, and then now I gotta figure out, okay, what else can I add to it? But. , but that's taken time and effort to figure that out, and it's been a journey of a lot of failures. what how do you wi with you and with that mastermind group, and maybe just talk about experience wise, is failures, how do you work with them in that group?

[00:26:48] Dustin: Yeah. One thing I'll be, before I answer that question, it's just, I have three businesses. I've engaged marriages, fire, eat. And simple success coaching. So an obvious question I get all the time is, wow, how do you do that? Or like, why don't you just focus on one? So I have to walk people back.

This one started in 2009. I haven't been actively doing anything in it day-to-day since 20 16, 20 17. And it's passively and we keep it up to date. And I have a little bit of contractor help that's engaged marriage. So it generates an income. I don't really spend really any time on it.

Fire Creek snacks. It started off a very intense build, for a couple years I was traveling, going to trade shows, getting all this stuff built, and I was doing all the day-to-day marketing as well. And so it got up to a certain point where we could then afford to have a performance based partner on the online marketing side.

So they handle that, they check in with me once a week. We talk about strategy, if there's a meeting at Walmart or something I'll go. But in general, I'm not spending a lot. Time every week on Fire Creek snacks. And then, so now, right now I'm building some simple success coaching.

I'm spending my time on that and I think I'll continue to do that for a long time. But I just wanna kind back up and say that like I'm big on multiple streams of income. These are three very different types of businesses, even though they're all online. One's digital courses and a membership. One's physical products that are both brick and mortar.

E-commerce and of course the coaching consulting world with what I'm doing now. And so it's possible to have three, but there's no way in the world I would've started all three at once. You know that. So that's what people miss is like that one started 13 years ago, , and then the other started five years ago.

And now this one started about two years ago, and so I'm getting maybe quicker at spending them up and scaling them and being able to step out of the day-to-day, but that's not something that happens overnight. So yeah, I just wanna echo that and eventually I want to get into real estate investing actually.

So I think that'll just be a a different venture, and I'll have to have the right. Team or partners so that I'm not spending a lot of time on it, but at first I will because I want to really understand it and find my own path. Yeah. As far as failures go, mean, I think one thing is just acknowledging that you can't.

Really do anything in life without failures, but especially entrepreneurship. Because a big part of being successful in growing a business is trying things and viewing a lot of the activities that you do as experiments. And so if you don't tie too much to those experiments and Hey, it may, this may work, it may not.

I'm like literally tomorrow I'm doing a workshop and it's, I'm promoting a little bit on LinkedIn with some people cause I'm filling my next accelerator group, my mastermind, and. I'm like, you know what? don't wanna do a big training webinar and all that stuff. This is for people who are on the fence.

They know enough about it that they're aware of it and they're probably curious about it, but they haven't made a decision. So it's of a group sales call, right? I'm gonna have a, I'm gonna talk about the opportunity of podcasting and I'm gonna go behind the scenes and show them what it's like to be in my group.

And then when it's gonna be like a live q and a, I'm gonna tell 'em exactly what it costs. And if they want to, put a deposit down and we'll have a call to confirm it's a good fit. Of course, a refundable deposit. So it's the first time I've ever done that. And this may, I may fall on my face. I may have people mad cause they think I'm showing up to sell 'em.

No one may show up. I actually had a Voxer conversation with a colleague right before I got on here to record with you, Ryan. And he's yeah, I'm really excited, to see how this goes for you. And I'm like, I'm equal parts excited, nervous, and don't care because I'm not tying anything to the results of this.

There's, I think it's equal, part, equal chances. I get no one to respond and join to. There's an overwhelming response. It's wow, five people signed up and I don't know which is gonna happen. So I think that's a big thing, is just having to write context and like boundaries around failure so that you can take a lot of small bets.

, if that event goes bad tomorrow, it's not gonna matter and it's not gonna change my 2023 world, I'll do something else to fill the couple seats I have left. But yeah, within the group we talk about wins every week, and then we also have. We call 'em hot seat sessions, right? But it's like, where are you struggling?

Where did something not work? Where are you stuck? And to me, those are all versions of failure. If you feel stuck in your business, right? And you're like frustrated and you're, know, you lost a client or you're some, you had a launch that went badly, do a, a. Post action report or whatever the military would call it, but look back at it and let's diagnose and see what happens so you can improve up upon it.

, so don't view failure as a permanent, like bad thing. It's just a bump in the road, but it's something you can learn from and it's an experience that you now have. That you can leverage to move forward with. So 

[00:31:00] Ryan: You I got a lot in there, but I want to go back to one thing that you mentioned, cuz I, I talk about marketing and the difference between marketing and sales on my other podcast too.

Okay. You talked about performance based marketers. , could you explain a little bit more about that for the audience? Cuz I think that's key. Yeah. 

[00:31:16] Dustin: So we are in Fire Creek snacks. We've focus mostly on wholesale, like ba in other words, we sell to stores who sell the product physically. A Walmart, a hardware store, a golf course, whatever.

That's what we've done a lot. And we also have a Shopify store, so you can go to fire creek snacks.com and buy snacks. And we, that, that's a growing channel for us. And that was my focus cause it's digital marketing. So I, I. Not enough time, honestly, but sometime growing that and it's decent. But we had someone come, it was actually a person that was in my mastermind.

So he was in there for his own reasons. And so we got to know each other and he's actually, you know my, he goes, I have a business. We have, we work with five or six food Shopify brands and here's our model. And they basically take a percentage of the gross revenue. Above what our baseline is, right?

So whatever we're doing per month, they're gonna grow it or they are growing it and then they participate in the upside. So there's really not a lot of risk for us, and they're, if they do well, they'll make more, then we would pay a normal agency, but a normal agency. It gets paid no matter whether they perform or not.

So for us, the idea of a performance partner, and the way I said that is we both win when they win. And if they lose, like we don't really lose, but they just basically lose some time. Versus signing a two year contract and, $4,000 a month to have some agency to run everything. , we've been on that path a few times and was not a good experience.

So no, like with you , let's do a win. Let's do a win-win partnership here. That you can win more than you could if you charge us a flat fee. And this wasn't me going to them, that was them coming to me saying, this is our model. This is who we work with. This is the results we expect. And so we're only a few months into that relationship, but so far it's going really well.

[00:32:54] Ryan: is there a place to find those individuals? And the reason why I ask is because I have the same struggle with that. But then as we're going to scale, our other side of the business is we do capital raises. And so I've been, I've gotten into the world of commission base sales, and that is just, oh my gosh.

Whew. Talk about crazy town. And I don't know if there's, if I'm on. Place or not, but I'm looking for, individuals or companies that could actually work with us to raise capital. And they get a piece of what they raise type of thing. Performance. Is that kind of what you guys are doing in that sense?

Is that, are they are, not, I'm not saying they're gonna be capital raisers, but it's of similar to that. . 

[00:33:32] Dustin: Yeah. Yeah. It's similar to that. Basically, if you can sell more and make more net profit for our co, if you can leverage our brand as if it's your own and make more sales and generate more net profit, you're gonna have a percentage of that net profit.

And if you're do that well, then you're gonna make more money than if we, you just charge us a flat fee. And so that's. The model is that we're implementing. But yeah, I think it's like being a commission-based marketer, I guess in a sense. That's not how I had thought about it, but it would be pretty analogous like a commission-based salesperson.

And we've had on the brick and mortar, the wholesale trade shows side of the world. We've had numerous brokers. Who work on commission only where they'll come, they'll go land accounts or go to trade shows and make sales, and then they get a percentage of whatever they sell. , we have not had any luck.

We haven't had a single broker that has generated enough revenue that it made sense for either of us, wow. So we just, I don't know, I just never really hasn't yet panned out for us on that front, but it takes one relationship. That's my thing is. Consistent. Like one of the reasons I like podcast guesting I'm become very active on LinkedIn.

I just build a lot of relationships and I don't know where they'll go. I feel like they're, it's like planting seeds and so I plant these seeds. There's gonna be a harvest sometime. It could be tomorrow, it could be two years from now. I don't know how, where we're, where each of these relationships will go, but like when you're talking about I wonder how I can find that person That, put that in.

I'm not, I'm a very non woo guy, I'm an engineer, but I do think there's something to be said for having that, having an intention in mind and then just being, being active and then those people will show up in your world like you just asked me. So I'll be thinking I wonder if I could find, I wonder, so when I encounter that person, I'll think of Ryan and I can make an introduction.

So I think when you have stuff like that, you're not sure where to go. . Just, yeah, make sure you're talking about it a lot. I had this experience when I was trying to leave engineering. It's man, I don't know. Like I'm pretty good at marketing. I can build websites, do Facebook ads, all this stuff.

It's I don't know where I'd really get clients. So I had a dental appointment. I literally was in my CH dental chair and I was like, think about hi doc dentist, a friend, but he was my dentist and he said, how are things going? It's pretty good. I'm actually looking to leave my engineering job.

I've, I do, I have engaged marriage, I do some other marketing and he's really. It's we could actually use some help. Can we meet outside of the office? And so he ended up being my biggest client until Covid happened. Now I, and now I coach him as a business coach. , but just cause I talked about it, right?

I had my real estate agent was a br was a client a restaurant that I frequented was a client, the butcher shop. I walked into the butcher shop and started having a conversation, and that's where I met my business partner for Fire Creek. Like just by talking and not being shy about what I do.

And I tell, Every small business owner, I'm like, number one marketing rule is just talk about what you do. Yes. You'd be amazed with stuff that comes up oh, wow, yeah you're involved in that. I gotta introduce you to someone. So 

[00:36:14] Ryan: yeah that's the really great thing about connecting and having those seeds and finding your tribe and meeting people and going out there.

I'm with you. We're getting close, but I'll talk about this and we'll get going. One of the things we do on the side, or I started way back in the day, is we buy defaulted mortgages. So if someone, Unfortunately falls behind on their mortgage. The banks typically foreclose. That has a negative ne negative connotation to it.

So what do they do? Yeah. They sell it off to buyers like us and we become the bank. And one of the cool things about that is there's a whole market for salespeople, or wholesalers as you hear in real estate. Yeah. For that. Most people don't know about that. And it's funny is how many people want to reach out on a reach out to us on a daily, weekly basis.

Oh, I've got this note for sale. I've got this note for sale. until I start talking about that. About six, eight months ago never happened. Cause I was always finding my own deals. Yeah. Now I've got more deals than to shake a stick at. And it's like, why didn't I think of this sooner? It's like, where have you been, Ryan?

You've been doing this for almost 10 years and you're not reaching out to people. And that's the thing is, that's why I asked you about, performance based marketers. I'm like, I've never heard of it. I've heard of it, but not really heard of it. No one's talking about it. So it's okay, we've gotta dig into that more and get an idea.

I know we're getting to a hard stop for you and go for it or actually go forward. So best way anybody can get ahold of you. And let me ask the, let's ask two questions. One, your mastermind. Two, what's the process to get into your mastermind? 

[00:37:38] Dustin: Sure. Yeah. So my home base is simple success coaching.com. You can send me an email.

It's dustin, d u s t i n, simple success coaching.com. I'm also very active on leann, and I have a pretty unique last name, R I E C H. You'll find me on there, Dustin Reman. Yeah, I, as far as the Mastermind, it's, I've described it pretty well, I think, but it's podcast guesting on the front end.

Sales funnels on the back end, offer optimization, a lot of referrals, a lot of community and relationship building. It's a 90 day experience and so if people are interested in that, they can just send me in the email and we can have a conversation about it. Basically I talk to every individual that's interested and.

And then no, like judgmental way, just be like, this is, you're gonna be awesome. This is perfect for you, or this probably isn't the right fit. And so that's equal, like to sound sale, like a sales tactic. It's not, it's equal parts. Like I want it to be a great fit for them and them to have a great experience and I want them to be a great fit for the group.

And make sure, like I mentioned earlier, that there's not a. A personality or a something there that wouldn't be a great fit for everyone else. But yeah, it's as simple as that. Simple success coaching.com. Shoot me an email if you have questions about anything I talked about today. I love chatting with people coming out of podcast interviews and meeting people.

And like I said, I'm all about relationships and I'm a very open person when it comes to that. So I'd love for anyone to, to reach out and not be shy. 

[00:38:54] Ryan: Cool. Thank you. I will share the link in the show notes so people get that so they, they can see that. And then, I'd be awesome to hear what people do and connect with you because what you're doing is really fun.

As I say I haven't started guesting very much. I just don't have time, but I have 22 or 24 requests right now sitting on pod match. I gotta get, I gotta work on that. So we'll get that going, but I like what you're doing. Thank you for coming on the show and look forward to 

[00:39:19] Dustin: future. Absolutely, Ryan, I appreciate the time and had some really good, interesting questions and things today that we got to unpack that I really enjoyed exploring with you, so I appreciate you having me.

Cool. You're more than 

[00:39:30] Ryan: welcome.