MBA2311 How to Know If You're Not Good Enough + Free Ride Friday

0:09Heyo, welcome to the$100 MBA show, the business podcast you need to build the business you want. With our 10-minute business lessons, I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome. I'm also the co-founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company. I started with my co-founder back in 2014. And today is Free Ride Friday, where we give away a membership to one of our programs. We give away the$100 MBA, our six-part course on how to become a better entrepreneur 100 % guaranteed. If you want to win a free ride, just leave us an Apple Podcast rating and review, and you enter our weekly random draw we call Free Ride Friday.

0:41Listen out on Friday to see if you won. It's that easy. We announced this week's winner a little bit later in the episode. In today's episode, you will learn how to know if you're not good enough. Many entrepreneurs in their first few years are not really sure if their product, their service, their offering is good enough to compete in the marketplace, is good enough to have a successful business, is good enough to reach the goals you have set out for you and your business. The good news is that the beauty of business is that the marketplace never lies. I'm going to show you how to build in systems in your business to know if you are good enough and you're producing a product or service, a business that people actually want and need.

1:22You'll finally find out if they're just hating or it's actually you who needs to make some changes. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. This episode of the$100 MBA show is brought to you by This Is Small Business, an original podcast from Amazon. It's all about what it takes to be a successful small business owner today. I've enjoyed listening to this podcast, and an episode in particular I want to share with you is about how to foster a workplace of diversity and inclusion. We know it's important and we should do it, but why? I've always been a believer that diversity and inclusion makes a better product, makes a better company, because you're getting all kinds of perspectives to inform what you do.

2:00But how do you ensure that you do have diversity in your company? Well, that's what this episode's all about on This Is Small Business. Season two of This is Small Business is out now, so go ahead and listen wherever you get your podcasts. Again, the podcast is called This is Small Business. One of the things I teach in our program, The$100 MBA, or on this podcast, or when I speak on stages, is you want to build a business that allows you to roll the boulder down the hill. There's nothing worse than having a business where you're rolling the boulder up the hill, where it's so much effort to get a sale, where it's so much effort to get people to like your product or service, where it's so much effort for you to be able to be profitable.

2:41You want to build a business that's easy to be successful. You want a business that, again, allows you to roll the boulder down the hill. You're using momentum to do all the work. And one of the deciding factors and the deciding factor of you either rolling a boulder up or down a hill is what you offer, okay? The actual product or service that you offer. Maybe that's actually you if you're a coach. Maybe it's the product if you run a software company or have an app or have a physical product that you sell in an e-commerce store. Maybe it's the experience of the service that they're going to get if you're a service-based company.

3:19Whatever you're selling, whatever that thing is, we're going to call it the product in today's episode. And that product has the most leverage when it comes to your success. Meaning if your product goes above and beyond people's expectations, it's going to make your whole life and business so much easier. So the question that we're going to discuss today is, is your product good enough? Or are you going to slowly die a slow death due to the fact that your competition is better? Or maybe your product doesn't really solve a problem. Or you're actually pitching this product or you've created this product for the wrong people.

3:55And I'm going to share with you some systems I've installed in my business to ensure I know I'm good enough or if I need improvement. Let's start with the basics. The first thing is that I need to be able to clearly state what problem I'm solving. I know this sounds very basic, but I can't tell you how many entrepreneurs I speak to that can't actually tell me what problem they're solving with their product or service. They can tell me about their product and service. My product does this. My service does this. It's really cool. and I say, okay, what problem are you solving? What problem in the world is out there that this product helps solve?

4:30And if you can't answer this question, then you have a problem because if there's no problem that you're solving, then there's just not enough need in the market and you're gonna be rolling the boulder up the hill. Your product's just not good enough. People don't buy things unless they need to, okay? Or want to. By the way, boredom is a problem. If people are bored and they wanna be entertained, they're gonna wanna watch movies and TV and that's where Netflix solves the problem And they solve it in a very unique way because it's streaming, it's online, and they replace the whole DVD market. So it doesn't need to be like, you know, somebody's in pain and they need a solution to that pain.

5:03You need to just solve a problem. And being bored is a problem for many people. That's why the entertainment industry is huge. That's why the gaming industry is huge. That's why the holiday and vacation travel industry is huge. People need to recharge their batteries. The second part of this question to measure if you are good enough is, is this pain or this problem big enough, painful enough for them to take action? Because they might have a problem, but maybe it doesn't bother them that much and they're willing to just live with it and not pay for a solution. All right. The second system we're going to install is understanding why people are buying.

5:42Why are people buying your product or service? This is incredibly insightful to know where you stand, to know if you're good enough. So sending an automatic survey via maybe an automated email that links to a Google form can help your customers easily provide the information that you're looking for. And this could literally be a one or two question survey. The question just could be simply, what are you hoping my product is going to help you with? And the reason why we phrase the question this way is because they're going to answer it explaining their problem. They're going to say, I'm hoping it's going to solve this issue I have.

6:14I'm hoping that it's going to make things easier. I'm hoping it's going to be faster. I'm hoping that I'm going to enjoy it more. Whatever your product does, the point here is that they're going to explain, I'm coming to you with this problem, and I'm hoping that this product's going to help me with this. Let's say your product is some teeth whitening solution. I'm coming because I want a winning smile, but I can't afford the expensive prices of whitening solutions at the dentist. So they're telling you the problem, or coming you do, okay? This solution hopefully is cheaper and as effective. The more pain, the more they hate their current solution, the better for you.

6:49And this feedback is super powerful. But if they're coming in lukewarm and saying kind of like, I just wanted to give it a try. A friend told me about it and it looked interesting. This is not good enough for me. I need somebody to come and say, please help me. I hope this thing is going to solve this huge problem I have. Or I saw your solution and it looks amazing. Can't wait to try it because I've been looking for something like this all my life. why do I want that reaction? Because I want those types of customers. Because those types of customers, if they get what they're looking for, they're going to tell so many people and create a viral loop.

7:24Every time I get a customer, they're going to tell five to 10 people. That's free marketing for me. And it's all because my product is actually fully addressing their problem that they actually have, something that they don't want to live with anymore. System number three, an exit survey. Anytime somebody cancels our software product, Webinar Ninja, we actually require them to just give us some feedback to know why they're canceling. And we make it easy for them. We actually give them some categories that they can choose from. It could be like, it's hard to use, didn't have the feature I'm looking for, I'm no longer using it, whatever it is.

8:00And then whatever they choose, they are asked to give a comment based on that choice. Now, over the years, we've modified those choices of why they are canceling because we basically understand the patterns of our customers. Now, this exit survey is so, so important. And you could do this as well if you have a one-off product and somebody asks for a refund or a return. The reason why it's so important is because you learn why they're going to somebody else. They may not say they're going to somebody else, but if you're solving a problem that they have and they're canceling or they're returning, it means they still haven't solved the problem.

8:34That means they're going to go looking for someone else who could solve the problem. That means somebody's eating your lunch. Somebody's taking your customers. That means you need to get better. That means your solution is not solving the problem. Even if they choose something like, I'm not using it, and they still have the problem, well, maybe you need to help them use it with your onboarding, with your service, with your success. customer success, they're not getting their results for some reason, you need to fix that. This allows you also to know what to work on, what is missing from your product or service, how to improve so that when you have your product meetings, you focus on the top priority, the stuff that is losing you money and customers.

9:12Before you get innovative and fancy, fix your product so that you're not losing customers. And that leads me to number four, system number four. The type of business you want to be in is after you get your initial traction and you have customers and people have bought, if you do nothing at all, your business should grow, even a little, meaning you don't do any marketing, you don't do any sales. Why? Because typically a great business will churn less than it's growing. What does this mean? That means that you're getting more customers and making more money than you're losing. That means your product is so good that other people are talking about it, recommending it, sharing it, getting you more customers without doing anything and less people are leaving than you're getting.

9:58This is the holy grail. This is really what every business should strive for, where you actually don't do anything. Like if you stopped all marketing and sales, and of course we don't do that. We wanna grow and have velocity, but if we happen to do that, our business would still grow. And until you get to that point, it probably means you're not good enough. It means your product needs improvement. It means your service needs refining. And that's just the truth. To wrap up today's lesson, I really want to just address one thing. It's okay to not be perfect yet. It's okay that your product needs improvement.

10:32It's something that sometimes we don't want to hear, but we need to. We need to hear the truth so we can improve, so we can get better. And by the way, you can have a great product and then it just stops working for the audience or the market. Why? Because the market changes. Innovation happens. Your competitors get better. You got to keep on improving. You got to keep on getting better. You got to have a superior experience to your competition. This is not to get you depressed. This is for you to recognize, if I just do this right thing. This is for you to recognize and say, hey, if I just get this right, my whole life in business gets a whole lot easier.

11:12Thanks so much for listening to The$100 VA Show. Today's episode's not over, though. It's Free Ride Friday. Let's see who won this week's free ride. The winner is Vava75. Vava75 on Apple Podcasts says, Omar's advice helped me pay for next month's fair fees. Five stars. I had an opportunity to get a stand at a big music fair so I can sell my online singing school. But I was sure on budget. So I followed Omer's advice about doing a quick sale to my customers. He gave several solutions to try in a specific order. The first solution allowed me to get$1 ,900 from my current customers, and that paid for the fair.

11:48Great podcast, actionable tips. Thanks loads. Well, thanks, Vava, for your amazing review, and I'm so happy that you're able to get your booth at the fair and you actually took action with the advice that you heard on the podcast. Well done. You've won Freeride Friday. So just email us over at omar at 100mba.net so you can go ahead and get access to the$100 MBA program. If you want to win a free ride just like Vava, go ahead and leave us an Apple Podcast rating and review and listen in on Friday to see if you won. It's that easy. Just a quick announcement and a quick reminder. We're now publishing every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

12:23This gives you a day in between to implement the actionable advice. And of course, if you want more episodes, we have 2300 business lessons in our back catalog. just hit follow on your favorite podcast app to get access to that. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Product and marketing go hand in hand. You improve your product, you market those improvements. You get new customers, you learn how to improve more, you improve your product, you market that improvement. You get more customers, you improve more, you get the point. It's a whole lot easier to market and sell a great product. So don't neglect improving your product or service on the regular.

12:59Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in Monday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.