Why Fortune 500 Leaders and Solopreneurs Struggle with the Same Problems

[00:00:00] Dustin: How can you take a very successful corporate career and leverage that and turn it into a solopreneur, founder led online business in a way that leverages your best abilities as a leader? That's the question on the table today, on the Seven Figure Elite podcast. I'm joined today by Dusty Holcomb. Dusty has become a close friend.
[00:00:19] Dustin: He's been a client. He's in our mastermind, and I'm actually a client of his now. So we've got to spend a lot of time together and I thought, I really need to get Dusty on the podcast because he is. Just been through an amazing journey of making this transition that I just, uh, named and I'm gonna let him get into, get into all that.
[00:00:35] Dustin: But he and I actually met through StoryBrand and so speaking, you know, to the power of community and you just never know. We're in the circle, uh, group and someone tags me. 'cause Dusty had a question about his podcast. We had a conversation and we sort of immediately, uh, decided we should really work together.
[00:00:51] Dustin: And he was in our accelerator program and you know, things have, have. Gone on from there, and it's been an amazing journey. I've learned a ton from Dusty, and I'm excited for you to learn from him too. So, [00:01:00] dusty Holcomb, welcome to the podcast. Please, uh, take a few minutes, introduce yourself and let people know a little context about you and your story, and then we'll, we'll hop into it.
[00:01:09] Dusty: Thanks, Dustin. Like, I feel like I have a lot to live up to now, just with that, uh, with that intro, you know, it's, it's. It's such a pleasure to be here because it's such a journey to, you know, realize what is really important and who you are. And I was thinking earlier about like, when did my entrepreneurial journey start?
[00:01:28] Dusty: And I had to actually say, you know, it was probably when I was 11, when my brother and I had our first, uh, landscaping business. We had business cards and everything, and we got a contract. And I remember like as an 11-year-old, having. A one year contract was the coolest thing in the world. Uh, and, and I hadn't thought about that in years.
[00:01:45] Dusty: And then I had to think, oh, maybe I am cut out to be an entrepreneur. Maybe this is part of who I am. I, you know, I've had the
incredible privilege for my entire career to serve others. I got tucked under the wing of a retired colonel [00:02:00] when I was 22 years old. Who helped me understand what leadership is and what it isn't, and, and what he really helped me see was that leadership isn't about me.
[00:02:11] Dusty: In fact, he, he very clearly said, Hey, if you're focused on you, you're focused on the wrong thing. You know, your job is to take care of your soldiers. In this case, you know, it was our team members. It, for him, it was his soldiers take care of them. They'll take care of the mission. That's what enables you to be successful.
[00:02:28] Dusty: It's not about you. And I've been privileged and blessed my entire corporate career to focus on that. And my personal mission statement is to enable success in others. And that's what I did. I, I was in, uh, call center business, uh, in financial services. You know, at 23 years old, I was hired to run a call center and move it from Charlotte, North Carolina to a small town in eastern North Carolina.
[00:02:52] Dusty: I was the only employee. Now, there's no reason that they should have hired this 23-year-old kid to do [00:03:00] this and hire 350 people and start a culture and all this stuff. But I was a nerd and I was a learner, and that was just the progression that happened. From there, I fell in love with an organization at AAA where we helped people and every day when we went home, we knew that we were helping people.
[00:03:17] Dusty: I was serving others. I was orienting them towards our mission, our purpose as a company, and it was an incredible run. I did almost every job you can have there. I was, our CMO, our CDO, our, uh, COO, like all the Cs, mostly, you know. Mostly idiot jobs. Uh, but all focused on making sure that our people knew where we were going, why it mattered, and where they fit in.
[00:03:40] Dusty: And I left that after we were acquired, we went from being very lean and entrepreneurial. My last couple roles there, I'd been the guy that would take our businesses and scale them. So we would get an idea and then I would scale it up, uh, to, you know, a bigger deployment. And then we were
acquired by a much larger firm, which was great, but incredibly different to [00:04:00] go from 1500 employees.
[00:04:02] Dusty: And you know, you can do anything with a drop of a hat shift to, hey, we're gonna work with 10,000 employees and there's 250 staff attorneys and nothing changes. I had my moment when I was on a call with 269 other
people and realized after three hours. As a math nerd, I'm calculating the cost of call going.
[00:04:25] Dusty: This is not for me. Then I had the privilege to be, I was the CEO at Red Stake Fulfillment at a fast growth e-commerce logistics company. And when I exited that, I decided I would finally follow my call. Uh, for me, it's very faith driven, a purpose to serve others and help leadership not be so difficult, hard, or scary.
[00:04:46] Dustin: I love that. So yeah, so. There's a lot of through lines there and uh, and you know, I think a lot of people can relate to your journey, uh, through some sort of. Expertise, niche [00:05:00] expertise. I just finished an interview with, uh, Sam and her whole corporate career was in legal. And then, you know, like these stepping stones that in hindsight makes sense.
[00:05:09] Dustin: And so I can hear a lot of this through lines of, from being under the wing of a colonel, a retired colonel, into being thrown into sort of baptism by fire of like, Hey, go start a call center. It's not like something you'd ever done. And then aaa and then, you know, and tasting different. Versions of that, and then going to this, uh, high growth company in the e-comm space with fulfillment.
[00:05:29] Dustin: So what I really wanna focus on is this major leap that you made. It, it feels like a leap to me. Maybe it doesn't feel as much to you given your, your reflection of your 11-year-old self. But when did you leave the last CEO position and start Arcus group, which is your, your current business?
[00:05:46] Dusty: Yeah, I have had this in mind for years, like five or six years I left. Fred Stag in April of 2024, and about six months before I left, I had been thinking through what next would [00:06:00] look like. I didn't know if that was
gonna be 10 years, five years, a year, but I just knew that this was a calling. I was feeling very firmly to, you know, start my own leadership consulting business and I was having lunch with.
[00:06:13] Dusty: Uh, a person whose board I sit on, she runs a very large and successful, uh, electrical construction company, and I'm on her board and we were having a conversation. I said, you know, I think my next chapter will be helping CEOs and key executives, leaders, entrepreneurs, navigate the challenges of leadership.
[00:06:32] Dusty: I'm gonna start my own firm. And she literally came out of her seat and said, I will be your first client. Do that. And so when the day came
and I decided, you know, for me it was a reflection period, I had to step back and be very intentional and journal and you know, read and pray and like, is this what I want to do?
[00:06:52] Dusty: Because I could take the next phone call from the headhunter and go do the other CEO gig. But that wasn't where I felt [00:07:00] called. And you know, for most of my life I've been focused on the goal and I've been focused on being in charge, maybe even too much about grabbing the next role. And in this case, I felt like I needed to fully surrender.
[00:07:11] Dusty: And when someone, uh, like Bridget was able to help me realize, you know, there are, there is good work to be done and impact to be made, and people who want that. I'm gonna listen to that call. So for me, it was actually for the first time in my life, following that without trying to be in charge. And abject surrender is really, really hard.
[00:07:36] Dustin: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm curious. So that was, as we record this, you know, 16 months ago or something like that, but it was over a year ago. You had the initial calling and then sort of this affirmation or confirmation from Bridget and you're like, I guess this has legs. I'm gonna follow it. What was the what?
[00:07:56] Dustin: Tell us about the first sort of six months, like what was the original vision? [00:08:00] Did you get immediate at traction? Did you, were you doing like, uh, high paid consulting? I, because I, I know a lot more about your model today and what we're gonna get there, but I'm curious because I think a lot of people would find insight in this sort of abrupt change from corporate culture into the model today.
[00:08:16] Dustin: There's obviously a transition period, so I'd love to hear your early intentions and what really happened and sort of that, that journey through the first six, six to 12 months.
[00:08:24] Dusty: Yeah, it was so interesting. You know, you can only learn these things in hindsight, right. You know, I step back and I go, okay, I'm gonna do executive coaching. We're gonna have, I've never been wired to be a solopreneur. I'm gonna build a firm. We're gonna do this, and, and had a lot of great traction and. I had some clients come on board.
[00:08:43] Dusty: There were some bigger, uh, engagements and I, like for the first six months I would spent a lot of time engineering. I spent a lot of time building a really good mousetrap and then had to realize as I was doing some of
the work [00:09:00] and I had some really great mentors in my forum who kind of called me out and, 'cause I was frustrated going, you know, for the first time in.
[00:09:08] Dusty: Almost 30 years, I don't own the outcomes anymore. And if you're advising someone else on things they can do, you don't own those outcomes. And for me, that was pretty jarring. Like I honestly was like, I don't know if I like this, like I like coaching people. I love helping people, but I don't like it when they don't take action.
[00:09:28] Dusty: I don't like it.
[00:09:29] Dustin: And I can't fire him 'cause they're me. Right.
[00:09:31] Dusty: Yeah. So it was, it was, it was this navigation of, huh, is this really what I want to do? Is this the right thing? Am I in the right place? And somebody had told me when I started, you know, this entrepreneurial journey, they said, no, don't worry. Whatever you're doing today, it'll be different a year from now.
[00:09:48] Dusty: Don't fall in love with, with what you're doing. Fall in love with why you're doing it. And, and that was such great advice. Because I was, I, in hindsight, I was over-engineering everything. The amount of [00:10:00] calories I spent building a system that could scale to, you know, dozens of people before I had, you know, high single digit was insane, but I didn't know.
[00:10:12] Dusty: And then my forum got in my ear and really helped me understand, dusty, what you are as a builder. Are you building something? And I, I had to learn that, Dustin, it was really hard for me to go from being. An outcome owning leader who's responsible and accountable for business results to advising others and then realizing, you know what, I'm actually a builder.
[00:10:36] Dusty: Like that's what floats my boat. And I was so focused on, 'cause I've spent my entire career on scaling businesses or running businesses at scale, I honestly didn't know how to grow and really step back and go, oh, I, I need to be in growth mode, not scale mode. And that was this huge aha. That was only about, gosh, six, nine months ago when I sit here now and realize [00:11:00] that.
[00:11:00] Dusty: But it was the, the, the intent never changed. The why never changed. What I had to figure out was how and what my, how had to evolve, how I'm gonna do this, and what I'm gonna actually do. Had to shift and evolve,
and now I can focus on building something and then I can go, oh wait, these are outcomes I own.
[00:11:22] Dusty: I can help other leaders and I can create outcomes that matter.
[00:11:25] Dustin: That's awesome. So I wanna unpack some of this nomenclature. Uh, the summit for StoryBrand last year, uh, the theme was build growth scale, I think build growth scale. Yeah. Or. Build, grow scale. So anyway, that, that's what they said. And uh, but you just made a distinction, like you came outta the gates, like, I gotta scale something, right?
[00:11:44] Dustin: Like, which I think all of us would have that vision of what that means, like something big, kinda, you know, a big company, a quote unquote real company. Uh, something that could be considered a corporation or at some point. Um, but you said you, it required you in the how to [00:12:00] actually. Not do the scale thing, at least not yet, and go back to growth.
[00:12:04] Dustin: What's the distinction there in the way that you use those, use those words and how they affected you and this realization you had about, it sounds like about halfway through this journey from last year till present day.
[00:12:15] Dusty: Yeah, what it, what I realized is I was putting so much energy, effort, and time in architecting and engineering. A system, you know, it's so funny. We always need a coach, right? You, you, every great coach needs one because they can't see their own blind spots. And I often find myself laughing going, wait, I'm coaching something on something my coach just coached me on.
[00:12:36] Dustin: Yeah.
[00:12:37] Dusty: Uh, but you know what it was, is I would put a lot of effort and energy into building a product, building productizing, and which I love doing. All right, what are the 19 ways that this is gonna manifest downstream? And what is the right CRM and what is this gonna look like when 60 people are using it?
[00:12:53] Dusty: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All good things. In the meantime, I need to get the first one on it, [00:13:00] treat it as an MVP test and learn, iterate, and grow. And it just, it took an aha moment and you actually helped me
[00:13:07] Dustin: I was gonna say, I remember a conversation you and I had, so yeah, I, I wanna hear your recollection of this, so,
[00:13:12] Dusty: uh, it was, it was this, for me, scale was getting locked into the 17 steps as opposed to the next three that matter. And then going, oh, okay. Like what are the next three that matter? 'cause whatever it is I need to test and
learn. I need to rip off and duplicate. I need to actually get this in front of a customer and treat it as an MVP and not treat it as a productized perfect thing that now I've painted myself in a corner or about.
[00:13:42] Dusty: And, and, you know, as a, as a person who's, you know, running this with myself and a va, it's like. Wait a minute, I don't have, I don't have time and energy and resources to waste. I need to actually focus on, let's just go test this thing and see if it even works. 'cause it may be a terrible idea. I'm not [00:14:00] gonna know until I get in front of a customer.
[00:14:01] Dustin: Yep. I love that. So I think it'd be useful to talk about the business as it exists today, you know, uh, fall of 2025 as we're recording this. And then, uh, then maybe we can kind of go back and fill in the gap between when you had this realization from, I need to go MVP growth. Just fill the first
thing, um, and, and talk about that transition.
[00:14:21] Dustin: But I think for people to have context and the, like, what that has resulted in. Yeah. Tell us about what does, uh, Arcus group do? How do you deliver value today? What's, what's the type of clients that you serve?
We can get a little more into your model, lead generation, all that kind of stuff, but I'd love to just kind of in a snapshot, uh, what do you do at, at, at your business and who do you serve?
[00:14:41] Dusty: Yeah. What we do is we help high performing outcome owning leaders get focused on. What matters most so they can lead their teams more impactfully and like, that's a whole bunch of, you know. Alphabet soup. Let me tell you what it really means. Enabling leaders to make better decisions means they have decided in advance what's most [00:15:00] important, set clear expectations for their team, and created a culture of accountability.
[00:15:04] Dusty: And so that's what we do. And so today we're doing that through leadership cohorts. Leadership impact accelerators where we can help leaders walk through frameworks that we know work like frameworks that I've built and tested over my 25 plus years of executive leadership. We give them the time and space they need to install those frameworks.
[00:15:25] Dusty: And then we surround 'em with other like meed leaders who will question them and hold them accountable because that's the what great leaders do. Great leaders aren't looking there to, to be, right. They're looking for others to help figure out where they're missing, what, you know, what's going on, what's, you know, what is it they may not see.
[00:15:42] Dusty: So we, we've shifted from just doing, like I still do executive coaching and I do CEO mentoring where I am. Partnering with CEOs, helping them navigate the challenges. 'cause it's hard, unless you've been in the seat, it's really difficult. You just don't understand the loneliness and all the things. [00:16:00] So having someone who help, you know, call you on your own stuff and help you navigate, is incredibly important.
[00:16:06] Dusty: But what I found most rewarding is putting like-minded leaders in a room. And getting 'em focused on the right thing and then watching the magic happen where they sharpen each other and it is, uh, it's really, really cool to see these cohorts, uh, grow together and grow more impactfully as leaders.
[00:16:25] Dustin: Yeah. So menu of services, you still do executive coaching, which is maybe like version one vision of this. You're doing CEO mentoring, which is really specialized service because you have to have, had to have been in that seat, in your case, in a couple different organizations for an extended period of time.
[00:16:43] Dustin: And you have the coaching bone or coaching gene coaching, you know, um, ability to not only. Be a CEO, but then to be able to like advise CEOs and mentor CEOs, that's a, that's a whole different skillset. So you're doing that, I'm sure that's a. Higher ticket, one-on-one [00:17:00] service. But the core, and the thing you kinda lit up when you're talking about it, was this cohort.
[00:17:04] Dustin: And so, you know, cohort, group coaching, um, yeah. Explain, uh, what the structure of that is. Like how long is it? How many people are in it, what types of people are in it So people can kind of get a snapshot of the core of your business model. At least it's present day is a cohort-based group coaching program.
[00:17:20] Dustin: So tell us a little more about that specifically.
[00:17:22] Dusty: Yeah, the cohort base, we, we had two one's, the leadership impact accelerators, and these are for outcome O owning leaders. These are
principally gonna be entrepreneurs, founders or owners, key executives of the business. And you know, to be honest with you, Dustin, it's really fascinating. This is why I knew we, I was on the right path.
[00:17:41] Dusty: I had people in our most recent cohort who were solopreneurs. Then I have someone who's the general counsel of a company with 300,000 employees. The problems are exactly the same. The problems are exactly the same. It's how do we create impact through others? And so we put these, [00:18:00] these folks in a, in a group, in our impact accelerators, we walk through a a very intentional building curriculum that goes from leading yourself to leading your team.
[00:18:11] Dusty: To leading an organization. You know, I have a, I have a firm premise that in order to be an impactful leader of others, you have to lead yourself first, like full stop. If you're not willing to do that, you're gonna run into a wall because you're gonna be capped in your capability based on your, you know, your willingness to grow as a leader.
[00:18:30] Dusty: So that's what our leadership accelerator cohorts are. We run those for 12 weeks. They're intensive. And you know, we meet twice a week and it's both group coaching and individual coaching. One of the most valuable things that we've found in doing this is we also take these groups of 12 people and we break them into groups of three or four.
[00:18:50] Dusty: And so those become the accountability circles. And what's really cool about that is, and, and this is what I wanted to do, was create. Relationships that [00:19:00] lasted well beyond the end of that 12 weeks, and that has been really neat to see. We were wrapping up a cohort, you know, as we record this earlier today, and that was what kept coming up.
[00:19:10] Dusty: Oh my circle, we're gonna keep it in touch. And like they're got their own group chats going. Like, love that. That principally like the number one ask we hear from leaders in those groups is accountability. They want to be held accountable for what they've said they're going to do, because most of them are in organizations where they are the purveyor of accountability and it's really hard for them to be accountable to their team.
[00:19:37] Dusty: So they're looking for that. And that then goes into what, what we call our concilium, which is our, uh, mastermind type of group where it's a 12 month enduring relationship where we are a council. To help serve and support each other. Um, it's very different from working one-on-one with CEOs, but it's so much fun [00:20:00] because the ahas are like every single day.
[00:20:04] Dustin: Well, not coincidentally, uh, we have a very similar business model. I, I don't have to go through mine 'cause people listening to this are probably familiar with it. Same idea though. 12 week, 90 day cohorts. Um, in my case it's more of a marketing focus. We go through the, you know, podcast profits accelerator and then.
[00:20:20] Dustin: Then you're in our larger community. 'cause we've been doing this three years. We got a couple hundred people. Uh, and then, you know, some of those people go into our mastermind. And so Dusty's been through our accelerator. Uh, he is now in our mastermind. And, uh, as we record this, we'll be, we'll be hanging out soon in person at a retreat that, that I'm hosting and that's gonna be awesome.
[00:20:38] Dustin: And I'm in the, uh, the second cohort of his, of what he just described in his leadership accelerator, which is interesting because when I first met Dusty, I'm like, Hey, this is. He's obviously brilliant and I, I totally see how
he would like advise CEOs. And, you know, I, I thought this is for big companies, but as he mentioned in a given cohort there's [00:21:00] 300,000 person companies represented and they're solopreneurs represented.
[00:21:03] Dustin: I fall much closer to the, the latter. Um, and so I can share from my perspective. I was enthusiastic to jump into one of these cohorts as basically a solopreneur. I have one full-time employee and you know, several contractors. But that is, I do have to lead not only myself, I have to lead this small team and I don't have a ton of resources 'cause it's a small team and there aren't really a lot of deputies because it's like me and then these other folks.
[00:21:28] Dustin: Um. And I do wanna grow, right? And so it's like, what's the next right. Hire, because every hire I make is doubling my staff, right? So this, these are important decisions. And so even though it may be on the surface, I was like, you know, in my quote unquote leader, do I need leadership development? Um, one of the things I realized last year in this, in my own business is like.
[00:21:49] Dustin: Heck yeah, I do. Like, that's, that's the next chapter for me is like stepping into a leadership role, even if it's with a very small team. So, um, anyway, I, I thought people might appreciate the behind the [00:22:00] scenes of sort of like. You and I met through StoryBrand. The funny thing was, uh, dusty was like, connected with me because someone's like, oh, he's wanting to launch a podcast.
[00:22:09] Dustin: So they talked to, he talked to me and I'm like, that's cool, but you should really do guesting. And then he came over into our world. Um, but I'd love from your perspective, dusty, like, um, what has it meant to kind of come into the seven figure leap world and, and specifically you kind of made a, a gesture towards this, but.
[00:22:25] Dustin: I met you at a time where you were pretty deep, I think, into the scale mindset, and I know we had a conversation that sort of like within a week or two you had your first cohort full and you're like running and I'm like, this guy takes action. But there was something in that conversation or something at least, uh, proximate to that, that seemed to really make a shift for you.
[00:22:42] Dustin: So I, I love from your perspective, kind of what happened as we got into the work that we do with you.
[00:22:47] Dusty: Yeah, it was like there's, it was so fortuitous and such a blessing. You know, I, we, we met, I. We were connecting because I was launching a podcast and somebody said, you gotta meet this guy. And I went, huh? And then I [00:23:00] realized as we were talking, I'm like, wait a minute. I am trying to re-engineer what's already been built.
[00:23:06] Dusty: And anyone who's ever worked, uh, with me or for me knows that my favorite words are r and d. I love r and d, but that doesn't stand for research and development. It stands for ripoff and Duplicate. Like take what others do. Un understand it, engineer it, deconstruct it, and then execute it better than anybody else.
[00:23:26] Dusty: And the aha moment that I had when we were talking, and it was in a coaching session where you were helping me see. I was trying to trod path that had already been well trodden that the, the offering I had was a good concept though, that I thought it would land and would resonate. I knew it would make an impact, and what I needed to do was get out of this 17 steps down the highway road and just launch and learn.
[00:23:58] Dusty: And you actually had [00:24:00] a podcast episode, like how you filled your first cohort and I must've listened to it. I could probably repeat it, uh, at and went, okay, like, I can do this. Like I can take this concept. Make it uniquely mine for what I do. This is not my, you know, this is not Dustin's, why this is not Dustin's, how or what, but I can take the process and learn from it.
[00:24:25] Dusty: And, you know, I, we like very specifically spoke, had a coaching call on April 11th and on April 16th or 17th, I filled my first seat.
[00:24:36] Dustin: That's awesome.
[00:24:36] Dusty: And so for me, Dustin, it was. The ability to discern not all the steps that needed to be done, the right next step. To hit a target. And so I just drew put a line in the sand and said, all right, if I had to do this, how would I get it done?
[00:24:54] Dusty: What do I need to do? Which is funny because when I coach leaders, I'm always talking about the power of a [00:25:00] forcing function. If you only have seven minutes, don't say, well, I need more time. Give yourself seven pure focused minutes and you can solve a lot of problems. And so I forced myself down that path and haven't looked back.
[00:25:14] Dustin: Yep. That's amazing. Yeah, so sold out his first cohort, sold out a second cohort. Um, you know, we're, we're talking, you know. Right, right. Uh, in that point in time, and it's a really pivotal point in time and, you know, I'm 17 cohorts into the, the work that we do, but. The first one's super unique. And then the second one has its own sort of stressors and it, it's its own sort of, uh, you know, challenges I guess you could say.
[00:25:39] Dustin: But it's also, the momentum is really starts to build from there. 'cause you're really building a flywheel effect. You're growing a network of, uh, community, which allows you to then launch a mastermind. And there's like all this great stuff that comes, but I'm not gonna pretend that zero to one can be really challenging.
[00:25:56] Dustin: Almost everyone's initial inclination is looking [00:26:00] outside to be like, oh, how, what out there am I missing to be able to get my first cohort and really my, to boil it down? I think my advice to Dusty, what he heard in that podcast was like, you already have everything you need to fill the first cohort. You need to get off your ass and go do it.
[00:26:12] Dustin: It was sort of like. Like, don't worry about the scaled out version. Let, like what, what do, what resources do you already have to tap into? And then you heard within five days, I'm not taking credit for this, this is a reflection of Dusty's leadership and self-leadership. He is like started and then it was like the winds in our circle channel are like seat number one, seat number two, seat number four.
[00:26:31] Dustin: And uh, he was off to the races. So That's awesome. I appreciate you reflecting on that.
[00:26:37] Dusty: Let me, let me add one thing there. 'cause I think it's really important. If I and, and you, you said something that triggered. I didn't need to have the entire thing done before I started the first step, and like that's what I said, oh, I don't need to have 12 weeks of what I now know is like great rock solid, perfect [00:27:00] content delivered before I start.
[00:27:02] Dusty: And my mindset, I needed to have the master's degree program written before I started signing up students. And it was like, no, no, no, no. I can actually. Build this while I'm launching and that was just, that was the momentum I needed.
[00:27:16] Dustin: That's awesome. And that's a great forcing function. So if anyone's listening and they're like, Hey, I got this idea. I wanna do this thing. Go sell one. Commit to a date when you gotta deliver at least the first week. If it's in a group, you know, if it's in a, a, a format like this, uh, you'll get it done.
[00:27:30] Dustin: You'll get that first week done, and then by the second week when everyone's showing up on Zoom, you're gonna have something ready for them and it's gonna be a minimum viable version. Just let them in on it. Like, Hey guys, this is a founding group. Uh, you're co-creating this with me. I'm giving you my best V one.
[00:27:44] Dustin: I'm gonna refine it, and as I refine it, you're always gonna get the best version, right? Like you, I'm not, I'm not cheaping out on you, but I want this to be a co-creative process. That's a really powerful way to create a new program, launch a new offer. Uh, and yeah, Dusty's, uh, living proof of that. [00:28:00] Anything else about.
[00:28:01] Dustin: Your journey or the present business model that we, we kind of a gap we should fill before we move into sort of letting you teach us, uh, a leadership principle.
[00:28:10] Dusty: I think the, the, there's not a missing there, but I, I would reinforce, you know, just for anybody listening, the, the. Power of solving the client's right next problem. Like, like that's just gotta be the overarching burning thing. And you know, for me, my entire life has been around what is the problem the customer's trying to solve?
[00:28:30] Dusty: Let's solve that. And, you know, deep listening, even for my very first, uh, call, talking to someone going, what is it you really need? And you know, like that informed the product. Is it gonna be what everyone needs? No. But that just has to be an ever present burning passion and desire, because that's what allows you to iterate and, you know, not fall in love with your own cooking and go, okay, this is what the customer [00:29:00] needs.
[00:29:00] Dusty: Let's solve for that.
[00:29:01] Dustin: The right next problem. That's, yeah, that's, that's, uh, a keeper As far as a, a big takeaway here, uh, there's a lot of other cool stuff about Dusty, but, you know, maybe we'll do a, a more personal episode. But he's a, he's a five time Ironman, uh, has a whole cool business with like sport fishing. They're like, all this stuff.
[00:29:18] Dustin: I'm like. When I get dusty on the microphone, we're gonna talk about this stuff, but I, I think we should keep it towards, towards business today and, uh, we'll talk in person about some of these other cool adventures. Um, but I do want to give you the opportunity to, to teach us, right? And, you know, our audience, uh, you're in community with a lot of the people from the seven figure leap world.
[00:29:37] Dustin: Um, some people have, you know, we have $50 million businesses represented. We've got lots of seven figure businesses, but the majority of people are. Founders solopreneurs with small teams, or even like you and me, basically a, a one man show with, uh, one really amazing assistant. And so when people are in that situation, I think it, like, like I was, uh, they're a [00:30:00] little deaf to like, oh, leadership.
[00:30:01] Dustin: Yeah. That, like, I left that in the corporate world. I don't need that stuff in here. You know? Um, but you, you were talking to me as we were getting ready to prepare for this episode, and we talked about this idea of leadership. Is can be defined with these five core questions. I, I'd love for you to just walk us through those questions, kind of the premise, how this applies, even if you have a very small business as a solopreneur.
[00:30:24] Dustin: Um, and we'll, we'll take it from there.
[00:30:26] Dusty: Yeah, I'd love to. And I like the way you set that up because leadership. Is applicable, whether it's one or 300,000. And you know, I see that in our cohorts. You know, the problems are the same, the five core questions
that I believe every leader must be able to ask and answer of themselves and ensure can be answered when they're not in the room.
[00:30:51] Dusty: By any number of constituents, and we can get into that. 'cause that's super interesting to, to go there. There, there's five questions and they're, they're not [00:31:00] rocket science. And there's a great book, uh, from Admiral Bill McCraven, you know, wisdom of the Bullfrog. And he talks about, you know, leadership is simple but not easy.
[00:31:08] Dusty: Well, these are simple questions, but they're not easy because they take an incredible amount of intentionality at a lead self-leadership level and at a team leadership level. To ensure they're, they're done well. Question number one, why are we here? What's our purpose beyond making money? And when I was running large organizations.
[00:31:30] Dusty: People would say, why does that matter? People don't care about purpose. That's not true. People absolutely care about the purpose. Why are we here? Because if you don't, if if they don't, then they're performing a transaction and you will get transactional level outputs. But if they understand and they get it, and you as a leader take the time, effort, and energy to articulate it and cast it into the organization, you start to unlock discretionary [00:32:00] effort.
[00:32:00] Dusty: You get discretionary buy-in, you get all these extra elements that you can't pay for. 'cause people are choosing to do it. They're not having to do it. So question number one, why are we here? What's our purpose beyond making money? And you can, you can tell a great organization when the leader knows it, and the people can answer that question about it without that leader being in the room, it could be one other person.
[00:32:25] Dusty: Question number two, where are we going? I, it's so obvious, right? Like what's our vision? People want to know the amount of complaints I've heard from employees when I would do skip level meetings or town halls and like we don't know where we're going. Like, why does this matter? That is such a simple question, but it's so fundamental.
[00:32:46] Dusty: There's a Harvard study of, I don't know, maybe five or six years ago where they talked about 95% of the people in the organization don't know or understand the strategy of the company.
[00:32:56] Dustin: Oh my gosh.
[00:32:57] Dusty: Well, it makes sense in the big corporate world, but then [00:33:00] you have to, the inverse math is much more interesting. That means only 5% of the people in your business actually know what you're trying to accomplish and why you're trying to accomplish it.
[00:33:09] Dusty: And they're act actively helping you do it. Like, I can win if I can move that number to 50% or 60%. So where are we going? What's our, what's our vision? Uh, question number three, how are we gonna get there? And now we're starting to go from, you know, over the horizon, pie in the sky, kind of the compass stuff to, so what are we gonna do?
[00:33:33] Dustin: Yep.
[00:33:35] Dusty: And it is amazing to see companies like we would, uh, when I would do town hall meetings, I used to meet with every employee in the company. I would do 18 to 24 town hall meetings every quarter.
[00:33:47] Dustin: Wow. Okay.
[00:33:48] Dusty: they were, they were long, long days, but they were fun and people knew, Hey, when, when Dusty comes, he's always gonna talk about three things.
[00:33:55] Dusty: He's always gonna talk about our purpose, our vision, and our plan. What's our purpose, our vision, and our [00:34:00] plan. Those are the first three questions. Well, questions four and questions five are where most organizations really struggle. And Dustin, I think this applies if it's just one person, because if you can't answer these for yourself, like kind of got a an issue there.
[00:34:17] Dusty: But question number four, this is where companies really struggle and leaders really struggle at connecting dots for their team members. How do I fit in? How does my work matter? How does my work connect? Why does what I'm being asked to do have an impact? So if somebody's behind the scenes and they're in accounting or they're, you know, they're not actually delivering the service, selling the service, making the product, whatever it is, well, how does it matter?
[00:34:47] Dusty: They need to know that there's a great book by Patrick Lencioni. It used to be called The Three Signs of a Miserable Job. Now it's, they've retitled it. It's a little more pc, but he talks about that like [00:35:00] anonymity and immeasurability. Like if people just don't like they don't know
where they fit in, they don't know why they matter, then they're gonna be checked out.
[00:35:07] Dusty: So that's question number four. And the question number five is the one where I've gotten a lot of pushback from leaders over the years at surface level, and then it suddenly clicks, it's what's in it for me? And the surface level is, well, that's just about money. No, it's not about money. It's about opportunity.
[00:35:26] Dusty: It's about purpose. It's about impact. It's, you know, when someone, you know, I, my favorite interview question, and I do this now on podcasts actually, but my favorite job interview question when I was interviewing a candidate would be tell me at the end of the day, when you go home, what has to have happened in order for you to know that it was a good day. You get the most rich and rewarding answers, but what's in it for me? People need to have that. And sometimes it is money, sometimes it is the financial that's okay. Like this is a, that's what this world is built on, is the ability to, [00:36:00] you know, turn effort and energy into, you know, capitalistic endeavor. So those are the five questions, and what's really powerful is when those have been cast into an organization, whether it's one or 100,000, so many times the leader doesn't need to be in the room.
[00:36:17] Dusty: And I always used to say, Hey, when I'm tired of talking about it, then I know it's only starting to set in. And then when it echoes. That's when it's really landed. Those are the five questions and like I'd encourage anybody listening to answer those questions and then just go ask someone on their team, Hey, what's our purpose beyond making money?
[00:36:39] Dustin: Yeah, so I'm gonna read these back in the the note version that I took. So number one, why are we here? Purpose number two, where are we going, which is vision Number three is how are we gonna get there? That's the plan. And then four, how do I fit in? And then five is what's in it for me.
And I think what's really interesting, [00:37:00] especially with really all those, but especially the first three, um, would be posing those to your clients.
[00:37:06] Dustin: So if you have a, a higher touch, you know, sort of engagement, um, coaching, consulting, I think especially if you have a community, it'd be really interesting for me. Uh, it's a sort of like pull the seven figure league community as an example, which is all alumni of our core program and ask them like. Why are we here?
[00:37:23] Dustin: Like why are we in this community? You know, like what are we, where are we going as a community? How are we gonna get there? Um. You know, and then of course the, my one employee, but also my contractors who maybe feel they have a much more fractional impact on the work that we do. Um, I know there's, that's one of the reasons I'm working with Dusty.
[00:37:39] Dustin: Like I know there's a lot more clarity, not only for myself in answering these questions, but then as a leader to be conveying this out to my actual employees, my contract team, my family, uh, my clients, my community. I think there's a lot of applications. Maybe it's not quite as deep as it should be for someone who's like on your leadership team, but.
[00:37:59] Dustin: These are [00:38:00] super exposing questions, uh, when you're not in the room to kinda like guide the answers. Am I, am I barking up the right tree? As far as the different applications of this.
[00:38:07] Dusty: Yeah, you're a hundred percent nailing it. And think about it this way. If you're not in the room, is the person who's being asked to do something in the context of your business, going to make a decision with the same mindset and quality that you would make, and you optimize the answer to be yes, or you increase the likelihood, the fidelity of that answer by empowering them to be able to answer these questions.
[00:38:34] Dusty: They're in fact. That's the mark of a great leader is they don't a need to be in the room and they're not the best person to answer those questions, right? If you've given the people the answers to these questions and they can make better decisions, whether that's a vendor, whether it's a customer, whether it's a, a fractional employee, you know, you want them making good decisions, you want them making the best possible outcomes.
[00:38:57] Dusty: And you know, I've had cases where [00:39:00] I think the vendor is a really good one, where, you know. My values and what we were trying to do as a business was incongruent with the vendors, and we mutually chose to fire each other. It was not a good fit. Well, here's what we're trying to build. Here's what you want.
[00:39:14] Dusty: We're not on the same page. That's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. That's not a value statement. It's just a statement about our values. And it's just, it's just, it's really, really powerful, um, to simplify and decode and decide in advance what's most important.
[00:39:34] Dustin: So there's a loaded question we could do a whole interview on, but in a very summarized version, like. How do we do that? So I would assume step one is to actually have clarity for ourselves as the owner or the leader, that there are answers to these five questions and that we know what they are. Um, but you know, if we have a small team, for example, how do we convey this?
[00:39:55] Dustin: Like how do, how do, how should they know what our purpose, vision, and plan are?
[00:39:59] Dusty: [00:40:00] Yeah, first step, you're spot on. Answer for yourself. Second step, ask the question, build the relationship. Hey, I'm working on this. I'd love to know from where you sit, what do you think our purpose for existing as a company is? People will tell you, invite others into the conversation. You know, we have to be really careful, careful because sometimes questions could be seen as weapons and we're not doing it that way, right?
[00:40:23] Dusty: We're just asking the question because you know what? We might actually learn something and, and then we have teaching sessions. Hey, I'm gonna have a coffee session. This is what we're working on. I want to share with you our plan. I wanna share with you our vision. You know, I've started talking about, uh, my BAGA little bit more because A, it scares me to death.
[00:40:45] Dusty: And B, like I can't do it by myself, so I might as well tell others and they may be able to figure it out, but like, share the information. I think sometimes people want to hold onto things as if they, if by holding onto it, they're gonna make it better. it's not [00:41:00] that at all. So coffee sessions, lunch sessions, one-on-one sessions teaching.
[00:41:05] Dusty: And then the most important thing of, of, of anything is when you get into reinforcement mode is to connect every possible positive or negative behavior to the vision, to the plan, to the purpose, and go, Hey, I noticed this last week. This is what happened. It's incongruent with our purpose. I want to talk about it and I'm, we're, we're just gonna have a conversation about it.
[00:41:31] Dusty: But you can't let things slip. And then if you're, if it's great and if it's lying, man, you celebrate that from the rooftops. Like we recognize and reward behavior because those are the personification of what we believe. It has nothing to do with the words, has everything to do with the behaviors. So talk about it, teach it, learn about it, and then reward the behaviors you want.
[00:41:53] Dustin: I love that. And if you're. Team is empowered with this. They [00:42:00] can accurately answer these questions when you're not in the room. I, I gotta think a huge benefit of this that maybe is uncomfortable but super useful is accountability, right? It's like, oh, whenever I come to with this new bright idea, uh, my one key team member could be like, wait a second, Dustin, how does this align with the plan?
[00:42:16] Dustin: This is not like what we talked about last quarter or whatever, right? And it holds me accountable to. Re-articulate or back off of maybe some ideas that aren't in alignment with the purpose, vision, or plan that I've set for the company. Um, and maybe that's one of the reasons we're hesitant to do it, is it now becomes an accountability mirror that maybe, uh, we know will not ever reflect on us if no one knows what we're thinking inside our head.
[00:42:39] Dustin: But once we articulate it, we become accountable to it. Right?
[00:42:41] Dusty: Yeah, I, well, we could have an entire episode simply on accountability, but I'll just say this really shortly. Oftentimes we think about accountability as something we do to someone. And instead, accountability is honoring commitments. And so when someone calls you out and gives you that [00:43:00] accountability mirror, they are holding you accountable for commitment that you've made in the past.
[00:43:05] Dusty: And so all we're doing is honoring commitments. When we hold people accountable, we're asking them to honor the commitment they have made when they hold us accountable as leaders. And that certainly happens, you know, leadership up, we're, we're being held accountable for commitment we've made and, and we should as leaders invite that conversation because.
[00:43:24] Dusty: Hopefully they're gonna help us make better decisions.
[00:43:26] Dustin: Absolutely. Well. I, uh, I, I, well, I wouldn't consider myself a leadership junkie. Uh, since I've got to know Dusty, I've sort of become one. I'm, I'm really into this because it's sort of darn practical. It's so useful. Um, it helps you have a bigger impact in the world. It helps you have a, you know, you. Better income.
[00:43:45] Dustin: You know, these are all really important things for growing a business. And so Dusty, I'm super grateful that you've spent so much time with us and unpacked your story and this transition that you've been through
behind the scenes with your own business. I think a lot of us can relate to that and get a ton of value.
[00:43:58] Dustin: These five questions [00:44:00] are extremely rich. There's a lot, uh, there for us. You've given us some great action items on that front. Um, for those that want some more, you know, dusty in their life or they want to kind of take the next step here and start exploring some of these. Ideas in a deeper way. Where should people go next?
[00:44:15] Dusty: They can check us out@arcusgroup.com, A-R-C-Q-U-S group.com. And you know, one of the things that. I hate seeing is people when they feel stuck and they don't know where to turn. So we created a very simple, uh, leadership assessment so that people can kind of figure out where they may be stuck so you can focus your next best decision.
[00:44:35] Dusty: Right. You know, you helped me get unstuck, uh, just a few months ago. And so we have the leadership gap assessment.com and that's a tool where they can help get unstuck by identifying the places, holding them back.
[00:44:49] Dustin: Beautiful. Yeah, go take the assessment. I've taken it. It's awesome. So is it the leadership gap
[00:44:54] Dusty: Uh, it's leadership gap assessment.com.
[00:44:56] Dustin: Got it. Leadership gap assessment.com. And, uh, if you just want [00:45:00] more, um, more checking out Dusty's business model and, and checking out cohorts and those sort of things, acus group.com is a, is the other place to go.
[00:45:07] Dustin: But Dusty, uh, you're a gift to me man. I consider you, um, a huge who in my life, a huge resource, uh, someone I look up to a lot. Really grateful that we've connected, uh, as clients of each other and looking forward to continue to go deep in the mastermind experience that we share. Uh, so thanks so much for being here.
[00:45:23] Dustin: Thanks for being so open. And, uh, yeah, just thanks for being you.
[00:45:27] Dusty: Yeah, it's a privilege and an honor. I'm so glad that you're in my life.