MBA2496 The Best Product To Start With

0:09Heyo, welcome to the$100 MBA show, powerful business lessons you can count on. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome. And in today's episode, you will learn what's the best product to start with. If you're getting started in business and entrepreneurship, and you're wondering what products should you sell to get started, to start making money, to start seeing this business thing come to life, I'm a huge believer in lining things up to make it easier on you to be successful. Business is challenging as it is. There's no reason to make it harder on yourself, especially in the beginning.

0:45You have to remember when you're getting started, you're going to have to pay off some debt, not a financial debt, but an experience and knowledge debt. There's a lot you don't know yet and you will learn. So let's pick a product that's going to help you learn that quickly and not cost you too much financially. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. When it comes to starting a business, high-priced, done-for-you services or done-with-you products are my favorite choice for those who are getting started. I know this firsthand because I've sold a lot of different products at different price ranges.

1:20One of the hardest types of businesses to start are businesses that sell commodities. I sold clothing. I had my own clothing line. Even though it's custom-tailored clothing, I was competing with other clothing items that are in any shop, any mall, from Ralph Lauren to Old Navy to Hugo Boss. It's very hard to compete when people can look at your product and say, why am I going to pay that much for such and such? A t-shirt, a muffin, a pair of shoes, an iPhone accessory, whatever that commodity is. A commodity is basically something that is easily compared to. You can easily find a version of that product somewhere else.

1:57And usually commodities are sold in marketplaces like Amazon. So essentially, commodities are products that are interchangeable with others of the same type. Now, obviously, there's levels to difficulty of selling commodities. Some commodities are really difficult to sell because they really don't have any differentiation like paperclips or bottled water. You got to really rely on some serious branding like vitamin water did. And when they do that, you can have a price differentiator. You might be thinking, why is this important or why do we need to actually differentiate? Why don't I just sell a low price product?

2:29Well, you need margins. There's a reason why Vine and Water spent all that money on marketing and branding. Same thing goes with Smart Water. They got all these celebrities to do their commercials. And it's because they want to increase their prices to increase their profit margin, right? Because without margins, it's very hard for you to one, take a profit, but two, reinvest in the business so you can grow and continue to expand your enterprise. Now, conversely, when you're offering high-priced do-it-for-you services or do-it-with-you services, and we'll talk about the difference in a moment, you're positioning yourself as a specialist who provides unique value.

3:06It's hard to compare your product with somebody else's. It's very subjective. It's not objective. I'm going to give you some examples of exactly why that is from my own experience his own products that I've created. Here's the key. People are willing to pay a premium for personalized, high-quality services or products that save them time, effort, and stress. High-priced products or services signal expertise, exclusivity, which attracts clients who are serious about getting results. These are the type of clients you want. Now, let's dive into some specific examples of these types of products and why they work so well.

3:46Number one, consulting or coaching. Whether you're an expert in business or an expert in fitness or personal development or any other field, offering high-ticket consulting or coaching services is a great way to start. A lot of people, when they transition out of a job into entrepreneurship, they choose this option because it's sort of doing their job on their own terms. They're basically just creating their own company around their expertise, which is great. Clients are willing to pay top dollar for personalized advice that can fast track their progress and help them avoid costly mistakes. A lot of people, they just keep serving the clients they did back in their job.

4:24Now, you're not just selling information. You're selling transformation. You're selling a result. Your clients see you as an investment. And it's incredibly powerful when they see you as an investment because with an investment, they're looking for an ROI. So they're willing to pay the premium. Let me give you an example. We offered a group coaching program over the$100 MBA. Instead of me trying to coach people one-on-one, it was actually more useful for the students and myself to do it in a group setting. We charged$5 ,000 a term. And this made it easy for us to scale because you could have many people in a group.

4:58We have 10, 20 people in the group. And I was able to take those profits and reinvest in marketing and bring in new customers. A business like this with a product like this has some really good margins. And by charging, again, high-priced products, and when I say high-priced, I'm talking about $2 ,000,$3 ,000,$4 ,000 and beyond. The higher, the better, because you're going to get a better value client. What I mean by that is that, in my experience, when you get a client that's paying you top dollar,$5 ,000,$10 ,000,$20 ,000,$30 ,000,$50 ,000, they're much easier to work with than somebody who's bought a product for$50,$100,$800,$1 ,000.

5:37They're serious. They have money to invest and they're going to get better results because they invested more money and therefore they are going to take it seriously. Next, let's talk about group events. This could be anything from workshops to seminars to retreats or masterminds. Group events are great because they combine the power of community and the value of expertise. There's very low overhead here because you only pay when you run the event. So if you have to rent out a venue, let's say for example, to run the event or book a hotel for a retreat, you only need to do that when you sell tickets.

6:13Participants in this group event benefit from learning from you and maybe somebody else you bring on or guest speakers and from each other, which creates a rich and dynamic experience. Plus the exclusivity and the immersive nature of these events justify the higher price point. people are willing to pay more for an experience that's both educational and transformative. I know this firsthand because I run an event called OSCON. It's an annual retreat for founders, and the ticket price is roughly$7 ,000. We have different ticket types, but it's$7 ,000 basically. This is an event that we basically take care of everything for the attendee.

6:51They just show up. They enjoy the time with other entrepreneurs. They have great dinners. They have great fun. We do it on the mountains. So they're having some skiing or snowboarding time. We organize great sessions and games. And it's really hard for them to even quantify the value because how are they going to do this on their own? How are they going to bring all these people together, pull this trip off, organize everything, get the dinners all sorted, make sure everybody's dietary requirements are sorted. It's not easy for them to actually recreate this. So therefore, they really value it.

7:24And for every time we run this event, it's a no-brainer. It's so easy to sell because people are like, take my money. I can't pull this off on my own. So products like this, group events, makes your life a whole lot easier because it's easy to sell because people find the value. Another fantastic example is offering high ticket services. I did this for a very long period of my career where I provided services like web design and branding. For you, it might be video marketing or audio editing or fashion consulting or whatever it might be. These services are high in demand because they directly impact a business or an individual and their success.

8:07A lot of people rely on these services to get work done. And it's cheaper, even though it's expensive, to hire you than to make an internal hire because they're going to have to take care of benefits and all other kinds of stuff. You know, give them equipment, training, all kinds of things they need to worry about. When you contract a service provider, they provide the service regardless of who's on leave or not. When you position yourself as a premium provider, you're going to attract clients who are looking for quality and are willing to pay for it. I know firsthand because I work with a lot of service-based businesses, a lot of agencies to run our podcast, to run our business.

8:46I've worked with a lot of them when I was running Webinar Ninja, my software company for over a decade. And many of them charge a lot of money for their services, especially if their service helps you make money. So we're talking about services that charge a retainer of$7 ,000, $8 ,000,$9 ,000,$10 ,000,$12 ,000 a month, and some even more. I just didn't hire them. But I know other entrepreneurs that have other service providers that they rely on that cost them$20 ,000 to$30 ,000 to$40 ,000 a month. High ticket service offerings allow you to focus on delivering exceptional results, which in turn helps you build a strong reputation and a really good client base so you can tap into and have reoccurring revenue.

9:28All right, guys, I got one more example. And this is one of my favorites because it's not super high ticket. Maybe you're not feeling comfortable charging seven and eight and nine and$10 ,000 a month. But what if you charged$3 ,000 for a period of time, let's say eight weeks. And every eight weeks, you can charge new clients$3 ,000. Well, high ticket live cohorted courses are a great option. I've done these courses myself. I've been a student in these courses. Actually, I'm in one right now. And what's great about this is that it's a done with you kind of product. You are not holding their hand all the way through, but you're giving them the materials, you're giving them the accountability, you're giving them the community around it, and you're around to answer questions maybe in an office hour session once a week.

10:15These are basically courses where participants go through the material together in a cohort with a start date and an end date with live sessions led by you. Again, very low cost of entry for you, very low overhead, very easy for you to get started. In fact, you don't have to record any videos. You can just do your first trainings live. This model combines the best of both worlds. The scalability of online courses with the personalization and attention of life coaching. Participants get the benefit of real-time feedback and personalized support from you and your team, which also increases their chances of success and enhances the whole experience.

10:52The cohort model also creates a sense of community and accountability. And this is really important because when people are accountable and they feel like they're doing something together with other people, this boosts completion rates and improves their results. The high ticket price point is justified because participants are getting comprehensive, interactive learning experiences, and they're able to get their answers from you when they need it. So it feels like a tailor-made type of training. You're not just selling a course, you're selling a guided journey that leads to tangible outcomes.

11:26Remember, you're selling an outcome. So for example, I'm doing a live cohort course right now to teach me how to do better live sessions. I've run over 500 webinars, but I still can learn from other people. And I sign up for courses like it's going out of fashion because I love to learn and see how people are doing other things. But also, they're really valuable and I'm willing to spend money on them because I'm investing in myself. For you, this makes your life easier because you can scale this product by having many people in your quarter course at the same time. All right, let's recap. What are the four products you could create to get started?

12:02Number one, consulting or coaching. Remember, this could be group coaching. Number two, group events or retreats. Number three, a service-based business where you provide a service that is integral to a business's needs. And number four, high-ticket live cohorted courses. To wrap things up, starting a high-price done-for-you-or-done-with-you product or service is a great move for any new entrepreneur because it's going to give you some safety with those margins I talked about, but also all of these, you don't need to put up any upfront cash in order for you to get started. You can actually sell the product or service before you give people access to it.

12:43For example, you could sell a group coaching program that starts next month, and then you can prepare everything within that month. You make the sale, you got the cash, and then you can invest in building what you need to build to deliver that outcome, to deliver that service or done for you or done with you product. Thanks so much for listening to the$100 Rea Show. If you love what you hear, make sure you subscribe to the show. Make sure you follow us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or any podcast app you use. By doing so, it's the best way to show your support for the show. It helps us reach new audiences.

13:15So thanks so much in advance for doing that. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I really believe that live cohort courses are really going to make a huge impact in the next five to 10 years. So it's a huge opportunity right now. I believe this so much that before we sold Webinar Ninja to ProProfs, who acquired us, our latest product in that business was Course Ninja, which is a live quarter course product or software. I started Webinar Ninja back in 2014, way ahead of the curve when it came to webinars. And I wanted to do the same when it came to quarter courses. And that's why I started working and then we launched it before the recent acquisition.

13:54So give it a think. It might be a great product to start with. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you next time. Take care.