MBA2478 How To Switch From How to Who & Grow Faster

0:09Heyo! Welcome to the$100 MBA show. No fluff, just the good stuff with our practical business lessons. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome. And in today's lesson, you will learn how to switch from how to who and grow your business faster. What do I mean by switching from how to who? Well, in your first few years in entrepreneurship, you are pretty much doing everything yourself. You're trying to figure out how do I do this? How do I do that? How do I make this happen? These are good questions, and especially in the beginning, because you're learning. But you really can grow your business exponentially and really scale if you're always doing everything yourself, thinking that you're the one who has to solve all the problems and trying to figure out how to do everything.

0:53Now, we often have the mentality of how, even when we have a team, even when we have a bunch of employees working for us. It's a mindset and it needs to be shifted in order for our business to excel. Shifted to what? Well, it needs to shift from how do I do this to who can do this. This is incredibly powerful because now instead of trying to figuring it out, you're trying to figure out who can do this for me. Who's the best at solving this particular problem? Who's the best at helping me with this project? Who's the best to get me a result? This is where you really become a fully fledged entrepreneur.

1:32You start understanding that expertise and other people are the ultimate resource to grow. I'm going to give you a very simple example. I'm trying to build out my home studio so that I can have a better level of production for all my videos and courses and live calls. But I want my studio to look pro. I don't know what that even looks like. Now, I can think and go down the rabbit hole of how do I do this and watch a million YouTube videos, read a bunch of articles, go online and try to find the right products and shop for the best price. And this can probably take me months to actually have a clear plan on how to actually build my studio.

2:18Or I can ask the question, who can do this for me? Who can build my studio? who has done this before and can just give me a blueprint. This often means getting the job done in far less time because you're just skipping a bunch of steps and getting the expert to do it for you or show you how to do it quickly. Here's the reality. You can't be the expert at everything. You probably have your superpowers, your secret sauce in a few areas. And that's great. You should focus on those things. But outside those areas, you're not so great. And you trying to get great at everything is a big waste of time.

2:55It's better for you to invest in the who, who can do this, who can get me a result, who knows this best, and fast track your success. Now, let me be real with you. It's going to cost you a bit more with the who round to hire an expert to do it for you, to consult, to even coach you through it. But in business, and what I've learned in over 20 years, is that you need to decide if you want to pay now or you want to pay later. You're going to have to pay the price to have a pro anything, pro studio setup, a great product, a great business, a great financial model, great marketing, whatever it is.

3:32Okay. You can hack it and you can try to do it as much as you can. And a lot of us do this in the beginning because we don't have a lot of money and that's okay. But eventually you're going to have to get better to compete with the competition, right? You're going to have to level up and you get what you pay for. And your biggest asset is time. You can't waste time. You have to be fast to action. So by getting somebody to do this for you, an expert that can put you on the fast track, this is going to save you time and get you results faster so that you can get that return on investment faster.

4:04What I found is when you go down the who route and find somebody who knows what they're doing, there's usually three paths, like I mentioned before. But let me go into the detail. There is the first path is the fastest, but probably the most expensive one, which is they just do it for you. They actually do the work for you. Instead of you trying to build your own website, they do it for you. They get your input, they get your insights, they get your opinions, and then they implement. The second one is done with you, where they do some of the hard stuff and you do some of the easier stuff and you work together on it.

4:36Third is a bit of a supported DIY, do it yourself, but they're giving you the fast track option, the experienced path. They're going to coach and consult you through it. And this is going to be the least expensive option. It's going to take you more time to do this, but it's going to be less time than you trying to figure it out on your own. Now you might be asking, how do I find these people? When I ask myself, who can do this? How do I find them? Well, this is why it's so important to have a network of friends in entrepreneurship. people that you can ask. The more people you know, the more you can reach out to them and say, hey, I noticed that you have this sorted out.

5:14Your marketing looks amazing. Who's doing that for you? Can you give me an introduction? This is exactly what I did with my home studio. I asked a friend in the business who has a great home studio. I've noticed it in his Zoom calls. I had coffee with him and he said, hey, you should speak to this person. This is the person to help me set up my studio. You can't be afraid to ask people, whether it's in person or on email, or even just posting it on Twitter or Instagram. Hey, I need some help in this area. Does anybody know any experts to help me with this problem? Now, obviously, the more people you're connected to, the more people you know, the faster you're going to get results.

5:51And if you're saying, hey, Omar, I don't have a huge network. Well, you can, of course, go to social media, like I mentioned, but you can also do what I call the Kevin Bacon method. You know, they say six degrees of separation to Kevin Bacon. But the point here is, is that you can ask instead of, does anybody know an expert? You can ask, do you know anybody who hired an expert to your smaller network of people? Do you know anybody who has done this before or hired somebody to help them with this? This is why I talk about it's so important to go to meetups and conferences and parties and live workshops and to get out of your bubble because the more people you know, the more context you have, the more chances you have to finding the who for your next problem.

6:32So a few more tips when it comes to switching from the how to the who. If you see something you like, ask, even if you don't know the person. So for example, let's say you're on somebody's email list and you love the way their email newsletter is designed. Reply to that email and say, hey, I love the way you designed your newsletter. Can I ask you who you worked with to get that done? I'd love to get mine done. You'll be surprised. A lot of people are happy to share. They feel like it's an easy thing to say, hey, yeah, I can help you and do an introduction. Another great tip is to just simply remind yourself with a post-it note and write who, not how on a post-it note and just slam it right in front of your monitor, right in front of your laptop, right by your keyboard so that every time you write something on your to-do list, you remind yourself, hey, is there somebody who can do this instead of me?

7:24So let me try to figure out how I can find a who. Just as a mental exercise, this is even a great habit to have. Lastly, if you have a team, that who could be somebody that you already have access to in your team? A lot of us don't realize that as human beings, we are diverse. We have a diverse set of experiences in our life. And we might hire somebody thinking that this is their background, this is their experience, but they have hobbies, they have interests, they've done things in the past they didn't tell you about. So why don't you put it in your communication channels, your Slack channels, your whatever communication you use with your team and say, hey, we are trying to do X, Y, Z.

8:01Does anybody have an experience doing this? Does anybody have any insights or has any interest in helping us do this task or to complete this project? It's worth asking. They are on your team. They are working for you. You probably have a wealth of knowledge you're unaware of. And it could be something simple like editing a video or creating a unique piece of music for that video. You might find some hidden talented people that love to do this on the side and would love to have a little fun and do something different at work. Lastly, and this is a little meta, if you don't know anybody and you've tried to ask everybody in your network and your team and you still don't find somebody who can do this, go back to how.

8:41But the how now is how do I find somebody? Where do I got to go to meet people that would know how to do this? Is there an industry conference? Is there a party I need to be a part of? Is there somebody I know that can introduce me to an event or an event organizer that can get me in the space, in the company of potential people that can solve this problem? Keep striving for the who. Well, there you have it. Today's episode was short and sweet, but it was really something I wanted to share because it was a pivotal mind shift and practice that I started to do that really changed my business. It really made things a lot more rapid in terms of growth, in terms of ability to move and be able to reinvent a lot of parts of our business, but also inject new life, new ideas, new people.

9:31And that causes your business to really catapult to another level. If you loved this episode or loved any of our episodes, the best thing you could do is to hit subscribe, hit follow on your favorite podcast app right now. Thank you in advance for doing that. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I love this practice of building your network so that you can have people to talk to to help you find that who. One, because you meet interesting people in this process and you meet interesting people when you find that who to work with you. You learn from them. You gain an insight. You gain an appreciation for what this person does.

10:07And now you have a new resource, a new talent pool that you can pull from to enhance your business, your products, your services. It's magical. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in the next episode. I'll see you then. Take care.