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Dom Faussette: How To Maximize Time By Monetizing Your Passions

Mitch Stephen|By January 5, 2021

Episode 440: Dom Faussette: How To Maximize Time By Monetizing Your Passions

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REIS 440 | Monetizing Your Passions

Time is a priceless resource, and unfortunately, we don’t really have much of it to go around. To maximize this, why not try monetizing your passions and do what you love while earning money at the same time? Radio show host, executive coach, and author Dom Faussette strongly believes in this mantra, emphasizing that one of the signs of strong leadership is embracing where you truly excel. He joins Mitch Stephen in discussing how he transitioned from being a military man to a leadership coach, and how he discovered the efficient way to make money on something he is truly good at. Dom also shares a bit about his book, Social Media Gold, focusing on becoming the obvious choice through effective digital marketing strategies.

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This episode is sponsored by LiveComm.com. It’s lead generation plus mass texting. Let me show you on the little video on the homepage there why I averaged nine days on the market with my houses and I average over 12% down in down payments using my seller finance strategy. There’s a lot to be said for the new thing, which is now texting. Ninety-six percent of the people read them and you can see immediate responses from text messaging. Check it out. I’m here with Dom Faussette. We’re going to talk about command presence. He’s over in Phoenix, Arizona. You have a radio show, you interview entrepreneurs. Tell us a little more about yourself and what we don’t know about you.

Thank you for having me on. I appreciate that. I am here in Phoenix, Arizona. I’m prior military and ex-cop. I jumped into the corporate space after law enforcement and did the sales thing for a while. I got into corporate leadership. While I was there, I wrote a book. At the time, I started a podcast and has been coaching clients. I had a good book of business outside of my leadership development role as an executive in the corporate space. I never thought about not having the corporate job and doing what some people would refer to as a side hustle. It was something that I felt I needed to fill some time. There is no better way to fill the time than to make money while you’re doing it.

It got to a point after I was interviewed on Fox and CBS that somebody brought to my attention, “Have you ever thought about going out and not having this job as a career and doing your own thing?” It never crossed my mind to be an entrepreneur. It was like, “This is what I do. I work but I come from a working family, parents both prior military, and I always saw them work. I didn’t know about vacations. I didn’t know the luxuries of life. My thing was I’m a leader and as a leader, my responsibility to my career, the people that report to me, and society is to add value, be a person of influence. How do you do that? Use your voice.” As I was traveling, speaking, I was still getting paid and I’ve learned not to do things for free before I became an entrepreneur. I said, “I never considered not having this great income.” Slowly but surely, I waited myself out. A few years ago, I jumped out on my own and don’t regret it at all. That’s Dom Faussette.

Monetizing Your Passions: You either learn from your experiences or cry about them.

You don’t want someone to tell you what to wear when you’ve got to get up when you’ve got to go home, and if you can watch your kid’s basketball game or whatever.

I never looked at it like that. Being told what to do when both of your parents are military, that’s your life. When you join the military, that’s all I’ve ever known. Both my parents were Air Force and then I was Air Force K9, to be specific.

Thank you for your service. All my family was jarheads. I have raised a jarhead but I didn’t serve, though. I want to thank you because of people like you, I didn’t have to. What kind of income did you walk away from? I find that interesting because if you’re walking away from a $35,000 a year income, that’s one thing.

When I left, I was making about $120,000 to $130,000.

It’s not easy to replace. That’s challenging. You probably had insurance.

I had a good job. I got paid way more than what I did. I worked towards that and I had built great relationships. I had a promising career. It wasn’t easy to walk away from and that’s why I didn’t walk away from it based on emotion. One thing my dad said because I asked him, I said, “I’m thinking about leaving my job because I have all these things.” His response to me was, “If you can’t handle your handful of speaking engagements, your couple of coaching clients, your 40 or 50-hour a week job if you can’t handle doing both of those things at the same time, you’ll never be able to handle becoming a millionaire.” I stayed another six months and it took me about 1 or 2 weeks for that to sink in. He wasn’t talking to money. He was talking to work ethics that it took to get to that point.

Sometimes the money complicates things, especially early on when you’re not used to that level, whatever level of money that is. It can be a $50,000 increase and now it comes with different issues.

Sometimes your character does catch up to what you make.

Don't just share your story; make money from it. Click To Tweet

What was the biggest fear?

When it comes to fear, I look at it differently. I’ve kicked indoors as a cop, I’ve been shot at. At the time, one of my thought processes was as long as I’m not getting shot at, I’m good. My wife and I raced Ducatis as a hobby. Pushing the envelope, it’s in my DNA. I didn’t have any fears because I knew that if it didn’t work, my resume from the corporate standpoint is solid and I didn’t leave, as they say in the South, all willy-nilly. I left with a plan. I had a coach. I was being coached before I left. I had clients before I left. I knew how much I would make over the next nine months before I left based on history. I didn’t get a fleeting emotion at my butt and say, “I’m going to be a great entrepreneur.” I never even referred to myself as an entrepreneur. I had a business that was going to run. I had the money coming in. I had a strong support system at home. My wife supported me. She’s not self-employed and things at home were right. I lead it from behind my doorknob first before I try to lead the world. Things worked out but planning is something that I’ve done since I joined the military.

Tell me exactly or describe how you make a living these days?

Now with COVID, being a speaker, traveling is not something that I can do. What I do now to make a living is a bunch of stuff. I’m a voiceover actor. I have a radio show. We have sponsorships come in from the radio show and then that’s this whole little income stream. I have training that I do. I still coach. Everything is virtual now so coaching is a large part of the income that I have.

What do you coach?

There are two areas. One is the command presence. Command presence, I’ll call it confidence on steroids. It’s something that I’ve always used to engage my better self. It’s more of a military thing but I’ve utilized it for myself and my clients. It helps people build their confidence starting at home and then working their way out. The other side of things that I coach, which I’m passionate about, is voice. I coach people on how to speak, how to monetize your podcast, how to monetize their radio show, all of the things you can do with your voice. There are many coaches and speakers that don’t know how to do that. I would say I accidentally fell into it. Some things to me are common sense. It’s the ability to not be on social media but make money from your social media, not be on your podcast but make money from it. Not be on stage, which a lot of speakers make, they mess up. Don’t just share your story, make money from it. If you’re going to be on stage, there’s a lot of money to be made on stage. Teaching people how to do that is something that I do in a command presence challenge that we do every month.

I started my blog not knowing if anyone would ever care to read or not. I had zero expectations. I’m going to do the best I can and have fun. What turned me on about the podcast world was that I would get to talk to smart people and not have to pay them. The questions, I could ask them anything I wanted. When I read their backgrounds, I go, “Let me see what I can learn from this guy.” I was getting away to rope people in to spend an hour with me and I can ask them anything I want, but then I accidentally figured out how to make money at it.

My show makes between $10,000 and $20,000 a month and I never planned on it. It’s not like I needed it that bad. If you’re going to do it, it’s a lot more fun if you can at least make a little bit from it because you’re not burning time. I fell in love with the chance, the angle to help people and make money at the same time. Those are the two things. You’ve got to get the two. For me, money is not fun if it’s not helping people because I don’t want to hurt people to make money. I started doing that and put it together.

You get better and better. It grows and next thing you know, it’s a thing.

I did mine through affiliate marketing. I didn’t know anything about it. One day, the lady that books my stuff says, “This person has a product and they gave us a link. If you’re selling, they’re going to send you a little check.” I said, “Stop right there. What are we talking about?” She explained it to me and I said, “This changes everything.” What’s your radio show about?

My radio show, the Think React Lead radio show, it’s about leadership. Leadership is something I’m extremely passionate about. I’ve talked about it for years. As I became an entrepreneur, a business guy, I started interviewing other businessmen and women. I started interviewing career level as of late because I’m focused on leadership. I’m focused on developing confidence in being able to make decisions effectively. My last three guests happened to be special operators in the military, Navy SEAL, Ranger sniper, and then Marine.

They’re fascinating, aren’t they?

Everybody that I have the fortunate pleasure of sitting across the microphone from, across the table from is fascinating. When I look at somebody who has that skillset, I like to listen to how they lead and what they are doing. You may share this sentiment as well. People in general that don’t have my life experience with, now I can learn from them. They’re fascinating, learning from their life experience, and learning how they lead, how they grow their businesses. You build relationships with these people because now you have a platform for them to share on.

Think React Lead: When Success and Accomplishments Aren’t Enough

Do you believe that you’re born with leadership or that you can learn leadership?

I don’t think you’re born with it. Life experience helps you. As a firstborn, there are certain ways that I lead that my brothers and my sisters will never lead because they don’t have the life experience of being a firstborn. As you grow older, you went into business. I went into the military. We’re probably not at the same age but either way, there are life experiences that happen. We either learn from these experiences or we cry about them. For those of us that embrace this up and learn from the fewer experiences in our life, we’re able to adapt some leadership and acumen to them. Being teachable. I’m the leader that I am now, I was not this person twenty years ago. It took some getting kicked in the teeth for me to be who I am now. I don’t think you’re born with it. You’re born with the opportunity for it and it’s up to you whether you take advantage of it.

It depends on where you come from. I was born around a bunch of Marines and they take charge. That’s what they do, sometimes to a fault. You’re right. If I wouldn’t have had that experience, I might be quite a different person. Also from athletics, I always wondered. I never knew why they put me in athletics because I was never going to get big. I wonder who I’d be if it wasn’t for that because I learned what it was like to spend 3.5 hours in the sun while someone else was taking your girlfriend to the hamburger store.

You have to find another girlfriend who plays the same sport or at least had something to do.

I always said, “Why don’t you teach me how to play the piano? I’d still be playing the piano. Why did I have to learn how to throw a football?” I wonder what the differences would have been. You also are into social media. You have a book called Social Media Gold. It’s an eBook.

I have a physical book called Think React Lead: When Success and Accomplishments aren’t Enough. The eBook, it’s a much shorter read called Social Media Gold. Social media, without it, I wouldn’t have a business. I started using Instagram strictly for my employees. I was doing videos on Instagram before I knew videos was a thing because I couldn’t keep my employees off their phones. I learned if you have twenty employees, it’s much easier to adapt to them and then lead from within that adaptation, as opposed to trying to tell them, “Get off the phone.” It’s not going to happen. They’re attached to it. I started doing leadership videos. They’re going to be there. They have something to look at. Social media is a thing that people use the wrong way. Every single platform you can make money on but people like to spend their early waking morning on social media. On the toilet, they’re on social media or at stoplights while they’re driving. They’re addicted to it. If you’re going to be addicted to it, at least make money from it. That way, every time you’re on it, you’re strategic about what you’re going to post. That’s what Social Media Gold talks about. It walks through how to do that.

I’ve often said this to people especially some of the younger kids. They spend hours and hours on a video game and they’ll ask me, “Do you want to play this video game?” I said, “No, that’s not the kind of video game I like. That’s not the kind of game I like to play.” “What game do you like?” I said, “I like to play the game where I get on social media and I find out how many nickels I can make it crap into my bank account. That’s the game I like to play. Do you know how you keep score? You watch your bank account go up.”

I know many guys and gals that chase the millions of dollars. Even though $5,000 a month would literally change their life, they look at that as scraps and people don’t chase. You don’t have to chase the scraps. If you focus on what you’re passionate about, the scraps turn into something.

Same with the podcast. I want to see $1 come from it first, $1, $10, $100 because if it can do $100 and I can understand how it happened, then maybe I can move that into $500. I can make it happen every day and then maybe three times a day. That’s what happens. It’s not any different than the video game. You get to this impasse and you’ve got to figure out what maneuver you’ve got to do to get this character figure over this wall. I’m doing the same thing. I get to this impasse, no one is answering me. How do I manipulate this ad or video or whatever? In what order do I put my words to get someone to react to me the way I want them to react?

Try a bunch of stuff out and see what you like and what you want to work. Click To Tweet

Trial by error. I tell people all the time, “Try a bunch of stuff out and see what you like, see what you want to work.” By the time eighteen people have told you how to do the same thing, it’s no longer going to make the money that they made doing it. Everybody is given intuition into what they can do to make money but they’re not willing to turn the TV off. They’re not willing to put the phone down. They’re not willing to build a better relationship with the people in their household. They’re not willing to step into a greater level of creativity and understand what it is that they want out of life versus what their parents want for them and they’re 40 years old.

Heaven forbid, get uncomfortable.

That’s another thing. Everything I do is uncomfortable.

If you’re not uncomfortable, you’re not growing one iota.

I threw a live event called Command Presence Live and I’d have speakers travel to come here. Everything in me told me, “Don’t do this. There’s COVID. You can’t have a building filled with people.” I had people tell me, “Are you sure you want to do this? You might not make money.” I did it. What I tell people all the time, “Do this thing that’s opposite of what everybody else is doing and you’ll make money doing it.”

Social Media Gold: Grow Your Speaking and Coaching Business Using Social Media

I did it once. Everyone told me not to do it. I said, “I’ve got all these people that follow me. The podcast, it’s neither here nor there.” The podcast gets about 22,000 unique visitors a month and they download about 37,000 podcasts. The thing is it doesn’t sound like a lot when you talk about these big guys but it’s still on the top 7% of the world because it drops off that fast. The millionaire next door or the fact that if you make $55,000 a year, you’re in the top 10% of the world or something.

People forget that and they ended up chasing. I literally talked about this on my radio show. People chased and when I’m coaching people or I haven’t taken my assessment, which is on DomFaussette.com. It’s literally what do I need to do to be better at what I do so that I can monetize from it? My dad always says, “The bottom line is a dollar sign.” I would say a lot of that is true. We don’t have to focus on the money, but how much longer can you go if you’re not making money?

What I did was I have all these people that follow that I got messages from it. I never got to meet any of them. I said, “I’m going to plan a vacation in Mexico like Playa del Carmen or someplace at one of those all-inclusive resorts.” I’m not charging anybody anything. I’m going to tell everyone, “If you want to go on vacation with me for seven days, I’m going to be there on this date to this date. This is the address of the place. This is the phone number. Handle it. I’m not doing anything. I don’t know when I’m getting up. I don’t know when I’m going to bed. I know that I’ll find you down there and we’ll have a drink at the pool or we’ll have dinner or we’ll go to the pizza burger thing at lunch. We’ll have fun. We’ll talk.”

The first year, seventeen people came, then the next year twenty people came, and then the next year 53 people came. In the past few years, over 100 people came. I always told people, “Why would you go to paradise and sit in the plate glass window in a conference room for ten hours a day? I’m not giving a lecture. I’m not doing anything. I’m not selling anything. If you want to open a conversation at the pool bar at 10:00 in the morning, everybody come. I’ll start it but I’m not giving a lecture. Everyone has to chime in.” We got the biggest kick out of that and we all learned more than any conference I ever paid at. There were people from all over the nation. Since we were most likely not in competing markets and noncompeting strategies, people would open up. It was a real eye-opener. When you make 128 new friends, your business does well. You’re not at anybody’s throat or anything else. We were fixing to go again and then COVID hit.

It put a damper on a lot of people’s travels. Trust me, I had big travels planned. Fortunately, I was in St. Martin. I was there for seven days. That was a lot of fun but it took a while for those doors to open up.

Do you teach public speaking or how to book or what?

All of it. I teach people how to throw their own events. I teach people I’m closing on a house. I teach people how to start with their voice because as a speaker coach, I have a lot of people that say, “I want to get on stage.” I learned a little later than I probably should have what to do when you get on stage because most people on stage aren’t making money. Learning how to sell from the stage is huge. Learning how to tell your story and monetize from it. How do you show up at an event? How to get on stage. I look at a stage, any time you are in a position of authority, which is typically the guy on the microphone or gal on the microphone and people are listening, that’s the stage.

Whether it’s your videos on social media, which a lot of speakers and coaches don’t do, whether it’s your news interviews, utilizing your voice is different on news than it is on radio, on a stage, on a podcast than it is in your book or doing videos. There are many ways and variations to use your voice and sound like a subject matter expert, and understand what the titling is behind how people find you are extremely important. Most speakers and coaches, when they do get on stage, they’re there at no fault of their own to validate their existence. When you get past this space of validation, then you can start making money. You and I both have set in front of an audience, and the speakers are like, “This is how long? Twenty minutes?” I’m sitting in the front. I can’t leave. Learning how to go from being a speaker to having a portion of your income come from your speaking business.

The hardest thing for me ever was to stay on a timeline. When I was on stage, time would fly. You wouldn’t get to your close or you wouldn’t get to say the parts that you needed to say. I was horrible at that. It took a lot of work for that pacing. I got some help from some people too. Tell me about the Social Media Gold eBook because that’s what you’re going to give away. I’m going to send everybody to 1000Houses.com/dom. There will be all the information and contact information for Dom if you’re interested in learning more about him or what he does. Also, you can get your free copy of the Social Media Gold eBook. Tell us about the book and what we can expect to learn from it.

It’s the ABC of social media. People think they know social media but what they know is how to engage on there as a looker in. They don’t know how to establish themselves. We’ve all heard the word influencer being used. I’m not a fan of the word, but what do you do when you’re there? How do you engage confidence in the people that look at what you post? When are you posting? How are you posting? What is going to be the thing that allows you to increase your influence? If you’re going to be there, be there, as I stated at the top of the show. Engaging your audience and how to engage your audience is what’s going to be the thing that leverages you, anybody that reads the book, to the next level. You don’t know what potential you have if you don’t post but then understanding what to post.

Do the opposite of what everybody is doing, and you will make money. Click To Tweet

One of the things I tell in one of my classes is if it doesn’t put money in your pocket, don’t talk about it. I don’t talk about race, religion, politics, and sports. None of those things put money in my pocket. Do I have my thoughts about all of them? I do. What are your thoughts? They’re nothing. Understanding your audience. A lot of businesses do one of two things. They miss the mark on social media and then they look at it as work and they don’t do anything with it or they overspend on a marketing agency and then wonder why $50,000 later they don’t have any results. At the end of the day, social media is you. I can easily tell somebody, “You need to get on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Facebook.”

Those are my favorite. In the beginning, if you’re uncomfortable with social media, pick one platform. You do the same thing on all of them, for the most part. LinkedIn, Facebook is a little different, Instagram, but you do the same thing. Becoming the obvious choice is what the book is about. How do you become the obvious choice in your niche? I’ve never paid to be on stage. People come to my Instagram and they ask me, to be honest. That’s why I’m here because of my Instagram. Instagram for me was the way I got to become a successful entrepreneur. Success is not monetary. It’s a feeling, being able to feel happy with who you are. I learned that after I became an entrepreneur, we purchased our first six-figure car and I thought it was going to be the thing that helped take my social media to the next level because I had this thing. I had this car.

The same day I got it was the same day my best friend died on his motorcycle. Most of my close friends ride bikes. The way I felt when the car got delivered did not match how I thought I was going to feel. Now my mission or my mantra is to change one life every day for the rest of my life. I get TV interviews, TV opportunities. I became a paid voiceover actor because of my social media. For anybody reading, people pay for consistency. I don’t care what you do. People will pay you a premium based on how they see you show up. Most people in the world don’t show up. All you’ve got to do is post once a day for 365 days straight and people will think you’re this amazing creature.

Monetizing Your Passions: You don’t have to chase the scraps. If you focus on what you’re passionate about, the scraps will turn into something.

I committed to posting on my YouTube channel once a workday for a year, 5 to 10 minutes.

Let me ask you this because there are days I don’t want to post. I did a story before I came here. On the days that you don’t want to do it, we all have those days. How do you do it? What gets you over the hump?

I go one day and film for the whole month. Put on your big boy panties and wake up at 6:00 and drag your ass all the way to the finish line. You’re done for another month and you’ve only got to do twelve times every year. The hardest part is writing the scripts because you’ve got to do that. That’s what kills me. What’s the topic? Breaking a subject down into five minutes. Some of these subjects are huge. I’m like, “I’m going to get five minutes of this one little subject.” You have to be thinking about them all the time, jotting them down. My goal was to try to get between 40,000 and 65,000 subscribers. I’ll see it. I have a plan. I have some people behind me and they’re working on the algorithms and stuff. Try to do the best I can to help a larger audience. I can help the larger audience, then it will show up on my side of the fence too. What you know will show up. I’ve got to deliver good content. One of the things I had to come to terms with is I have to give it all up. There is no secret. I’m not holding anything back. I’m going to tell you all of it.

People know when you’re trying to set them up or dangle a carrot in front of their face. I’m not doing it. I’ll give you the whole thing. If you still think you want to talk about it with me, I’m here. You’ll know where to find me. I’m going out there to give as much as I can. I always know when I do it, that trip, I wasn’t charging anybody anything. If they wanted to talk to me, I was going to be there and we’ll eat together. I gave as much as I can and I made a whole lot of friends. From that, I found people that had common interests and needed help and understood. There was an exchange because it made sense for everybody.

You’re a cool guy. I love your take on social media. If you’re going to be there, have a reason instead of wasting time. I like that. You guys go to 1000Houses.com/dom. Get Social Media Gold eBook. You go there and you can have it downloaded in no time instantaneously and also learn more about Dom Faussette. Maybe he’s a coach in your future. Who knows? Anything else you want to say to the readers maybe before we wrap it up?

No. I can assume that you attract a lot of people that want to make some money whether it’s a side hustle or a closed market because of what you do, which is great.

Forgive others who have wronged or hurt you in the past and learn to forgive yourself. Click To Tweet

The whole point of this show was I don’t care if you find your financial independence doing what I do or doing what you do or doing what someone else on interviews does. I’m here to help you find your place in the world and find your financial independence so that you can be the person that you’re put on this earth to be.

We speak the same language. One thing I always leave people with, it’s a fork in the road, if you will, but you’ve got to do both before you start trying to face or chase that almighty dollar and you think that the money is going to change your world, which it can, but it won’t if you don’t do these two things. Forgive others who have wronged you or hurt you in the past and learn to forgive yourself. I can tell you from personal experience, no matter what you buy, what private jets you’re on, what vacations you take, if you haven’t bridged the gap between your mind and your heart and you learn to forgive others and forgive yourself, none of that will matter because you’re still stressed out about this stuff that you’re not letting go of.

I learned that lesson the hard way too. I was speaking with someone and I thought I was doing them a favor and I noticed that I was lighter than air on the way home. For me, I had lifted the weight off of myself. I want to thank you all for reading. Thank you for stopping by to get you some Dom Faussette. Make sure you go to 1000Houses.com/dom and get your Social Media Gold eBook and check him out. He’s a cool guy. You’ve got a lot to say. We’re on the same wavelength there, Dom. I appreciate you.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.

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About Dom Faussette

Radio Show Host and Executive Coach… Best selling author, Keynote Speaker Dom Faussette is a Subject Matter Expert in Leadership Confidence and Development as well as a military Veteran “Dom has given me tailored advice during crucial pitch-fork career decisions. He has inspired me to take the road less traveled and to not be okay with mediocrity. His advice has led to my last three promotions at my company and even more than that, an opportunity to grow as a person to someone who passionate about helping others develop as well. Dom’s coaching has been invaluable to my development as a leader and my career growth.”