MBA2472 Should You Sweat The Details?

0:09Heyo! Welcome to the$100 MBA show where we cut through the noise to focus on what truly matters in building a business. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome. And in today's episode, you'll learn, should you sweat the details? You'll often hear people say, don't sweat the details. Or they'll say the opposite and say, all the magic's in the details. Which one is it? How much should you worry about every little detail in your business, in your products, in your service? Do these details matter? And how much do they matter? And if so, how much should you sweat the details? How much attention and time should you be dedicating to them?

0:49Well, in today's episode, I'll be answering all these questions, and I'm going to give you a prescription. Basically, no matter where you are in business, I'm going to tell you exactly how to handle the details as you're building and growing your thing. This is something I had to learn the hard way as I grew several businesses over the last 20 years. I'll be sharing real life examples of building different products, different services, whether it's from my software company, Webinar Ninja, whether it was from this podcast, The$100 MBA Show, or the several products or courses I've created in the past.

1:21We're going to get to the bottom of this age-old question, should you sweat the details? And if so, how much? Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Some say the devil is in the details or the magic is all in the details. Others will argue that perfectionism is the enemy of progress. Which one is true? Well, they're actually both true, but you need to know when to apply one or the other and how much of each. That's where today's episode comes in. This is what today's lesson is all about. And I wanted to do this episode because as business owners and creators, we often hear conflicting advice.

1:58You'll hear one speech at a conference saying that attention to detail can be your crucial differentiator and allow you to stand out from the crowd. And then you might take an online course and the course creator or the instructor will say, don't worry about every little detail. Just get going. Just build and sell your products and services. When I got started in entrepreneurship, these types of conflicting pieces of advice really bother me because it's like, can they both be right? I mean, how does this work? Well, after 20 years of building businesses and experiencing this kind of internal conflict with myself and my own products and services, I'm going to give it to you straight.

2:34I'm going to tell you exactly when it matters, when it doesn't, and what you should focus on. Let's start with when everything I talk today can go out the window and it's a specific situation or specific industry. These are industries where precision is non-negotiable, right? This should be obvious, but I got to say this anyway. If you're in the healthcare industry, if you're in the engineering industry, you're building things for people's safety, you're in finance, detail orientation isn't just important, it's essential. You have to get the details right. The margin for error is zero because not paying attention to the details and mistakes happening have huge repercussions.

3:13So if you're in those kind of industries, which is rare, but there are people in those industries, you need to get the details right. Things have to be perfect because people's health, life, money, whatever it might be, is at stake. Now, for the majority of people that are not in these industries are not really in this boat or this exception. Let's get into when details matter, when they don't. First of all, the details always matter. It's just a matter of how many details, how much attention to detail is required. So let's start when they matter the least, or the details that you need to take care of are less.

3:51And that's when you're just starting out, when you haven't even made a dollar. If you haven't made a dollar yet in your business, you don't have a business really. You just have an idea. Even if you have a team and you have funding, you raise capital somehow with your pitch of an idea and you have a prototype and maybe even have a product. But if you don't have any users or customers, you don't really have a business. You're not really monetizing. You're not really exchanging value. You're not viable yet. So if you're just starting out, if you haven't had your first dollar made, you're in the stage I call start.

4:24You're in the start stage. And right now, things are going to be a little messy because you don't want to work with concrete. You want to work with Play-Doh. What do I mean by that? You don't want to work with things that are going to solidify your business because you're still shaping your business based on what customers say, what people say, feedback you get, what the market demands. So you're not going to be able to nail the details just yet. Your job really is to implement, to take action, to put your ideas out there, to put your products out there, to gain customers to make money. That's really it.

4:55You're really trying to exchange the value offer for money. And obviously the big part of that equation is the value offer. You want to be able to create enough value, whatever you have, like it could be a SaaS app, it could be a podcast, it could be an online course, it could be a service or a coaching program, whatever it might be, you have to make sure that you're creating enough value for people to say, yes, I'm willing to part with my money. If your monetization strategy is ads, like say, for example, you have a YouTube channel, you got to have enough viewership to be able to make money on ads.

5:28You got the point. You have to have enough actual acceleration. And in this stage, the details that matter are the details that deal with your core offering, your core value. We're going to go really deep into this. What does this mean, your core offering, your core value? Well, let me give you an example. When I started Webinar Ninja, the webinar software that I grew over the last 10 years and sold recently, my core offering was to allow people to show up live on a live video stream and be able to present and sell their products and services. The main core thing was the video stream, video and audio, obviously.

6:04People have to be able to attend this and you need to be able to broadcast your stream. There are other things around this software that are important, But the core thing is the video stream and the details matter here, meaning it has to be a clear video. It has to be clear audio. There has to be reliability. It has to be easy for people to start the stream. It has to be easy for people to attend the stream or attend that webinar. This is really why people are signing up is they want to be able to send their message to many people via live video. I'm boiling it down to its core essence. Now, Webinar Ninja over 10 years had built so many features and so many options that surround this one little part of the software, that one core value, which is live streaming.

6:54But at the end of the day, if I get that live streaming piece wrong, then the whole thing collapses. There is no value. I have to get this thing right. And the details here matter. Now, there are some nice to have some things that would be really cool. And we eventually added them very quickly to the software, like templates for landing pages. So people can have different templates for the signup page, like email automations, where they got automatic emails after they signed up for the webinar. We added those, but again, not a core thing. If the email automations for some reason were not there or were not as many automations as we'd like, or you couldn't edit the automations.

7:35It's not great, but it's not the core offering. This is not why they're signing up. There's other ways they could do this anyway. This is one of the hardest things for people to understand and to actually stick to in business because they want their product to be amazing. They want it to do all these things. They're kind of seeing their business or their product as version 10 instead of version zero, really, or version one. And it's important for you to remember where you're starting because if you get the core value right, everything else falls into place. So the details in that core value really matter.

8:07So what is your core value? What is the real reason why people are signing up? Let's say, for example, I'm a golf coach and I teach people how to golf with online courses. The real value is the techniques that I teach on the course, right? In the videos. Yes, it would be great if I offered quizzes. Yes, it'd be great if the videos were shot in a three camera angle kind of way where, you know, they're getting different shots and it's really a high professional looking shoot. But if I shot this with my iPhone in 4K, in focus, in frame, and my instruction is very good, then I'm nailing the most important thing, my core value of that product or business.

8:50And this is where you need to focus all your attention, the details here. So making sure that your instruction is clear, making sure your instructions are easy to follow, making sure that it's maybe fun and interactive in the way you're presenting, maybe the way you're recapping the lesson so they don't forget all the different steps of swinging the golf club. You get the point. The actual content is what is most important here and what people really are seeking out. Everything around it is great and we can improve it over time. We're going to make it better. We're going to make it look amazing.

9:21But at the beginning, we don't have anything yet. We want to make sure that people buy and they actually love that core offering. And if they do, we can start sweating the details in other places. As your business grows, as you make your first dollar to, I would say, probably to your first $50 ,000 to$100 ,000 in revenue, this is when you graduate from sweating the details just in the core offer or the core value that you're offering to what supports that actual value. So what makes that value even more valuable. So if you go back to the example with Webinar Ninja, my own software company, it would make it more valuable if it was easier for people to present their own offers so they could sell their products and services right on the webinar with maybe an image and a link.

10:07So having an offers area that would make it more interactive and not just the video, but also on the page itself, adding more interactivities with polls or obviously a chat or handouts. We added that functionality as well. We really added a little bit more detail. We really paid attention to what really matters in keeping people engaged during a webinar. So again, we're basically looking at our product or a business like a bullseye. What's in the center of the bullseye is the core offer, is the core value that we offer. And then what is the circle that's right outside that can supplement, that can actually support that value?

10:45Let's add a little bit of detail there. Let's say you get past a 200, 300 ,000 revenue mark. Now we're going to zoom out a little bit more, right? We're going to support the support of that value. So at Webinar Ninja, we expanded beyond just live webinars. We did automated webinars and hybrid webinars and series. And eventually, just recently, last year, we released a live courses. And now all our attention is to make sure the details there are sharp. Eventually, when you have a million dollar revenue business and beyond, you're really paying attention to all the details, the core value, the things that are supporting the core value, the things beyond that.

11:23And before you know, you start to realize every little detail matters because it really starts to become a refined product, a real competitor in the marketplace. And what you realize is that your product is really looking great and looking pro because you focused on the details one by one. now the reason why i really prescribe this method is because you can really fall into obsessing over the details and have analysis paralysis at the start if you have too many things to focus on and you really get overwhelmed you don't really actually move the needle actually get anything done so that's why you just got to focus on the core value what is really important what are people really really signing up for and this is the question you need to answer immediately like right now or right after this episode.

12:09And I want to challenge you to get really specific. And it should be one thing. And you want to nail that one thing. Because if you do that one thing better than anything else, you're really going to satisfy many customers because they'll be like, you know what? It doesn't do this or that, or it's not great at this, but it really nails why I signed up. And these are the market leaders. Look at the market leaders in different industries. For example, BMW is a market leader in automobile sales and has been around forever, right? Why? Because they really nail the driving experience. People really love driving BMWs.

12:41It's fun. It's engaging, the handling. So those who love to drive a car, they love that experience. They're going to gravitate to BMW because they nail that. Yeah, they're not as reliable as Toyota. Yeah, maybe their designs are a little bit out there and a little bit quirky and not as conservative as, let's say, a Mercedes. But when it comes to driving dynamics, people that love to drive are going to really enjoy a BMW and go for a BMW because they really care about that detail. So at the end of the day, you got to prioritize what you focus on. The whole thing about focus is that you're focused on one thing, right?

13:21It's hard to focus on many things. That's like the opposite of the word focus, right? In fact, if you love cameras, if you love photography, you know that it's hard to keep many things in focus. The subject has to be in focus. That means other parts of the photo are going to be out of focus, which means they're not going to be as clear, as good. So at the start, just focus on what's most important. Those are the details that matter. As you grow, as you make revenue, as you learn from your customers, then you're going to go to the ring outside of that bullseye in the target and say, what are some ways I can improve the details of things that support that main thing?

14:00And then again, another concentric circle outside of that, you get the point. This is easy to understand, but not so easy to implement. This is the challenge of entrepreneurship, is the discipline. Is the discipline to stay focused on what you need to focus on at any particular time. Remember, not every detail has to be perfect at the start, just the most important part of your product. And then you can iterate and improve as you go on. Just keep telling yourself, I know it's not perfect right now. Not everything, a part of my business, my products are perfect, but it will get there. We will get there.

14:35We just can't do it all at one time. We can't just focus on everything at one time. We're going to prioritize. We're going to triage like a doctor does in the ER. Who has an injury that's life or death? What do we got to focus on that's life or death in your business? It's the core value thing. Okay, that's fine. What's next? Okay, something that is going to allow us to slow down the bleeding or allow us to make more money. Okay, what's going to improve the experience in a broader way? You get the point. At the end of the day, the people that win in business are the people that take action. Because when you take action, you learn.

15:04Either you get it right and your customers are happy, or you get it wrong and you learn and you iterate and get it right the next time or the time after that. But people that don't win are the people that analyze, think, ponder, quote unquote research, and never take action. Or take action not as frequently and as consistently as they should. You should be taking action every day in your business, making decisions, improving your business, improving your product, improving your services every single day. Because action will lead to having a more refined product and really having as close as possible to perfection in those details.

15:41Thanks so much for listening to The$100 MBA Show. I hope today's episode was helpful. If it was and you loved it and you want to show us some love, just hit subscribe. Subscribe to the show. By subscribing, you send a signal to the algorithm that this show is all right and allows us to reach new audiences. So whether you're on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any podcast player, make sure you follow the show. Click that button. Thank you in advance for doing that. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Building a great business, building great products is really very similar to creating beautiful works of art.

16:13When Leonardo da Vinci created the Mona Lisa, for example, he didn't just paint the whole portrait in one shot, right? He started with one detail, with one part of that portrait, one part of Mona Lisa's face, focused on that, made sure it was good, and then fleshed out the rest of the work of art over time. Part of being a great entrepreneur is understanding that this is not a sprint. This is a marathon. We have to think long term. We got to think, okay, this is what I'm going to focus on today, then tomorrow, then tomorrow. And these small little days, right, are going to add up to weeks and months and years and create an incredible offering, an incredible business that we look back on and say, wow, how did that happen?

16:54It happened with one day at a time, one detail at a time. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll check you in the next episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

17:18Thank you.