I am Dustin Lyons, the Founder of M10 Marketing. I have been a serial entrepreneur most of my life. I have also been a climber most of my life which has given me many incredible experiences that have profound lessons. I have found many similarities between what it takes to climb rocks, ice, and big mountains, and being an entrepreneur. I respect and admire those with the spirit of exploration who choose the hard path and push through adversity to reach their goals, whether in climbing or in business. 

Throughout both my climbing career and business career, I have had a lot of opportunities, successes, failures, challenges, and lessons learned. I have started businesses and bought and sold businesses, some of them have succeeded and done well, and some have been epic failures. I have done a lot of things right, and I have made my share of mistakes. One of the key lessons I have learned through all of this experience is the importance of understanding and applying foundational principles. The mistakes and failures I have had can clearly be attributed to deviating away from those key principles that lead to success. 

M10 was actually born out of another company that I started years ago. I was working in an industry that did a lot of advertising, but I could see a lot of opportunities to do it much better. Most of the ads in this industry were the same, they focused on price rather than value and the experience. So I started a company that had a specific product that focused on marketing based on value rather than price. It worked well, but as we grew, it became clear that we had a lot more to offer our clients than just the initial marketing product we started with. 

This led to the company becoming a full-service marketing agency and re-branding as M10 Marketing Firm. We had some pretty good-sized clients with pretty nice marketing budgets. We did quite well taking the principles we knew and understood and applying them in all aspects of marketing and advertising for our clients. This created way better results and much more efficiency than they had experienced with other agencies. 

An example of this would be a client that started with an audit of their current marketing spend and efforts and putting together a recommended strategy. The resulting strategy allowed the client to reduce their marketing spend by 20% while increasing site traffic 1800% and leads by 800%. This resulted in them doubling sales over the previous year month after month. Pretty clear that the right principles make a huge difference. 

I sold most of the marketing agency and the other companies I was involved with to my partners. My partner rebranded the marketing agency and took it in a different direction, while I went off to climb some big mountains and pursue some passions. A lot of the mistakes I had made in both business and life caught up to me and I went through some very difficult times. I brought these difficulties on myself, and again I know that it was because I deviated from applying the principles that I knew to be true. 

Climbing a big mountain is full of challenges and so is life. It can be painful, scary, and very difficult, but going through these challenges is what shapes us, what helps us grow, and the rewards of getting through the difficult times are so valuable. With this in mind, I have relaunched M10 Marketing with a new focus on helping entrepreneurs and small businesses stay true to their passions and find their way to their business summit. M10 Marketing is for those who are brave enough to follow their passions, live their dreams, and weather the challenges of entrepreneurship. 

I am not seeking to create a big marketing agency for big clients with big inefficient budgets, I am passionate about helping small businesses, and entrepreneurs who may not have traditional business education or resources, but are driven by their dreams of owning and running their own destiny. Those who choose the freedom of working for themselves instead of a corporate master, those who know the path is difficult but choose to walk it anyway, those with a dream who just need the right help and guidance to reach the top. 

I have been through it myself, I am in the trenches along with you. I am dedicated to helping those who won’t trade a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage. Get in touch with me, I would love to learn more about you, your business, and what drives you. Talk soon!