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Ryan: I’m Dr. Ryan Debell. Welcome back to the Health Fit Business podcast. This is episode number 39 and in this episode Anthony and I share our experiences and what we have learned from early on when we originally started our businesses. Always trying to do things the free way or the cheapest way rather than investing in doing it the right way. I think early on this is something many people struggle with is not investing in the tools required to actually do the job well. So, learn from our experiences when we certainly made a lot of mistakes and we want to share those with you so that you can hopefully skip those mistakes and achieve the success that you want sooner and faster. So, without further ado let’s tune in to this episode of the podcast.
Ryan: Dr. Anthony Gustin welcome back to the Health…
Anthony: Welcome. Welcome to another episode of the Health Fit…
Ryan: Business…
Ryan and Anthony: podcast!
Anthony: I’m your co-host Dr. Anthony Gustin. This is…
Ryan: Dr. Ryan Debell, the other co-host of the podcast. This episode we are talking about as a business why you should buy the things that you need rather than always trying to find the cheap free way of doing something that’s critical to the success of your business.
Anthony: We learned this lesson the hard way.
Ryan: I’ve done that so many times and it’s better to just get the stuff that you need.
Anthony: Right. And so, what are some examples of this kind of flaws that we’re trying to talk about in this episode, Doctor?
Ryan: Okay. So, here’s a great example, one of a personal example from my own experiences. When I decided I wanted to start doing video blogging for the Movement Fix I… huh?
Anthony: Dot com?
Ryan: themovementfix.com I tried to use not a good camera. I bought the cheapest microphone I could get and the video quality was awful. The sound quality was awful. And I literally had to fight to return the microphone that I got because it was so bad. Because it was like a hundred dollars to get this wireless microphone and a good wireless microphone for videos like a wireless lapel mic is 5 or 600 dollars, okay, which when you’re starting out you know that’s a lot of money when you have not a lot of revenue just starting a business. But after the first microphone I went “Oh my gosh! Okay, fine. I’m just going to buy this 5 or $600 microphone!”
Anthony: I remember all of this stuff.
Ryan: And I’m like “Ahh…”
Anthony: You were just walking back and forth about all these things like “Guys I had returned it. I got a new one. Ah I just returned it.”
Ryan: Okay. First of all, that is a fatal flaw I had my whole life. Buying something… Having buyer’s remorse and then returning it. I’ve done that so many times I can’t even, not just in business but personally as well. Okay, anyways let’s not talk about Ryan’s weird behavior. So, my… Anyways, so I bought the good microphone and I bought a good camera and it turned out every video I made was high quality video high quality audio. Because if I’m going to be in the business of creating content I should do it… Having good equipment should not be something I don’t have for the sake of a couple hundred dollars. So, I get asked of this question a lot, which is really where this episode stemmed from where someone says, “Hey what’s the best cheap microphone I can buy for my videos?” And my answer is “There isn’t a good cheap microphone. There are good microphones and then there are cheap shitty microphones.” And I guess it’s a question of if you want to take your business seriously sometimes you have to invest in equipment that you don’t want to spend the money for but is required to do a good job. So, along the same lines I started doing a lot of videos with other people like someone I’ll travel around or colleagues. I would do a me plus another person in the video. And when I was still, you know, kind of thinking along like yeah you know just get along with what I have rather than getting what I need I would switch who’s wearing the lapel mic in the middle of the video and then I would cut the video and speed up the microphone passing transition and then someone commented on the video and like… Okay, you don’t read you know comments all the time but… So, someone commented on this YouTube video and they were like “Dude, will you just buy a second microphone?” I’m like… So, I said to the guy I was like “Well, these microphones are expensive” and he was like “Well, you should be figuring out how to make enough money on the back end so that it’s actually worth it for you to buy the second microphone.” So, this guy said this to me.
Anthony: I love this guy! We should have him on the podcast.
Ryan: Oh my gosh. Not he ended up being like mean on other things but… So, I said you know I’ll buy… I bought a second $600 lapel mic and then I figured out “Wait, how do I record both of this audio tracks in a one audio file?” So, then I had to buy $200 audio recorder called the Zoom. And now when I have two people in a video together and I want both people talking I have two $600 lapel mics hooked up into a $200 audio recorder and then like a nice camera and that might seem excessive but then when I make videos with other people it sounds great, it looks good. And if I’m going to be in the market with other people are making videos having the right equipment should not be a barrier like that shouldn’t be a competitive advantage for someone to have like just listenable audio or clear video.
Anthony: So, essentially, you’re investing upfront to avoid problems down the road. It’s essentially where it comes down to.
Ryan: Yeah. What am I going to do? Limp along? Limp along and like not make good stuff the way that it should just be made?
Anthony: Yeah. And I think that, no, it’s not completely necessary to go and spend thousands of dollars if you don’t need to.
Ryan: Right.
Anthony: It’s like in the beginning if you don’t have a habit of doing something just get into it and do it simply. And so, for an instance like go out and before you like think “Oh I’m going to be like Dr. Debell and I’m going to make thousands of videos and do this international superstar.”
Ryan: Oh my god. It’s ridiculous.
Anthony: Before you’ve done one video like go over record ten videos in your iPhone first to make sure that’s something you’re good at and you can do and then you can make a compelling content just to test it before you go spend your life savings on all this video equipment.
Ryan: Yeah. You don’t need to buy a $10,000 camera. And by the way, you’re first ten videos are going to suck. You’re not going to be good. It takes time to develop the skill. Except for Dr. Anthony Gustin because the first time we recorded videos together you were like “Oh that was my first time.” and I was like “What are you? What? You were so good.”
Anthony: I still had a lot to work.
Ryan: Yeah. Don’t go buy like, I didn’t go buy a $6,000 video camera. Like so don’t be excessive but get what you need.
Anthony: Correct. And so, this is not necessarily saying like “Go buy the most expensive stuff” because we’ve said before in our episodes speed is king. It’s like getting stuff out there is great so stop ruminating about decisions and think about this in a long term. So, if decision like now something is more expensive they will save you time and money later on than just go with that now. So, I’m not saying go get the most expensive shit. We’re saying thing about the downside of going cheap and then try to eliminate those so you can save time and have more resources as you progress. This is kind of analogous actually to my thoughts in nutrition and health and fitness.
Ryan: Okay.
Anthony: Like people who sit in awe in the grocery aisle about “Oh this is like 70 cents more to buy this broccoli or this thing” and like “Oh this gym membership is like $15 more.” You know what’s expensive? Diabetes and heart disease and cancer like that is expensive and even inconvenient. You know “Oh it’s so inconvenient to cook my food like it takes a lot of work and it’s expensive.” Yeah. You’re right but it’s more inconvenient to have to go to get a pacemaker put in or to have surgery and tumors. Like that’s more expensive to me. Not to be able to breathe because you know like emphysema and stuff ‘cause your lungs are shut. That stuff is expensive and inconvenient. So, think about this as a same thing like invest upfront to take care of problems long term. So, think about it.
Ryan: Yeah. So, and just for the record, there are wireless microphones that cost several thousand dollars. Those aren’t the ones I bought. I bought good one that wasn’t the cheapest.
Anthony: And your camera too it’s like… You use Sony?
Ryan: I use the Sony the Alpha 6300 which is around $1100 or $1200 camera.
Anthony: Yeah, right. But you could usually get like a Canon Cinema series.
Ryan: What? $1500 camera, right?
Anthony: Like that would be sick but for the platform people are bringing to now like no one would go…
Ryan: Yeah. No one would notice. No one would notice.
Anthony: The difference?
Ryan: Yeah.
Anthony: You use it the way you have and go for speed or just get whatever is good not this in between.
Ryan: Yeah. No one’s going to like “The difference between a $100 wireless mic and a $500 $600 wireless mic is huge.”
Anthony: $500 to $3000 mic?
Ryan: Not enough for YouTube videos and things like that. You know maybe falls in making a movie if I was a cinematographer like something like that would matter more.
Anthony: Yeah. Same thing with like nutrition. I mean I’d bring it back. It’s like you could get a 30-cent bag of chips or you could get you know like a $5 cut of meat or something or you could get like a $60 cut of meat. The second two option… The second of the three options not much difference but between the first and the second, huge.
Ryan: Exactly. What are some examples of from your business where you, this principle applied?
Anthony: I mean I do that all the time now. I used to sit and look at options forever.
Ryan: And always trying to be like a, trying to justify the cheapest purchase versus getting the one that really did the job but it was more.
Anthony: Yeah. So, like computers and I think what’s getting the mic set and recording them now. I was looking between different ones and it’s like “No whatever. This one has the best reviews. It has the best features. It’s like 40 dollars more than the other one. I’m just going to get that one.”
Ryan: Yeah. I mean you sound incredible.
Anthony: Thank you. It’s all the mic.
Ryan: You know what else we used to do with two was when we would hire virtual…
Anthony: Yeah…
Ryan: Always trying to… Yeah. But it’s a similar idea, you know. People are similar like you could hire the cheapest you know person to help you do a task but usually that reflects like their you know.
Anthony: Yeah. And so, like I was once trying to get people for like 30 cents an hour or something ridiculous and they were like… They did not work. Now I have superstars like Carmela for instance.
Ryan: Margo.
Anthony: Helps us out a lot. And we could get people way cheaper but she’s excellent. She just does great work and she’s very prompt like communication is great. So, we’re saving so much time and energy and effort and not like having to redo things or like revisit or retrain to just pay more upfront.
Ryan: Yeah. Another example would be a certain software like let’s say you know Adobe. Like having access to the software that you need to do things. So, like Adobe. How much is Adobe Creative Cloud? Like 50 bucks a month or something like that? Whereas before I’d be like I’ll try to find a free cheap way to do the same things using like this cheap software that really doesn’t you know do a good job, for instance versus… You know just pay the monthly thing to do the job.
Anthony: Like using canva.com or one of these free sites.
Ryan: To try to do like… I mean not that those are like bad for certain things but there are times when you just, you need access to the tools to get the job done. Alona actually went through this process recently as well. Someone who she’s been… So, she’s a nurse, my wife, and got into photography and wanted to pursue this business and she is looking at getting a camera. Like she wanted to just use my camera that I use for videos.
Anthony: Don’t think so long.
Ryan: Yeah, yeah. She doesn’t listen to this. Did I ever tell you the time when she asked me…? She asked me like what I blog about on the Movement Fix.
Anthony: Yeah, yeah.
Ryan: She’s like “What do you even… What do people do on your site?” I’m like “What are you talking about? You record so many of my videos. You don’t know what’s on there?” Anyways, so she ended up getting this like… What is this… Sony Alpha A7R S2 or something like that. You know a more expensive camera and then the lenses for those things are very expensive. But it made the quality of her work so much better that it ended up getting her more clients for photography. She could charge more because the quality of the product was higher and she paid it off fast. And you know not having the tools you need is… It’s like you don’t want to spend the money. I mean it’s not the definition of investing like you have to spend the money before it’s generating money from the investment.
Anthony: So, some people think of this as some kind of a chicken or egg philosophy for like if you never have the tools to get the job done, you’re never get the job done and use your tools more.
Ryan: Exactly. So, sometimes you have to take a little leap of faith. I mean when I first bought those microphones as I mentioned, that was kind of like a “Oh man!” You know that’s a lot of money for right now based on having just started a business but I don’t think, you know, if I didn’t have those tools who knows what the difference would have been over time if the audio quality wasn’t good, people can’t hear so they didn’t watch the video so people didn’t share it and those people didn’t share it and then those people didn’t share it and then blah blah blah, you know like et cetera et cetera. You actually do something similar to in some of your like actually the raw materials of some of your supplements, right? Like and I know this is true because we have like conversations about this where you could choose the cheapest raw ingredients in supplements and have a much higher profit margin but you don’t do that.
Anthony: No. I mean this goes back… I mean, this completely different topic I think because it’s just the effectiveness and having an aptly great product that I want to use.
Ryan: Yeah. I mean what’s on the…
Anthony: Don’t use cheap shits. It’s not worth it. That’s basically what we’re trying to say here.
Ryan: Whether that’s equipment, whether that’s employees or assistance or whatever.
Anthony: Yeah. Just just… So, I guess the COW, the Challenge of the Week here would be if you’re thinking about getting a tool to complete a job you don’t have to go crazy expensive but also don’t try to penny pinch to save. There’s a reason why things are cheap. If you want to be an international star like Dr. Debell…
Ryan: Oh my gosh.
Anthony: Invest in some tools that get the job done.
Ryan: And then use them to do a good job.
Anthony: Make sure it has a good return policy if you don’t use them.
Ryan: I think the other thing too before we close this one out is you will actually take what you’re doing more seriously when you have invested in the materials. Like if I was using cheap stuff I’d be like “Well, I didn’t really pay for this stuff so I don’t make a video this week. It doesn’t really matter.” But when you put money on the line, you’re actually committing and then “Sure I bought this expensive thing. I better freakin’ use it.”
Anthony: I have a good example on that even like personally so. I used to take a lot of photos with just this micro portrait camera which is like a cheaper version of a camera and the images are okay and they’re great for video. But I wanted to step into next level and I spent… Like I didn’t have like any money at this time and I spent like 3 to $4,000 in this camera so that… This giant Canon Full Frame camera. I had no real reason to do that but my photography skills after that point had an exponential growth ‘cause like you said I was more serious about it and I had to justify in retrospect to the purchase that I had made and use it. It’s like I improved my skills tremendously.
Ryan: And that actually is paid off in terms of business.
Anthony: Yeah. Big time! And now even like when I…
Ryan: Because you take some of your product photos, right?
Anthony: Yeah. And like even, well not anymore, but even like when I take photos now for Instagram.
Ryan: Yeah. They look so good.
Anthony: And I don’t even use my camera at that time. I can use iPhone camera and take way better photos because I had bought a more expensive camera in practice and got better at them.
Ryan: Yeah. You learned. So, that’s the Challenge of the Week. You also challenged me recently ‘cause as we mentioned… Was is this episode or last episode where I have a tendency to waffle as well about decisions…
Anthony: What was the challenge?
Ryan: Your challenge was this when I was thinking like “Ah should I use this or should I use this?” You said…
Anthony: Which is a big problem that sometimes you get hang up on.
Ryan: Yeah. I mean if I have one area, it’s that.
Anthony: We’ll tell a quick story here. It’s that Dr. Debell can go on for days sometimes even weeks at the time and it’s even like “This email client is seven dollars cheaper than this one. It has this feature but this one may have those features which I may need in like three years from now. But this one can maybe do that on my videos. Some other guys are using like this or maybe I don’t need it for that. And…”
Ryan: I think about weird things. I was, as a little tension as well, when I first got my, when I switched over to my iMac I almost considered returning it because the way the mouse with like the actual mouse scrolled on was like a different like acceleration and deceleration algorithm compared to Windows and feel like I couldn’t click this fast. I’m like, so I was looking for software solution to change the mouse scrolling algorithm. What?
Anthony: And I said “Ryan, are you getting more shit done or not?”
Ryan: And I’m like “No. Because I’m trying to change the mouse algo….” Why the hell do I do that? Anyways, we all have flaws.
Anthony: So, what was my challenge to you though?
Ryan: Your challenge was this when I’m trying to make a decision I’m not go say “Indecision. Indecision. Indecision” and then just choose one.
Anthony: Out loud.
Ryan: Yes. I do it out loud and then I save myself a lot of time and then nothing bad ends up happening.
Anthony: Indecision three times.
Ryan: Indecision three times out loud so I’m aware of what I’m doing. Make the decision and move on.
Anthony: Like when you’re trying to buy Sharpie pens?
Ryan: I was standing in the office supply aisle for 15 minutes trying to figure out which package of Sharpie pens to buy. I’m like…
Anthony: You could have recorded the whole other episode or whole Movement Fix Monday at that time.
Ryan: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Anyways, I’m getting better.
Anthony: Yeah, we are ramped on quite a bit here. So, we’ll leave you with that, the COW. Invest in some tools to get the job done.
Ryan: Alright. Get after it.
Anthony: Peace.
Ryan: Thank you guys for tuning in to this episode of the Health Fit Business podcast. If you found it helpful, please share with someone that you think it would also help and leave us a five-star rating on iTunes. Make sure also to go to healthfit.biz and sign up for the email notifications to which you can find right on the homepage so that you get all the updated podcasts and blog posts sent directly to you. Until then, we will see you next time.
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