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Feeling overwhelmed by your family's daily grind and looking for a way out? Welcome to "Dig the Well," the podcast that empowers you to build the life you deserve. Your hosts Vikki and John are top earners at Neora. Vikki is a # 1 best-selling author and John is a retired Los Angeles Police Officer. Together they’ve navigated family challenges, raised successful kids, and achieved financial freedom.
In each episode of "Dig the Well," they dive deep into the strategies and mindsets that can help you break free from the constraints of the traditional 9-5 lifestyle. They understand the unique challenges faced by stay-at-home moms and families who are juggling multiple responsibilities and struggling to find balance. Their mission is to provide you with the tools and inspiration you need to create additional income, gain more family time, and ultimately, transform your life.
Throughout their journey, they’ve had the privilege of working with renowned figures like Jack Canfield and Jeff Olson, whose wisdom and insights have greatly influenced their path to success. They’ve also celebrated significant milestones, such as raising two valedictorian children and supporting their son, an Olympic weightlifter on Team USA. These experiences have equipped them with valuable knowledge and practical tips that they’re eager to share with you.
"Dig the Well" is more than just a podcast; it's a community of like-minded individuals who are committed to personal growth and financial independence. Whether you're worried about your family's financial security, longing for more quality time with your spouse, or simply seeking a way to reignite your passions, this podcast offers actionable insights and real-life stories that can help you achieve your goals.
Our mission is to inspire you with the belief that if we can do it, so can you. We want you to feel empowered, educated, and ready to take control of your future. By tuning in to "Dig the Well," you'll gain the confidence and knowledge needed to break free from the daily grind and create a life full of possibilities.
So, if you're ready to transform your family's future and discover the greatness within you, join us on this journey. Subscribe to "Dig the Well" and start building the life you deserve today!
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John:Ever wondered how you could turn your side hustle into a full time gig and spend more time together?
Vikki:Hi. I'm Vicky, a number one best selling author.
John:And I'm John, a retired Los Angeles police officer. Welcome to Dig the Well, where we help couples navigate the world of business.
Vikki:We've been married for 30 5 years, and because we built a successful side business, John retired 9 years earlier than he originally planned from the Los Angeles Police Department after 25 years on the job. Now we spend more time together, and we want to help couples like you do the same.
John:Join us as we help you overcome common obstacles, and we show you how to make extra income without sacrificing family time.
Vikki:Ready to dig deep and build your well? Let's get started.
John:Alright. Here we go. Today, we're gonna talk about and it's something we've been asked, many times. It's people who are interested in starting a business from home, running something from home, but they're not sure what, right? They're like trying to figure out what would be the perfect business for me, what would work.
John:And so Vik and I have come up with a list of things that we think are important, if you're considering doing something from home, running a side gig, side hustle from home.
Vikki:Yeah. Because don't forget our perspective. We were traditional business owners, so we've had a brick and mortar, and we've learned a lot. And we knew what didn't work. And a lot of times in business, that's as much important to know what doesn't work is what does work.
Vikki:Right? You need to know both. Right. So we knew what didn't work, what could be better in so many ways of that. Yeah.
Vikki:And this is what we've come up with. Yeah.
John:Yeah. For sure. And that's a good point that you make. It's not just all the all the attributes in the business, but what are some of the things that you wanna really avoid? There's a number of things that you do really wanna avoid.
Vikki:Right.
John:And we'll get into that anyhow. So one of the things we found that you wanna find something that's a consumable product. That's a line of of products that are used over and over and over again.
Vikki:Yeah. Because when we think back to our traditional business, which you've heard about is car stereo, alarm, car covers, you know, you name it. Well, most people are not replacing their car stereo every month. Right?
John:Right.
Vikki:So we might have a sale from 1 customer, 1 you know, that one time, and it might be a year or longer before they come back to us. Right?
John:So we
Vikki:saw the value in having something that people use, something consumable. They use it and use it up and need to buy it again and again and again. That that repeat business, book of business is huge.
John:Right. So that makes it really important that, whatever this company is, whatever the product is that they're manufacturing or selling and what you're selling is that it's quality. Right? So that it and there's value. So if you're not gonna have that repeat business, if you're not selling something that has that's good quality and that has value for the consumer.
Vikki:Yeah. And solves a problem for them.
John:Yeah. Yeah. And and one of the things that we also look for is that the product has some sort of exclusivity. So it, patents are great. Right?
John:Patents but a patent is a piece of paper, and it doesn't mean the product's not gonna get copied. It's just not going to be legally copied. Tell you what, go to any swap me, any any kind of place like that, and you'll find a ton of counterfeit Rolex watches. And how about, handbags, designer handbags? In fact, they say most of what's being sold is not genuine product in most at most places.
John:And, and it certainly if it sounds like it's a good deal, it definitely is going to be counterfeit. So you know that Rolex has has patents on all their watches, yet they're still being copied left and right because it's easy to copy. It's easy to copy a watch. It's easy to copy a handbag. So you wanna look for a product that has some barrier of entry, something that while it's it's patented, it's illegal for them to copy, but it's nearly impossible for them to copy or at least to copy and try and make any money on that copy.
John:So that barrier of entry could be just difficult or could be just costly for them. It it could just be just too much money for them to to copy, so they won't.
Vikki:Right. Right. Those are huge. And, honestly, most people never think about any of that. Yeah.
John:Yeah. But it's important for your for your long term success.
Vikki:Right.
John:But for product lines with proven results. Right? Yeah. 3rd party clinical trials.
Vikki:Right. Yeah. Exactly. That have proof of concept, basically, too. Right.
Vikki:As well as the science behind it and
John:yeah. Because we found that if you're trying to break into that, there's less work for you to do. Right? Because those results have been proven. It's been proven by a third party, someone other than you.
John:You're not trying to convince someone that, hey. This this Hyundai is their best car ever made. But if Hyundai's really were the best car ever made, there would be other people talking about that, and they wouldn't you wouldn't have to be explaining it. Not saying that they are or they aren't. I'm just using them.
John:That was the first We're not
Vikki:bashing anybody.
John:Yeah. What you also wanna find is a business that doesn't require you to have inventory. You don't wanna have to fill your garage so that it's called garage qualified. Right? So in order for you to qualify to get paid this month, you have to buy personally a whole bunch of stuff and then store it in your garage.
Vikki:Right.
John:And we've been involved in other businesses like that. Currently, if you come come out to our house and look in our garage, there's not the with the company we're at right now, there's not a single product in there in the garage.
Vikki:Not at
John:all. Have to do that.
Vikki:And, again, what I always wanna go back to Prestige, we had to get a loan. We had to get a loan for our inventory. Remember that? We got a small business loan. Wasn't it Wells Fargo?
John:Well, we would have to take take out different lines of credit whenever we need because Exactly. In order to to, establish a decent, price on some of the items that we were we were selling, we would have to buy in bulk. Right? And to buy or at least sign an agreement that we're going to buy quite a bit of the product, and then we're stuck with this inventory. And that's costly if that inventory is just sitting on the shelves.
Vikki:And it would. Like, I know there's people in the fashion industry. Think about you have to have all these different sizes. You know, if you're, in the fashion industry, we have the car bras, and that was back in the day when there were car bras. But car covers, remember we had so many of those Wolf covers that they were, all the different types, but they were the non popular ones wouldn't sell, but we had it on our shelf.
Vikki:So that's huge to find a place where you don't have to have inventory. It ships directly from the manufacturer, right, to the end user. Brilliant. Brilliant.
John:Yeah. And it's easier, I think, now because of the Internet. Back when we've, you know gosh. We've talked about how long we've had our our businesses, and we started in the eighties. 19 eighties.
Vikki:Right? Eighties. But it was late.
John:Yeah. But at that point, we didn't have, the Internet, so people couldn't just log on just from their computer, from their tablet, from their phone, and place an order. They had to call on the phone and place the order with us or come in person into our store and place the order. And even the credit cards, if we take credit cards, we had to pay for that. We had to pay a percentage, and we had to pay a monthly fee to have a merchant account with, I don't remember what bank it was, but one of the major banks, and then we had that machine where it slides across the card, and you had the little weird little strip of Yeah.
Vikki:Seat. NCR paper underneath. Right? Or was it carbon?
John:It was carbon.
Vikki:It was carbon. Oh my gosh.
John:Then then it went to NCR. It was like, oh, we're really moving forward here.
Vikki:We're really dating ourselves.
John:Yeah. So that the business that we're saying is then you don't wanna have to stock inventory, and you don't want to have to pay any kind of credit card fees that should be handled by the company you're dealing with. You individually shouldn't have to have a merchant account. You shouldn't have to use Square. I think is Square?
Vikki:I don't know. Yeah. I think they're still around. A lot of people most people use in PayPal.
John:PayPal, Venmo. Yeah. But you but to have those accounts, it's a business account, and you'll have to pay. Mhmm. You shouldn't have to, and that's one of the things that we're big on.
John:Yeah. Business overhead.
Vikki:Right. Oh, man.
John:Do we have there?
Vikki:Goodness. So our shop back in the day, easily 5,000 a month, wasn't it?
John:Oh, it was way more than that. Way more than that.
Vikki:Yeah. The shop itself and then, all the workers' comp, and we had the other insurance, right, and all the payroll taxes.
John:Just that portion of it alone, I had figured out how much money we needed to bring in every day just to break even on that on the those overhead items, and it was about $1,000 a day that we needed to bring in just so we could break even.
Vikki:It's crazy. It's crazy. So with certain businesses, online businesses, you don't have that. And in fact, part of your home can be written off. See your tax professional about it.
Vikki:But, right, part of that, your home office can be written off your taxes. Wow. Amazing. So
John:yeah. No quotas, hidden fees. That's one of the gotchas in even in the industry that we're that we're in, and we've found a lot of success in what we're doing. And that's why we're still doing it, but 12 years later. And it's because the company that we work with is very professional and they've kind of taken all those gotchas away.
John:So we don't have hidden fees. We don't have, like a lot of them have an annual fee. So if you wanna stay involved, you have to pay every year a fee just to be a part of it, or we don't even have that.
Vikki:Right. Yeah. So no quota and no amount that you have to sell. I know I was part of a direct sales company. You know, once John became a police officer.
Vikki:I did that, on my own, and you had to sell $500 a month as just a consultant to or to get paid at all. 500 to get paid. If you didn't, if it was just hobby level, you really weren't you weren't getting paid. As a leader, you had to sell 1200 to get your leader pay. So watch out for that.
Vikki:That shouldn't be in place. There shouldn't be any quotas.
John:Your your
Vikki:product should be so good that people want it that the owners don't feel the need to make a quota out there to put a quota on you.
John:Yeah. To me, whenever I see that quota or see something like that in that quota, it just tells me that the company itself who's making this doesn't have faith in their own product because if their product worked and there was what did I say? Right? It was they had value to the consumer. It's gonna sell.
John:They don't need to set a quota. And all that quota is gonna do is make you garage qualified because you're gonna wanna get paid. You're gonna wanna get paid on the work that you did. So in order to hit that 500 or the $1200 that Vicky was just talking about and you're $400 short, guess what? $400 worth of that product is gonna be sitting on a shelf in your garage.
John:Yeah. And before long, your cars won't be in the garage. It'll be all product.
Vikki:Yeah. And they also allowed gift certificates. So you didn't even know, but I would have a stack of gift certificates. Because every once in a while, oh, I need $20 more or a $100 more. Heaven forbid, but I did it.
Vikki:Totally. You know, I didn't even tell you that.
John:That's funny. Another thing too is great about this this this type of business is there's no experience required. And in fact, probably the less experience you have, the better, because there's already systems in place. At least with the company we deal with, there are really great systems in place that all we need to do is just plug into and just be a product of that system. Now, if we had a whole bunch of prior knowledge, we're gonna say, I can do it better.
John:I know I I this is pretty good, but I think I'll put my twist on it and do it a little better. And has that ever worked?
Vikki:No. No. Because usually the people that have been doing it longer than you have tried what you your brilliant idea is, and they found out it doesn't work, and they can guide you and help you, you know, avoid doing that.
John:You know what I mean?
Vikki:So, yeah, no experience required. I love that.
John:Yeah. And if you and and these systems are are set are set up for you to be successful. Let's face it. Right? So the company is not gonna put together a system for you to follow that is not going to to help you to be successful because the more successful you are, obviously, you're selling more of their product or at least more of the their product is going through your business, whether you're personally selling it or someone in your business is selling it.
John:So it just moves more product. So, of course, they want you to be as successful as you can possibly be with this little amount of work and and headache on your end. That's why they have the system, and it is a success system for success for sure. And, you
Vikki:know, I wanna tack onto that that we didn't touch on yet, and that is the fact that we've been blessed. We've been a part of a couple companies that had systems, whether it was a a robust system like the company we're with now, or it was a mediocre one like what I've been with, but it had something. Well, I've networked with a lot of people in a lot of different businesses, and they don't have a system at all. Wow. They Yeah.
Vikki:They just send their people out to figure it out on their own. If they wanna build organizations, those leaders have to create a system for themselves. So what you have is a lot of rogue people creating these random systems. Nobody's on the same page unless you're on that person's team. And so if you weren't blessed to have a kind of a natural born leader as part of your mentorship, you're out of luck.
Vikki:It's it's really difficult.
John:That's a really good point. So yeah. So whatever you're looking at, just make sure that it has a system, and it's a good system, and really look into it and see see how it is. And then the other thing you wanna see is that they have successful mentors to help you. And a mentor is a mentor, but you want to see who they really are.
John:Right? Right. Right.
Vikki:Yeah. You don't wanna follow somebody that isn't where you wanna be. Exactly.
John:You know, we talk about that
Vikki:a lot. Like, would you if you're thinking about starting a business, are you gonna ask somebody that's already successful where you where you wanna be someday? Yes. Of course. Or would you ask broke uncle Bob?
Vikki:We joke about that. Don't ask broke uncle Bob his opinion of this business you're looking at because chances are, he knows nothing about the business, but he also isn't where you wanna be. That's the more important part.
John:Right. And and one of the things we've talked about, quite a bit is, you see, everyone's a coach. Right? Everyone's a business coach and a life coach and a this coach or that coach, and some of them are very good. A lot of them are are excellent.
John:But there are some that we've seen that are life coaches that wanna that wanna teach people what they need to do to have the most that they have in life. And I'll tell you, we know some of them, and we know what their life is outside of what they present themselves to be. We know where they live. We know the cars they drive, and that is nothing like what we want. Yeah.
John:Exactly. We look at that, and we think, wow.
Vikki:I know. I feel bad for the people they're coaching. I really do. But chances are the people they're coaching haven't done their due diligence to make sure, okay. Is this somebody I wanna follow?
Vikki:Is are they living the life I want?
John:Yeah. So that's the the other thing I was gonna say was whatever business you're looking at, and they're saying we have mentors that help you make sure these mentors are are successful people, and they're good people. They're quality people. They're people that are like minded. Right?
John:You wanna you really want to tie in with someone and kinda lock arms with someone who has your same beliefs and Ethics. Yeah. And ethics. And really, hopefully, you can hopefully, you can tell if they really do care about your success and your family's well-being.
Vikki:Yeah. And would you have them watch your kids or your grandkids for that matter? You know, it's gotta be they've gotta be that good of a person in my our opinion.
John:Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. And another big part of of what we do is personal development.
John:Right? So personal development should be a part of any business you do, even if it's just on your job, because you don't want to be stagnant, right? Either you're going to develop and be better or you're going to decline and be worse. And so I think personal development is overlooked in most workplaces. And I think if employers cared about their employees more and cared about their employees, job output, I think that they would focus a little bit more on personal development because it makes people just better people.
John:It makes them better at work. It makes them better family people, makes them a better husband, makes them a better wife, makes them better parents. The personal development is, just can't be over overstated.
Vikki:Right. Yeah. It's like number 1 up there. I agree. I saw a reel recently.
Vikki:Actually, I think I did I copied the person that did it, and it said evolve or repeat. You know? And how are you gonna evolve if you're not reading personal development, if you're not listening to a great podcast, reading a great book? It's you're just gonna kinda repeat what was modeled for you growing up. And in a lot of cases, that's not where you wanna be.
Vikki:You you already know that, so you wanna evolve. So personal development should be, in the fabric of this business that you're starting.
John:Right. Right. It really does need to be one of the pillars. And, you know, we work on personal development every day, and yet I still see that I have so far to go.
Vikki:Oh, yeah. We all do.
John:Yeah. We all do. For sure. That should and you know what? I hope that never changes.
John:I hope I never I never stop wanting to to develop personally.
Vikki:Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. And then, a supportive, collaborative community. You know, you might be sitting there thinking, oh my gosh, my work definitely isn't that.
Vikki:But, you know, I don't know if starting a business how would a business have a collaborative community? Trust me, the good ones do. The good ones have that figured out. They've got a community where they help each other, and there might be a Facebook group that you could be a part of. They, definitely go have conferences, you know, a couple times a year.
Vikki:You should go to every single one of those and treat that like a work day. You know, don't just think these conferences are for rah rah. No. They are to learn and grow and get together with the community actually more than anything. Also, hopefully, your your company has weekly and monthly trainings where you could get together with the community that way on Zoom, but that's a biggie, and I know that's something our CEO has worked on from the beginning.
John:Yeah. Right. And you're just building a culture, culture of like minded people who are, you know, who are really supportive of each other and really wants to they really want each wanna see the best for everyone else.
Vikki:Right. And I remember our CEO saying from the get go of the company, we we probably had a 100 people part of the company, 200 people, and he said we are gonna attract the quality people that we are, and we're gonna repel the people that really should not be part of our community. And we've done that. Like, we've seen that happen over the the last 12 years.
John:Yeah.
Vikki:We've seen the quality people that are joining our company and and quite frankly, kind of the the sleazy ones that got in for a quick buck, because a lot of people will start businesses for a quick buck, are gone because we repelled them. Our, you know, our philosophies repelled them, and I'm glad Yeah.
John:Because
Vikki:we only want ethical quality people.
John:Yeah. We don't want any of the bad apples.
Vikki:Yeah. That's right. Yeah. And then one, another key point we've said we want your the business to fit to into your lifestyle. Whether you're go, go, go, and you're super busy, and you wanna squeeze it in, or you're you have lots of free time, and you could do as much as you want with it.
Vikki:Great. It needs to fit with all of that. And I definitely.
John:Yeah. For sure. And then you don't wanna look into a a business where they're dictating to you your your participation level. So in other words, that's a job. Right?
John:Who needs another job? Who wants really someone looking at a boss? Tell them, hey, you need to sell more. You need to go and recruit more. You need to do this a little bit more.
John:You're a little bit you're a little You did great 3 weeks ago, but this week, not so good. So you need to pick it up. Nobody needs that. Ain't nobody got time for that. I saw that video again the other day.
John:But you don't, why would you want that? If that were the case, then you're just yes. You've just bought yourself another job. So we like this, and it's not just the business we're in now. There are a few others that we were involved in that you go at your pace.
John:You go at whatever you wanna do, and you're welcome no matter what.
Vikki:Yeah. Definitely. And the low oh, a low start up. Okay. That's actually kind of a no brainer, because what did we what did it cost to start Prestige way back in the eighties?
John:Oh, I don't even remember.
Vikki:It was a lot.
John:It was a lot.
Vikki:We had at least I I tell people it's about $75,000 when we initially started that we, you know, came up with with the shop, the So
John:Prestige is our brick and mortar business that we Yeah. Had going way back when.
Vikki:So we had there was that. But then when we had to get those lines of credit, the SBA loan, you know, it just kept piling on and piling on. And the beautiful thing about so many side gigs and the right side gig is it will have a low cost startup.
John:Yeah.
Vikki:Yeah. Somewhere that the masses, everybody. And, honestly, that's our mission. That's kinda why we put this podcast together. We know the importance of owning your own business no matter where you live on the globe, and what it can do for you, but it needs to be available to the masses and not for just the super wealthy that have all this money that they can sink into a business.
Vikki:Right? It's gotta be available for everyone.
John:Yeah. And it it, I was thinking it it will change your life. It will truly change your life if if that's what you end up doing is getting involved in something and running a side gig. Yeah. You won't recognize your your life afterwards.
John:This can be so much better.
Vikki:Yeah. And then the final point was that it pays you often. And, you know, when you make a sale or, you know, you know, your cash register rings, however, that is is for you if you have a business already, you want that money in your account right away, right, as soon as possible. And so you wanna find a company that's paying you at least weekly and monthly for your overall commissions. I know the one we have is actually working on a plan where you are actually paid the minute somebody orders something on your website, cha ching, it's gonna go in your bank account.
Vikki:As we sit here at this recording space right now, it's we get paid weekly and monthly, so that's 5 times a a month, which is I'm happy with. I don't really need the every time there's a sale. But it is kinda cool that the company that we have found is working towards that. They're always on the cutting edge of what's next. How how can we make this opportunity better?
Vikki:So that's definitely definitely another key point.
John:Mhmm.
Vikki:So, I hope this has really helped you, guys, as you're looking for that side gig or adding another side gig because you can have more than 1. Mhmm. Right?
John:We've
Vikki:talked about that on so many times about multiple streams of income. Why not? Why not have another one? You we all need it. We can't make it really on 1 or 2 incomes anymore.
John:Yeah. Because we you know, it's funny. We we opened this talking about my dad. Right? My family.
John:And my dad was the sole income earner, and he never worked overtime. He worked his 8 hour day, 5 days a week. He was home every weekend. Yeah. And we were I mean, we were never we were never wealthy, but we were always comfortable.
John:We were never really in want of anything. My dad ended up paying cash for everything. I don't think he even owned a credit card. When he was trying to buy a car, he would just go in and write a check and buy the car. Can you imagine someone doing that on one income today?
Vikki:It's I don't think it's possible.
John:Times have changed. Yeah. So if you're gonna have to earn if if you need more than 1 income and need more more income sources, getting another job is not really, I think, the way to do it. Working just piling on more overtime and more overtime on your current job probably is not a good long term solution. Looking to run running a side hustle, looking to something that has some sort of a rigid residual income component to it.
John:I think those are all important.
Vikki:Really important. Yeah. So thanks. Thanks. Thanks for joining us.
Vikki:You know what to do. Like and subscribe and leave us that review.
John:Thanks, guys.
Vikki:Bye. Thanks for joining us on Dig the Well.
John:We hope you feel empowered and ready to take on new challenges.
Vikki:Remember, if we can do it, so can you. Keep learning, keep believing, and going after your dreams.
John:And if you enjoyed this episode, share it with someone who needs a little inspiration or maybe a nudge in the right direction.
Vikki:Help us grow this community of go getters. Together, we can achieve greatness and get back to family.
John:Thanks for listening, and let's keep digging the way.