Learn, Do, Share: Dennis Yu’s Mantra to Success

• Relationships are essential for your career, as they build power over time.
• If you are not discouraged by fails, you will eventually win.
• If you help enough people get what they want you will get everything you want.
• Success is something that you can feel in your heart.

1. Could you tell us more about yourself and your business? Where did the idea come from?

I’m just a search engineer. I was one of the first few people at Yahoo to learn about websites and SEO. We had the number one highest-trafficked website on the Internet, which gave us the opportunity to build lots of different tools.

I was thrilled to create value for a lot of people, even if they didn’t live in our hometown. We had 250 million users coming every week, and it was just a small team of ours, and we wanted to serve these people as best as we could imagine

I started Blitzmetrics and I helped other people start their agencies, and now there are a thousand agencies that we coach and they’re learning how to serve customers. There are so many different niches and tools that it’s impossible to be an expert in all of them. you share your knowledge, you will be able to trade with other people and build a quality network.

When I get to spend time with someone who’s amazing, I’m posting it across social media on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. I just love sharing what I’ve learned from other people. I’m there to observe, learn, and be a cheerleader. In the last few years, that’s basically what I’ve been doing. It’s a dream to be able to spend time with people I admire. And I feel the more I have these kinds of experiences, the more grateful I am, and the more I can share with other people.

I always honored mentors at every step of the way, too, and as a result, they have supported and uplifted me. You’ll go so much further when the people that you respect lift you up than boasting about your own achievements. And that is a lesson. I wish I had known this 30 years ago – it would’ve made a big difference in my life.

2. Tell us a little bit about your marketing process.

It’s always word-of-mouth marketing. In the world of the Internet, five-star reviews are increasingly important. But it’s just another manifestation of what has always been true before there was the Internet, which is reputation. When you have customers, they talk about you. Your customers do your marketing for you. The Internet has taught us that customer voices are stronger now than they were ever before. One bad review sometimes is enough to create a lot of damage to a company. So, it’s not about finding a particular marketing tactic—what really matters is that you have a core service and you work with your customers to take the best care of them so that other people can hear what those customers have to say.

3. As an entrepreneur, what are the top skills that one must have or possess?

The number one skill is your ability to communicate and build relationships, your ability to present persuasively. It doesn’t mean you have to be a public speaker or have perfect English, but it does mean you have to speak clearly. You must understand others culturally and have the kind of poise to build relationships online to be able to connect with people.

You could have all the technical skills in the world, but we know every few months those technical skills change. Tools are great, but they require an ongoing investment because they just keep eroding away. So, anybody at all stages of their career should focus on relationships. You also need to honor a mentor, be able to create value and have a service-based mindset. Essentially, you need to learn soft skills. It’s not as cool as learning a new tool, but relationships build power over time.

4. What is the one quote or mantra that you live by?

Oh, there are so many, but if I were to pick one, it’s “Learn, do, teach.” The idea is that whatever you’re doing, make sure you study from someone who has done that before. You learn it first, then you do it, and only once you’ve done it at least three times successfully, ideally more, then and only then, are you equipped to teach other people and provide them with advice.

The other is “If you don’t quit, you win.” When you fail, you just get back up. Every entrepreneur I know has had many failures. They just might not admit it, or you might not be aware of it, or you only see their success, but the fact is they worked for 10 or 15 years to get to the point where they are now. I’m very persistent so when I fail, I don’t get emotionally distraught. I know I fail all the time, so I try again. It’s as simple as every time I fail, I get back up. Just don’t quit. You will eventually win.

5. What’s the definition of success for you?

If you help enough people get what they want, you will get everything you want. You have to have an abundance mindset. You have to be able to give value and help other people often without any immediate exchange or return. 

I also think there’s nothing more important than your own health. In order for you to help other people, you have to be healthy. I think most people in their pursuit of success, which is usually this monetary kind of thing, neglect the most important things: their health and their family. For many, success is something that they can touch, but I think the true value is something that you can really feel in your heart.

6. Can you enlighten us about the challenges you have encountered in your journey and how you overcome them?

I’ve just made more mistakes than other people. A majority of the projects that I’ve done have failed. Fourteen years ago, I thought that HTML was going to become the new standard on the web, but that’s not the direction the industry went. There are some things you have control over, and some things you don’t. You see where there’s an opportunity, and you try your best to seize the opportunity but projects fail. That’s just the nature of testing. 

Learning comes from making mistakes and analyzing where you went wrong. That’s really where the growth and the insights are. Things that are important, take time. Usually, when you rush to try to get something done, you end up making mistakes and it costs you later, and it actually takes longer when you’re in a hurry, which is kind of counterintuitive. 

7. Are there times that you feel unmotivated? If so, how do you work around this?

If I’m not motivated, instead of trying to force myself into working (because you’re never going to be productive when you’re forcing yourself – your creative juices aren’t flowing correctly), I try to understand what might be going on. So, if you’re tired, rest, and take a nap. Maybe you’re hungry – go eat some food, or you’re lonely, go spend some time with your friends. It’s totally okay. 

The modern superhero entrepreneur’s idea that they work all the time and never sleep is ridiculous. People like me need to sleep eight hours a night; if I’m weak, I’m not as successful. Some of the most successful entrepreneurs that I know work just a couple of hours a day. It’s not how many hours you put in, it’s the impact you can make. What matters is being able to achieve the result, not how many hours you put in. 

8. What is the vision that you have set for yourself and how do you plan to get there?

I want to create a million jobs. I need to make enough money to be able to create the training programs and the apparatus, infrastructure, and software that’s necessary to be able to do that. The good news is we’re a quarter of the way there.

In my opinion, God has bestowed unique gifts upon each of us, and it would be unfortunate to waste them. If you have been given a skill by him, it is your responsibility to use it to assist others and generate income. There is no shame in earning money from a skill that you are blessed with. Personally, God has given me the ability to create jobs, and I feel privileged to have been born at the right time and place to excel in digital marketing. The more knowledge you share, the more you stand to gain in return.

Even though building a successful career requires hard work and commitment, you also need to care for your well-being and your loved ones. Having an abundance mindset, focused on helping others, will eventually provide you with everything you want.