The American Dream Revival Podcast with Hayley & Doug

Ep. 29: How we would invest $1000 if we were just starting out in business

• Hayley & Doug Johnson • Season 1 • Episode 29

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Are you willing to do whatever it takes to succeed in your business? 

In today's podcast we talk about, how we would invest $1,000 into a new business starting from 0! 

We've summarized years of experience and lessons learned from being a part of this online industry, and are putting it all out there to let you know what we would invest in and even what not to invest in. 

If you have the mentality that you will make it work, and there is no doubt in your mind you will do what it takes,  $1000 can change your life and the projection of your business. 


Let us know what you think of today's podcast episode. 

Get more information here: https://digitalincomefamily.com/ica-vsl-registration-dif-pod


Links mentioned in this episode: 

Subscribe to Hayley's Podcast "The Modern Housewife": https://www.youtube.com/@themodernhousewifepodcast

Get on our newsletter to be notified of all the details of our newest 5 day challenge for starting an online business: https://hayleypaigejohnson.com/newsletter

Join our free group: Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/239504614028385

Subscribe to Hayley’s business YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIn5xWylpHmG70iyLAfHcnA/featured

Latest episodes you might have missed…

Hitting 7 figures in courses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1x8w9HwLak&t=1s

0 followers 0 dollars to 20k/mo podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_ICSqx2AMw&t=64s

Passion vs profit podcast episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=394vEVR80Cs

Hayley Johnson:

Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. So today we're going to be doing a topic that I thought would be interesting because I know Doug and I are gonna have different opinions on this basically Douglas drink his canned coffee. It's long I told him as long as he's in slurping, just give me how we would invest $1,000 into a new business. We are starting from zero, like, what would we do with the money?

Doug Johnson:

I know a lot of what I would not do, for sure,

Hayley Johnson:

I have no idea what you're gonna say.

Doug Johnson:

I hear all this stuff that people spend it on. I'm excited for this one. Yeah,

Hayley Johnson:

but before we get into it, I have to interject because we have the free five day challenge. Look at

Doug Johnson:

Haley pawn a call to action.

Hayley Johnson:

I always forget, usually, I

Doug Johnson:

gotta come in here. And I always forget, this video is sponsored by me.

Hayley Johnson:

Anyways, in three days, we are kicking off our five day. Basically, I don't know the title yet. It's gonna be on the page, okay, but it's something like you know, make a full time living within 2023 starting from zero, something like that. Okay, clearly we do things right before we do them. So I'll leave the link down below to where you guys can join our private Facebook group. But basically in a nutshell, we mentioned it last week, it is five days JAM PACKED of all the information, not all of it. Okay, we'd have to be here for like years, but as much information we can condense into five video trainings. And then also we're gonna be going live in the group asking what am I saying? Answer your guys's questions for how to grow and go viral on social media, depending on whatever platform you're on how to launch your first digital product, how to choose and really niche down to a niche that's going to be most profitable, how to hit your goals. And so if you guys have like I said before, joined a challenge. This is brand new, totally different than before. We're going to touch on mindset, which some people hate Some people love, but it's like so necessary. And so if you're not making the money that you want to be making, I would definitely join.

Doug Johnson:

You got to take whatever steps you can, yeah, and your goals yet, like yeah, we're literally going to be in there. And I don't want to put it this way. But it's effectively going to be like five days of coaching. Yeah, you're gonna answer anything. But the answer is basically, yeah, happen. Yeah. And I think we're doing something special for that. Yes.

Hayley Johnson:

And so we're also doing a $500 Cash giveaway to one lucky winner. And so I could never put that name on and get spammed, but you know, like, it's like, to one person, the very end who completes all of the homework, which is so easy. It's like a couple questions, and you just post them underneath like the day's video training. And so one personal one that I'm also going to do three other prizes, I think you'll be able to win our courser free our coaching for free, and something else I haven't decided. So yeah, that all the details will be down below. And so you guys can just get on our email newsletter and be alerted into the group. And so we're so excited to help you guys out there. And I will not hold back. I'll send you guys loom responses of things as long as it takes a loom is like a video of me talking. And so I just really want to help you guys get value. And so yeah, we're excited for them. Yeah, that's gonna be a fun one. Yeah. And so anyways, okay, back to it. Okay, so how we would invest$1,000 Right now, if we were broke? Let's go.

Doug Johnson:

Okay, so am I supposed to be going first? Yeah. Okay, let me start off, was what I would not invest in. Because what I would not invest in is what 99% of people would go invest.

Hayley Johnson:

No idea what you're gonna say. Okay,

Doug Johnson:

the first thing people do like, I got $1,000 Do you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna go buy myself a domain. I'm gonna go 30 domains we talked about, I'm gonna go set up WordPress. I'm gonna go start making a site. Oh, yeah, I'm gonna start going. Any of logo means I'm gonna go get a logo. Me Home, man. I'm gonna go buy logos or dead. I'm gonna go buy website templates. No, you guys,

Hayley Johnson:

I did this back in 2014. So fun. Frustrating. That's what I didn't need it.

Doug Johnson:

I used to sit there with Haley's thing. And you'd have to drag things in a plugin daily dosa darvis. Darling, this is before you used to have drag and drop stuff like, you know, page makers and page builders that Doug was my coder. I was the code person to move

Hayley Johnson:

this thing. He's like, it's not that simple. Like,

Doug Johnson:

can you make this line a little bit thinner. And I'm just like, Oh my God, he's over there. The HTML is so annoying. But so that is what I would not invest my $1,000 in right now. Okay, that's a lot of times when people have a business idea. They're like, let me go buy my domain. Let me go put it like trademark on something and they spend like 300 bucks, the US Patent and Trademark Office to like trademark that name. Okay, or they'll buy a web like you haven't made a single graphic designer. What are the other like funny things that they do with with their money when they think they need to

Hayley Johnson:

start a business. They're like, they want to feel legit, LLC right away, you know, set up an LLC haven't made any money.

Doug Johnson:

You haven't done anything yet. You know, and technically, in some areas, you can write off money without having an LLC. So don't even worry about any of that stuff yet. Like you should be investing in something that you can actually use. Which I want to wait, I want to do it. Haley says first. I'm sure we're feeling what she's gonna say. But that makes sense, right? Don't invest in those things that you don't need. Yeah,

Hayley Johnson:

no, that's silly. I was reading a book. I only got through half and it's huge. I know always. It's called a million dollar. Oh my gosh. What is it called, I don't remember, I'll link it down below. It's so good. It's that one worry a million dollar business type of book. I can't remember. It's so good. I'll link it down below. But basically, he says in there that you should not do anything but focus on selling. So how can you get more sales and it doesn't matter if you got no audience and this doesn't matter what the business is, because people will spend so much time on their like prototype, it doesn't matter physical business, like physical products, digital products, and they'll spend so much time on like Doug says, websites, things that are just not getting sales. And so he's grown all these businesses. He's obviously way smarter than us. And every single business he starts for other people, and he's now an investor. He's like, Well, how many sales have you gotten? So sales, sales, sales, but anyways, that's what you should focus on. So but if I had$1,000, I'm gonna give you like my literal answer. Which is not like it's not like, really what you guys want. Okay? What do you think I'm gonna say,

Doug Johnson:

I have a feeling Haley's gonna say something like, pay $1,000 to a mentor or pay $1,000 to join a membership or group.

Hayley Johnson:

It's gonna be left. When I say it, you'll be like, Okay, so, okay, so if I had only $1,000 Get ready for it. I would go into debt.

Doug Johnson:

Oh, you know, I'd go into that, was it? That's a trick question. I

Hayley Johnson:

know. I just said as a trick. I'll give a trick question. And other hypothetical. My honest honest.

Doug Johnson:

I only had $1,000. Okay, we don't get 10,000 more.

Hayley Johnson:

I gotta give the real answer do Yeah. I you know, yeah, I you know, I'd say it and you'd know you do it to savage Haley. I'd

Doug Johnson:

be like, I'd spend that 1000 I'm getting a loan.

Hayley Johnson:

No, no, I'd spend $1,000. Let me tell you what I really did. Let me tell you what I really did. And then I'll tell you what I would do if like debt wasn't even in it like you couldn't do it. Like if I My hands were literally tied and there was no credit cards. Okay. Well, let's let's hear the credit card because I just have to I just have to be real. Okay. So back when I you know, in the last podcast episodes, were by the way you guys has a good answer. Not really is annoying to some people who like oh, she, I am a Dave Ramsey or you don't get it and I was too. Okay. So back in the day. I was Dave Ramsey. I remember I got the seven steps. Or was it 11? I don't know. Listen on the fridge written on up damn fridge still have it? I was like, and so anyways, I was like, beans and rice, like we only lived off of like 60 grand and which was like, yeah, so much money. We

Doug Johnson:

lived in LA.

Hayley Johnson:

Yeah, our rent was like 1800. And we had to do we lived off the beach in LA. Yeah. So this is like six years ago. And okay, so we didn't have much money. And then I quit my job to be home with my baby. We all know the Schpeel if you listen to me, but if you don't, I had around 12 months to figure out how I could replace my income 34 grand a year. And this is what I was trying to do YouTube. I was posting about anything. And so I literally didn't have any money. We were in $40,000 with student loan debt. What do we even have a savings account? Like no, we didn't even frickin like no, we had no savings we had his car broke down every other day than every other day like street sweeper just ticket tickets. I couldn't move it at all. Yeah, it was crazy. I was cooking our meal of life was Doug introduced us to me because he came from a family that didn't spend a lot of money at all. Rice. Pork. It's cheapest meat. Cream of mushroom soup on top bomb can green bean

Doug Johnson:

ba dude. Yeah, he wants it now.

Hayley Johnson:

I would eat it. So it's pretty good. I was like, if you're like hungry, but that was like the meal. And then, you know,

Doug Johnson:

I would go into my office early on them Ramen. Ramen. I had I was eating ramen one day at the office and the guy was like, you know, paycheck payday is coming. Right? And I was like, you know, I got to save money. Right? You don't want that? Ramsey, right.

Hayley Johnson:

My wife was. So anyways, we were very frugal. And then I was like, I can't, you know, let my baby go to daycare. So at that time didn't have any money. Doug bought me. You were always in it together. Because he sees my vision. I'm very passionate, obviously. And he has to go

Doug Johnson:

no other choice. Let's be real.

Hayley Johnson:

Me too. You guys don't even know I deal with Okay, he's a hobby. He doesn't know of another episode. Okay. He spent like 1000s on racing equipment. So I can't. Okay, so anyways, he bought me my first a lot of things. He bought me a DSLR on amazon store card. And the reason why I say it. Like, I don't want to encourage you guys to get into Debbie like, look at me, I got into credit card debt. You do it too, but I'm gonna be straight up real okay. And it changed my life. Being able to leverage credit card debt. Like it just depends on how you like, are you gonna quit? Like if you're gonna quit the No. If you're gonna make it no matter frickin what?

Doug Johnson:

Yes, it depends on who you are. What risk you're willing to take. Yeah, but if you're not willing to take the risk, like if you can't

Hayley Johnson:

work hard, and you're just gonna be down in the dumps, you just gonna be sitting on credit card debt. And so anyways, it was hard because I was a Dave Ramsey er, but I was like, am I going to just save my way like no, I had to make money and so in order to make money I had to compete on social media at the time was 2015 You didn't have a good iPhone iPhones were janky and so I needed because at the time was like blog or pic Sure icing on 2016 2015 photos were like everything flatlay shots all that so I had to compete and so I needed a good camera and so he got me the six D which we?

Doug Johnson:

Yeah, very first one.

Hayley Johnson:

Oh yeah, he's got he's with his money his work money and that was the very very first one back in the day and I don't know if you didn't buy on credit though who doesn't want that expensive that one was on credit to I don't even have the money for that. And then you bought the 16 which we were the best camera ever. It's like the only girls or five do but the five d mark three.

Doug Johnson:

Yeah, it was it was like the six D was like the non is like the non video high quality not not weather sealed version. Yeah, I got five days when I was new back then. Yeah, like it was a long time ago.

Hayley Johnson:

And then you bought me which is not necessary. But you had utter faith because I was like, working so hard. So you got me. The Mac computer, which is actually down there. Go to my Mac. Yeah. Which the kitchen is going on? It's like old you can't even tell them. I forgot I got all that stuff. Forgot we did that. Yeah. And so you're the first person to do it. And anyways, so just to give you guys a background, I know I'm going to answer the question if I literally couldn't in a minute. But like, honestly, I mean, still every entrepreneur that we have bought into their programs that make millions of dollars a million a month. They believe in investing in their business. It's only the average Joe's eight to fivers, which we were that, okay? That don't believe in investing in themselves. Now what is invested in themselves? Let's be straight up credit cards. Okay, so for anybody that's like, I can't invest because I don't have the money. It's like, how are you going to get the money? You're going to like, have an epiphany overnight? Or are you going to pay for someone to teach you how to do or pay for the camera that's actually going to make you compete on social media? You really think you're gonna get ahead by using a janky phone? Like, let's be self aware. Absolutely. Not. Razor No, back in the day or a non iPhone, those that don't have good quality?

Doug Johnson:

Yeah. And people

Hayley Johnson:

say, I agree are not compatible.

Doug Johnson:

They're not Instagrams are gonna, which sucks. Anyways, yes. So Haley's point here was, if you only have$1,000, you need to get more money, get into debt, to get the tools that you need to make it sorted.

Hayley Johnson:

Yeah. So you don't want to get wild. I never I never put like, Well, we start

Doug Johnson:

anywhere. Okay, we'll go back through there. Let me let me touch on a couple of points here too, that I'd go through. Okay. I agree, Haley, you need to buy the tools and the foundation that you need to do your business. And we'll get into the hard $1,000 limit in a second. Yes,

Hayley Johnson:

that'll be the worst. For me.

Doug Johnson:

Let me talk more about what I would not buy. Okay, because I love talking about people buying things on the wrong reasons. Because I here as the as the guy who like funnels all of our sales and funnels all of our applicants and stuff like that. I'm the guy that here's what people are doing. And sometimes you're just doing everything wrong. And so it's not a it's not a bad thing, because you'll you'll learn here from me to correct it, you know, but these are things I need to put out there. Okay. People put$1,000 into ADS. You're What do you run an ads for?

Hayley Johnson:

You know, often gotta get nailed. Yeah,

Doug Johnson:

you have no trust? No, no audience no value on anything. What are you running ads for a dumpster fire, I don't have a conversion rate with a potential return on investment already mapped out and written out. Like it's happened. Like it's happened. Like, if you don't have 1000 sales worth of proof to prove something, don't put money into ads for anything. And for the love of everything, do not buy followers or put ads into growing your audience. Because, like, it's ads are things that you do to scale. And to put more on top when you need more on like they say gasoline on Yeah, already fires on the fire that's already there. But you don't dump gasoline on a wet pile of rocks, okay? Like, you don't do that. So, so do not spend money on ads. Okay, and also do not spend money on things like rebrands or, you know, things that are visual and stuff like that

Hayley Johnson:

we have such a long list of what to do

Doug Johnson:

and so that so but those are really just for me, the two main things are do not spend money on things like domains and websites and, and email lists when you don't have any email or anything like that. And then don't spend any money on ads when you don't have something already working for ya. Okay, are you ready to get into a hard $1,000?

Hayley Johnson:

No, I'll try to teeter totter back. But if Okay, let's say I did like what I did

Doug Johnson:

I take notes and I'm gonna Haley's $1,000

Hayley Johnson:

It's not gonna be a lot, okay. But if I was where I was years ago, what I should have done is what years ago, it worked out, you know, it took longer than I would like, I mean, not really, I replace my full time income in around a year being a freelance UGC, content creator then next year, I did YouTube full time the next year Doug quit his job and went with me full time the next year we probably hit on six figures in YouTube stuff. Next year we quit it all because we hate it just getting we could at all because it was burning us out and I had to chase algorithms then we did courses. We've been able to hit seven figures. So anyways, that's it's worked out, but it's taken like a span of six years. Yeah. So like, you know, if I wanted it to go faster, what I should have done is yes bought the camera at the time nowadays it would be investing in the latest iPhone because it is the lifeblood of your business. And if you

Doug Johnson:

if you get like a new iPhone, a lot of times they're like, oh, 36 months, no interest, no interest payment. Let's

Hayley Johnson:

not show that. And they're already going like what's up? Yeah, yeah, no interest. We always did that. But yeah. So but

Doug Johnson:

then do you see, here's that thing that it's like$1,000 is like an iPhone, like 1300 bucks. But if you do the payment plan, it's like $33 a month. So there's your $33. So you have people like drams here. See that? Like that? $1,937. Okay, anyways,

Hayley Johnson:

okay, no. Okay, so, okay, I bought the camera, because that's necessary. So it just depends, like, if you're on if you're trying to do YouTube, you can totally do on your phone. Just totally, it really depends on the niche. So if you're just doing talking head videos, you could use the latest iPhone or the maybe the model below. But if you're trying to move around, the lighting is going to be shoddy. It's not always going to be perfectly lit. You just if you like have the mentality that I will freakin do it like I will like No, no doubt in my maybe there's a little doubt, one 1% But you're like, I'm not gonna quit like, not gonna quit. We'll do this no matter what. There's no failure. It's only if I quit. So you have to have that and say that to yourself all the time, then you just aren't scared about those purchases. Like for me, dude, I didn't have any money. wasn't making any money. But like that camera was my ticket. That camera has made me over seven figures that 60 So much money. You know, no regrets. So what else were we buying at the time website? Not necessary. But again, like I don't regret any

Doug Johnson:

of these branding, though. Like the situation the branding back then. 2015? Yeah, necessary.

Hayley Johnson:

websites were blogs were the Yeah. And I was getting traffic to it. It was getting what we paid. Yeah, you

Doug Johnson:

dropped like the big names. I mean, like everybody at the time was like, they want to be like gal meets glam. And

Hayley Johnson:

yeah, and that's what I was always telling Doug. That's why Doug knows. But I was getting clients by showing my website that was professionally designed for freelance work. So that mattered. I wanted a good looking domain. Good looking.

Doug Johnson:

What do they call as brand aesthetic website? Yeah, like your theme olio. And

Hayley Johnson:

your Yeah, everything had to look really? Yeah. And so it just depends on how you're making money. So you have to ask yourself, like, I just feel like if you guys sat down I know I'm preachy. But if you guys sat down or if I sat down anybody and was like, Well, if you're gonna lose your house and you had to do it well that's the steps you need to take. And that was always the mentality still the mentality that I have like if I was going to lose my house. Yeah, I need a website. Let's do it. Yeah, I need that camera. I have to have it like have to have it. So anyways, in a nutshell, if I had unlimited credit for right now camera, I would buy everything. Well, obviously you'd buy everything Yes, it wouldn't cost 50 grand it might cost me what what do you think 10 grand

Doug Johnson:

I would think like six see if you did like a payment plan into a mentor

Hayley Johnson:

but the problem is is I know a lot of you guys are like oh my husband would never I could never that's too much That's too risky. I don't believe in credit card. What about the interest? But our mentality Doug and eyes now is like do 10 grands nothing. Just make we could burn it and it wouldn't I know that's like shut like shutter super cringy Doug's gonna spend 10 grand on his race, but someone's got to say like, you have to run in circles of people online at least if they're not in your regular life that think of 10 grand is like$1,000 Yeah. $100 bucks. Yeah. So now yeah, like, are back then. 10 grand like, wow, our cars weren't even 10 grand. They're bringing down time. Couldn't afford anything. But now it's like, okay, it's a 10 grand course like, does it work? You know, is it is it

Doug Johnson:

good? Yeah. And but that's only because we've discovered how to make more money.

Hayley Johnson:

Yeah. Which you guys know, too though. Like, you guys have an old Go ahead.

Doug Johnson:

I was gonna say which leads me into what I would spend my $1,000 Okay, well,

Hayley Johnson:

I'm done. I guess I already got a comment the other day you never learned okay, I'm let him talk people.

Doug Johnson:

I'm gonna go I'm gonna you do your Spark Video. Somebody whoever's editing this video, maybe it's our assistant, I'm gonna put a screenshot of like, every nearly 75% Talking Doug 23 talks a lot when he wants a percent static area. You go okay, okay. If I were to be as real as possible with $1,000 This is what I would do. First, I wouldn't spend any of it right away. I would first do a mass ton of research online to find out what people are doing to make money the fastest. Okay, at times, this was things like copywriting and medical coding or like those things where people like that's more legitimate than like this app pays you to walk which you see ads for you know

Hayley Johnson:

what? Yeah, so they have ads like transcriber Yeah,

Doug Johnson:

so like fine and actual skill that anyone can do and I'm putting air quotes out there, find an actual skill that anyone can do. Okay, and then go find a course on like, Udemy or Skill Share, or Coursera, or something like that. And usually I don't like those places as a core seller. I don't like them because they control your price. And they can shut down your stuff anyways, long. Ramble there, okay. But if only I had$1,000, I'm going to find the thing that teaches me how to do something the fastest. And I'm going to use that skill. Whatever the difference is between the course and my$1,000, I put into whatever equipment I need to do the job, seal, spend it on information, information, information, and the only the essential thing that I need to do the do the job with the least amount of overhead and a leaf amount, at least amount of stuff needed. So for instance, copywriting is like an example. Or it could be, you know, whatever, let's say it's courses. Okay, well, what

Hayley Johnson:

would you do for that? Like,

Doug Johnson:

if I wanted to do a course, if you wanted to sell? I mean, yeah, if I, if I wanted to be able to sell a course in under $1,000. The only absolute thing I would need is like a computer. And if I already have a cat

Hayley Johnson:

take payments. When sorry, when you have something you take payments.

Doug Johnson:

You do but PayPal, you do PayPal for free. Like I tell people this and I'm straight up with people, like if you don't have the money and you really want to sell courses, you could do it for free. Technically, you could do it for free. And I'll explain to you guys a little bit how, and then I would use 100% of my $1,000 for a course or mentorship. Yeah, okay, because you can do and we're spilling all the secrets here. But really, it's a hassle to do for free. But you could do PayPal for payments, you could do Google Drive to host your course on. And then you could just do Facebook Messenger for your coaching. And then you're done. And you're ready. And we know people that do that. Yes, people do that. And you can make a ton of money doing that. But the the well, okay, go ahead. Well, I was just gonna say and then I would spend that $1,000 on some type of a mentorship or a membership program. Yeah, I could learn how to sell Yes. And it would not be how to do social media, it would be how to sell. Because, yeah, you know, I wouldn't learn Oh, no, we're not gonna take an Instagram course on how to make reals. I'm going to spend money on how to DM people to make money. Yeah, I'm going to spend money on how to, you know, reach out to people on LinkedIn to make money or how to craft a sale, or how to cut the sales page or how to do those kinds of things. I'm going to spend money on those things. I personally would rather spend my entire$1,000 on a single program that that that's reputable and covers a lot of stuff then do like five or six on Skillshare or Udemy.

Hayley Johnson:

Now nothing you should ever buys on those. I wouldn't

Doug Johnson:

really like if you're really strict on budget, and you don't have time, but that's the thing. If you don't have time, and the course looks like it outlines everything sure pay the pay the $7 or whatever. Okay, but no, I would rather go to a bonafide mentor that I can get input from as much as I can. She won't

Hayley Johnson:

get that for you will not get anything from anybody for 1000 It's hard. You won't talk to the person. No, no. Yeah. So I another thing as a side note that's slightly unrelated as epiphany that I had ever since joining higher ticket mastermind. So 5000 6000 and up is I pay now to get into those types of masterminds even like 18,000 20,000, because I like to see how they think. So a lot of you guys will just spend $1,000, like with Doug's method, which is totally fine. He's smart. And I like what he's saying. Obviously, my method is to go into that. But like, because it's not enough, like $1,000 Course not enough. No. And it's not as you'll just fail so much still. So an epiphany that I had as like a random side tangent, like probably ever since we started investing in these higher ticket masterminds anywhere from 5000 6000 all the way up to like 20,000 is that we now pay for the experience. Okay, so we pay to hear how people think about money. Like I was mentioning, I don't know if this podcast or the last one actually about money mentality and how that's like the whole it rules. Your business is how you perceive money, and it's worth. And so anyways, when Doug would say to spend $1,000 on like, a more higher ticket to some of you guys course that teaches you how to do courses. Like you're not going to talk to anybody, you're going to talk to the people that most likely aren't having success because there's only $1,000 program you're going to talk to so the coaches just know that we and it's not bad. Like we took our first course on a course from Melissa Griffin which I don't think she sells that anymore, but it was $1,000 it was worth it though. Yeah. And we learned how it works. Yeah, I learned how like the basics of thing, but we still failed a ton because we couldn't get direct feedback from people

Doug Johnson:

yes, it you know, we didn't get talked like peep some people expect to pay $1,000 And I get to hang out with Melissa Griffin like the whole time. No, that's not how this works. But when you when you start paying 20 or $25,000 a week out to talk to our mentor

Hayley Johnson:

weekly. Yeah. And he told us what to do. Yeah, how are messing up? Yeah. And he would like to shake his head at us. And so you just skip over years of failure when you do that. Like that's why we don't do the $1,000 course thing anymore. Even if I didn't have the money I wouldn't if I had this knowledge now because you just you skyrocket past everybody because you don't make years of mistakes.

Doug Johnson:

The true answer and I agree with Haley on this, the true answer is that if you only have $1,000 You need to get more money. And so you need to get a credit card or you need to do something like that. He does a great job. I did that. Yes. And that's what we did so because you need to pay for that. experience, because you don't want to spend three years piecing things together and feeling like just pony up the money. They'll tell you exactly what to do like you invest in college. It's ridiculous. We'll skip the three years of stuff. Yeah,

Hayley Johnson:

this is so annoying. We spent we don't even know how much we spent when we came out of college, a state school. So it's not even a lot but 40 grand worth of debt and ain't forgiven. So what the heck? Don't expect it to be no joy at all. No, we paid it off. So yeah, so we were in college debt. That's stupid didn't make us any money. It got us a job that like, okay, all the things we don't like about coming out with college debt. And yeah, so people are so excited to get into college. They're not excited. But they're like, of course, we must do it. It's like, I gotta go. Why would you not? Yeah. It's exciting. Like, honestly, it's weird. But and then once you're an adult, you're like, Oh, I no longer invest in myself, because that's too much. I'm like, you weren't saying that when you were dumb and like,

Doug Johnson:

but you were pumped to go learn about Greek mythology, but like, you won't spend a day to learn how to like build a business?

Hayley Johnson:

Yeah, or even 5000? Like or 1000 or or 500. Okay, I digress. Other things, too, that people spend on that, like, doesn't make them any money. Okay, there time to Okay, so but if I had 1000, so you did you would do a full course.

Doug Johnson:

Yeah, if I had$1,000, I would go the free course route. And I'd find the expertise that I really liked. Like, I take payment through PayPal, I You could set up pages like you have to kind of get a free websites to they have like Wix and other free things that you can do. free website, free PayPal, you'd find like an all in one course. That's how you find the all in one course that taught me how to sell and how to craft a course and how to deliver. So

Hayley Johnson:

why would you do a course? What do you like? Because this this whole idea is like, you know, if you would invest $1,000 in your business, like why wouldn't you do drop shipping? And you did Amazon FBA?

Doug Johnson:

Well, yeah, I did those things. But those things like, it doesn't give me skills, like I want to pay money for skills that apply to lots of other things. Yeah, you know, so like being able to take taking a course on on courses will teach me how to do sales pages and will teach me how to sell or teach me how to craft an offer. And that's knowledge and experience that like paying for drop shipping, drop shipping just teaches you how to drop ship. Yeah. And so like, that's why I wouldn't do that type. Of course, I wouldn't do a physical product of A to a physical product be the worst. People always use that we did not get started on Amazon FBA with$1,000. Just like the truth is I put everything on a credit card. We did that I literally put everything on a credit card for Amazon FBA. Like I had,

Hayley Johnson:

we always had the mentality that like, yeah, we're not going to make more money with no knowledge.

Doug Johnson:

And so what we ended up doing was he put everything on a credit card. And then he said to like, the products and everything, and then I ended up paying with with our money. $1,000. Like if we had that $1,000 I went to a course. Yeah, because you pay for knowledge. So yes, to answer your question, if I had $1,000, I would do all the bare minimum stuff for free. Like the tools and the project or the products and all this stuff that's in there. I do it all for free. And I'd pay to learn the skills that I need because the skills go to other things, too. Yeah. So that is Doug's response. Yes. It may not be a 997 course it might be 2497 courses. Yeah. Honestly, the real me real real me, I'd take a huge chance it'd be a huge gamble. Okay, I'd take I'd invest in a program where the more the monthly payments were$1,000.

Hayley Johnson:

And let's just lean in towards me. I would

Doug Johnson:

do but if I only had 1000 bucks, I pay it they'd be Oh, yeah. Okay, so it's, you know, it's, it's, you know, 12 months of $1,000. I'd be like, okay, cool. Here's my $1,000. Now I have to make $1,000 that month. Yeah, that's what I would do. Yeah. And then I can make another $1,000. Then I can make another half two. Yeah, that's the that's the honest. Yeah.

Hayley Johnson:

So this really leads into like, your spouse question. No, that's just how life is like. I mean, it's just our normal. I thought it was a savage. And Haley says, I'm just saying, no, no, no, no, that's good. That's okay. Good. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. People, like, look like to talk and listen to Doug because you're, like, logical, more logical than me. I'm like a dreamer. Yeah. But I'm not a dreamer. I'm very logical. I just believe that can happen. Anyway. So okay, so for what I would do is I would, well, if I had no knowledge, I do what Doug does. But if I had this knowledge, or if I just was obsessed with learning about, like, how to sell people courses, or how to do one to one mentorships I would get a Kajabi Okay, so what is Kajabi? It's like an email hoster email provider.

Doug Johnson:

Yeah, here's the thing. I would do everything free, but it would look janky Yeah, it'd be hard to piece together. I only do so much and can't be spending all this time putting things together. Okay. But if I had the time, if I had a little bit of money Kajabi what it does is it hosts your course. It does your email. It does websites, it is landing pages, and it processes sales for you. Yeah, so does everything like Oh, no 100 Something a month. Yeah. I mean, I mean, you cheaper than doing them separately. Yeah, way cheaper. It's like 119 or something a month. Um, if you guys want to try it we have like a 30 day free trial we do. But yeah, that's a good one.

Hayley Johnson:

So I'd get Kajabi I would probably nowadays you just my iPhone if I had only 1000 and like I could not go into debt because like you would kill me because I know I would try and convince like I was like okay, so which I did so yeah, iPhone like the latest iPhone I upgrade because that would shouldn't be too much per month more. What else would I get? Lashes? Lashes? Lashes right now for once in my life that would be a lot of money and risking$100 more a month. Just kidding. Okay, so something else that I would do is invest in my vibe. I know that this is my aesthetic. I know that this is not something that actually that's not true. Doug has a whole office. Yes, Doug has a whole office where he will look legit and you're gonna start posting videos people will see there's like a weird light strip that lights up and okay, but that's important. It's sick of caution it's like every man on YouTube has his light strip behind him a purple

Doug Johnson:

listen yeah purple. Yeah, for sure. It's purple to the light strip is dope. Okay reflects off the carbon fiber helmet.

Hayley Johnson:

Okay, so I would invest in making myself look professional and whatever that meant for my niche. So if I was a mommy YouTuber, I would make whatever background I had looked nicer, something that's more visually appealing for people. If I was specifically on YouTube or Instagram, whatever, I would try and update my home as best as I possibly could. That's what I did in 2015 I painted all the walls gray because it was hip at the time that was like you know remember gray walls were rough gray IKEA I know it was so hard to pink right Doug did it

Doug Johnson:

it was like super dark we're like oh my god it's like a dolphin in here is weird.

Hayley Johnson:

Hey gray walls and then everything I got from IKEA cheap white Facebook marketplace wasn't a thing actually. No, it was Craigslist. And so I tried my hardest to make this janky apartment like you know look visually appealing because it was a bookshelf sideways so we put half Yeah, I'll put some pictures but I tried my hardest to be interesting to people a lot of people will say my life is so boring I you know I don't put myself to put yourself together if that is required. Yeah, it's not always you can be Rajesh depends on the format. You know, put yourself together try to make your life visually appealing try like try to do whatever it takes. So I would spend the rest of my money doing that and then just posting like a savage been spending money on probably like a sales page template like Click Funnels or should probably show it's too expensive.

Doug Johnson:

Yeah, show to show it's decently expensive. Yeah, but yeah, click funnels. I probably you don't even you wouldn't need to do that though. If you have Kajabi. You could just use Oh, yeah, nevermind. I would I would do that. And maybe buy a Kajabi template to save you time.

Hayley Johnson:

But the thing is, like I know people will say well, I could do that I can make myself visually appealing or my background like this bird while I have with this peacock or what is the most expensive piece of wallpaper I've ever seen in my life. This giant sticker. Yeah. And we need better lighting. So it does you don't have to be perfect. Like look at me. You know? Like you don't have to be perfect. There's nothing cool in the Walsh's bird took me so ladies kind of janky today, but you got to you got to look like a little visually appealing, you know, to capture people's attention for when they scroll for three seconds. That's all you don't have to be a model. No, I'm not. This is

Doug Johnson:

the thing though. Like you have to invest in you and your trust level. Okay, whatever that trust level requires. So if that means I have to invest in a good camera to take good pictures because my aesthetic or my people care about pictures and that's what you have to invest. Yeah, it's really just competing in the marketplace. And you have to like, the thing is that when people find you and they look up to you and your brand, you can't have pictures of like random things. So it totally

Hayley Johnson:

depends. Totally depends look at like Aaron Azar. She's one of our old students for new YouTube printer and ICA actually, but she teaches people beginners how to run when I first saw her and it was some it's something I would tell her but if when we first saw her in our program, she was like just running like in a feels like we're like this is going nowhere. This YouTube channel now she's like massively successful TV. Now on TV. She's like, got a partnership with Burke's running shoes and like all these things, and she's just a regular mom of teaching people to begin to run with like comedy in there and so we didn't really know what was happening. I guess she's a regular now with Tik Tok and everything. You can be a regular person, but I'm just saying invest in whatever matches that trend. Okay, so for me, it's a peacock. Well, I'm just kidding. But like, you know, for me, it's like, that's just what I like girly kind of, you know, vibes and just just really for the Instagram feed. So I'm not sitting in front of a blank wall. And so that's important to me, because I do a lot of talking head but like for her. It was important for her to maybe she didn't have to invest in much so that it just it's niche dependent.

Doug Johnson:

Yeah. Well, I'm just what I'm saying is that when somebody shows up to your Instagram, and you're trying to be a professional, yeah,

Hayley Johnson:

you're trying but some a lot of people aren't always they're just entertaining and still selling.

Doug Johnson:

But if you're like yeah, authority, thrown him in authority, and most of our students are Are Yes, yeah. Then you need to look like someone trustworthy. You need to be unique. You can't have a garbage all over your room or something or that's happened. Yeah, it can't. It can't be stuff like that. But anyways, I think those are those are decent answers for spending $1,000 on a business here. I think I like my more my more things important to do things are like don't spend things on. Because people think they're missing out sourcing too fast is like a huge one. Yeah, people like trying to go out and like spend money on an assistant when you're like, you don't even have anything that you're doing. Yeah, yeah, stuff like that. I totally get that.

Hayley Johnson:

Yeah. But I think like that answered the question. I don't think this was very long, actually. Yeah. But I mean, there's something else I would really say too. It's just it really depends. And as far as like your spouse, I know, you guys are probably thinking in your head, I could never put that on credit card. And he told me to and the spouse is like, I hate that girl. You know, you have to have and I think I said this word too many times. It's funny and fettered some word. Yeah. unfettered faith in yourself. And even if you don't, you have to, you really have to fake it till you make it. Yeah. Because there's nothing. I mean, if you haven't had proof that you can do it, you have self doubt, no matter what, it's only when you make your first dollar. And it's funny, I was actually talking to like a close person in our life. And they were saying that their husband's an entrepreneur, and they just got married. And the woman was not an entrepreneur who worked eight to five her whole life never made a lot of money. He makes like $100,000 off Etsy, and he wants to invest 30 more $1,000 of their money into a new business. And she's like, What do I do? And I'm like, do he doesn't think like you at all? He doesn't think that 30 grands a lot because he's already made six figures. Yeah, yeah. So you have to start to adopt that mentality. Yeah. And so

Doug Johnson:

I think if we blended our answers together here, I think we'd have a pretty good answer. Okay, so we blend our answers together. And we basically say, Doug says, don't spend money on these things. And instead, try to try to bootstrap as many things together as you can I

Hayley Johnson:

like the whole, like, get your $1,000 into like a program. And then or a good program, Haley

Doug Johnson:

says, Get $1,000 in but take out a credit card for the rest of the program, and get a refund,

Hayley Johnson:

if you can't figure it out in two months. Yeah. Because you will figure it out if you don't.

Doug Johnson:

And I mean, that's what I tell people that when people when people come to me, and they're like, I want to join your guyses program, but I don't know if I can afford that payment plan, or whatever it is. And I break it down to them like, well, if you sold your product at just like $500, or two and a few dollars, you got four people to buy, like all of a sudden, you're hitting whatever metric you're hitting that you build had to sell, or to make your payments.

Hayley Johnson:

Yeah, I think a lot of people will have a down month or they won't make money they never have and then they will attach that to their self worth their identity. They'll say, Well, it didn't work last month. I'm like, Why do you have to attach any, you know, importance to it. Like you don't have to form a belief around something that you haven't done before? Or a down month? It's you know,

Doug Johnson:

it's a mindset thing, and I don't hate it. It's just that like, it's like logic is the answer to everything is that it is the mind. You know, I just want to give other people know, yeah, that's all. Well, yeah, I guess the other route is go into debt. Just kidding. No.

Hayley Johnson:

Just believe in yourself and okay to happen. Okay, we've got that challenge coming. Yes, we have the challenge. I'll leave the link down below. It's in three days, and we'll go into way more detail. I know I planned this out, because it's not really in three days. But yeah, I'll leave the link down below to where you guys can join it and potentially win the prize potentially when other things potentially

Doug Johnson:

change your life with what you're learning in the challenge and like the prizes things that you need to do

Hayley Johnson:

just kidding. Yeah, yeah. Thank you guys so much for watching. If you're still here and you like this, these types of chats, leave a review on Apple

Doug Johnson:

podcast that helps out a ton, obviously, like if you're on YouTube comments, subscribe. Typical stuff that's there.

Hayley Johnson:

And yeah, we'll see you in our next one. Bye, guys.