MBA2536 How To Use The Skills You Have To Build a Business You Want

0:05Hey everyone, welcome back to the$100 MBA show. I'm your host Omar Zinhome and in today's lesson you will learn how to use the skills you already have to build the business you want. This episode is all about taking what you already know, your skills, your experiences, your talents, your knowledge, and turning them into a profitable knowledge business or digital product. Now, the first thing you want to do is you want to download this worksheet that goes along with today's lesson. And you can find that over at 100mba.net slash worksheets. You'll get access to a whole library of worksheets, but download this one so that you can work along with me.

0:43I'm going to go through the process with you step by step so that you don't miss a beat. But first, did you know that the global e-learning market is projected to reach over three hundred and twenty five billion by 2025? That's just around the corner. That's a study that's according to Forbes. The demand for digital products and online courses is skyrocketing. So why not use the skills you already have to tap into this growing market and build the business you've always wanted? So let's jump into the worksheet right now and start with the first step, and that's to identify your skills, your experiences, your talents, basically gathering the assets you already have.

1:23OK, so as I look down on this worksheet, this is where you're going to start listing any skills, any experiences, any talents, any knowledge that you've accumulated over the years. don't hold back don't think oh this is insignificant oh no one cares about this write it down write everything down right now that comes to mind and then later you can you know sift through that but right now we just want to have a brain dump right now so let's go through that right now and i'm just going to use me as an example let's say i'm starting out back in the day i'm a former educator my former teacher i taught high school and university i was an administrator This is my experience in life.

2:0010 years of this, I was teaching five classes, five days a week. So the first thing I'm going to write in this, if I was doing this worksheet, I would write teaching, right? I have a lot of experience in teaching. So I'm going to put this on my list. But I also did a bit of sales too. When I was in university, I had a bunch of sales jobs. I did phone sales, telemarketing. I sold long distance phone service. So I'm going to say some sales. I got some experience there. I also was around my dad a lot who was in sales, car sales, actually. My first job was washing cars at a wash bay in a car dealership.

2:35But I picked up a little bit about how to talk and coach people through what's a good decision. So I would say maybe one-on-one sales, right? So that's something I have experiences. What else? I'm really going to dig deep here. I really am good with technology. technology i used to do tech support for toys r us back when they were in business so i know some tech i know a bit of development work so dev work so that's just me my experience okay i'm pretty well traveled so i have some idea of cultures and worlds so i would say culture travel right i'm not really sure how this fits into my business right now but i'm just gonna pop it in here because it is a noteworthy right that i've traveled and now ever not a lot of people have traveled not everybody has traveled.

3:21So I'm going to put culture and travel. What else? I speak a different language. So I grew up in an Egyptian household. My parents are Egyptian. So I grew up speaking Arabic. So I'm bilingual. So I'm going to write bilingual. So you might not think that that's something, but you know, one of the things I noticed is that I am pretty good at teaching even to people that English is not their first language. I understand that this is a concept. Like some people are are learning or listening to me. And English is another first language. So I like to break things down regardless if there's a language barrier or not.

3:54What else? I've done coaching. I've coached basketball before, right? I played sports. So you get the point. I'm putting down all my experiences in this box. Okay. That's the first step you want to do. Okay. So let's move on to step number two, right? Step number two is where we want to prioritize these things, prioritize what's marketable. Once you have a list of these things right here, you want to prioritize the skills that are in demand that I enjoy or the ones that really you could build a business around. So I definitely can build something around teaching that's up here, right? Sales for sure.

4:32Some tech I can build around that. I can learn a little bit of that. Maybe coaching. So I'll put coaching here. Okay. So far, this is pretty simple, right? Okay. Now the next step is to choose a business model, right? You want to think about how you can monetize your skills. There are several business models you can consider, including online courses, coaching, consulting, eBooks, membership sites. These are all ways I can add value to people's life and ways I can transact with my customer. So now what you want to do is just choose maybe one or two business models that would work with these marketable skills that you already have.

5:16So one that stands out here is coaching. I can do group coaching for sure. Well, online courses stands out as well. So group coaching, online courses, these are two options. Now, you don't have to choose. You can start with one and do one later on in a few months. So you may want to start with group coaching, and then maybe the next quarter or next half of the year, you can start building some online courses as another product that you sell in your business. Next, you're going to match your prioritize skills to the most suitable business model. Consider your audience that you want to target, the scalability of the model, how much you can scale this, your personal preferences, what you like to do.

5:57For example, if you like writing and you love creating content, consider writing an ebook to start with or creating a blog that gets traction and that you can make money through affiliate commission. So the point here is, is that you want to build a business that you're going to enjoy and not hate. So this is where this comes in. So group coaching, online courses. Now I like to be time flexible. Group coaching times me to a schedule. I have to show up on a call at a certain time. So I'm not like super, super attracted to group coaching, but I like the idea of being able to create great content and then putting it on the world that people benefit from it.

6:32Online courses. I can also include some technology that I'm really excited about through online courses. So I'm going to go with online courses to start with at least and give my best chance for success. The reason why I say best chance of success is because if you are not enjoying yourself, if this is work for you, it's going to be very hard for you to get traction because you really need to put a lot of effort and show up as your best self. And if you're not really loving it, it's going to show your customers are going to see it, especially if you're going to be in front of your customers selling or demoing or delivering this product or service, like in my case, where I'm delivering a course or coaching.

7:06So I'm going to say online courses. I'm not totally against group coaching because I do group coaching, but I want to just want to start with online courses, get some traction, and then I can build an online course or I should build a, I should say a coaching program that fits my needs and schedule. But I want to rely on this to make my money to survive. Now it's time to package your knowledge into a product. This could be an online course, like I mentioned, a coaching program, an ebook, a membership site. But what you want to think about here is focus on creating something that solves a problem or fulfills a need for your target audience.

7:45That's really what an offer is. When you're offering something to somebody, you're saying, hey, I got something that you really want. You're going to want to buy this. For example, if you're offering an online course, outline the modules, the lessons, but more importantly, what's the outcome of this course? What are people going to be able to do after this course? So that way they can feel like, okay, I'm going to get an outcome that's worth paying you money for. People pay for outcomes, not for videos or modules or worksheets. Those things are important. The videos and the modules and the worksheets are important because they get them the outcome, helps them along with the outcome.

8:21But that's not what's really being sold here. An offer is really something that is attractive to the buyer. They want to be like, oh, this is really what I want. So think about what's the end result. What's the after picture of them taking whatever you choose. So for my example here, an online course, I'm creating an online course. The after picture for me at the$100 MBA is I show people how to go from nothing to having a business that sustains their lifestyle, that allows them to quit their job and allows them to live a life they've probably haven't lived before in terms of earning potential.

8:59So this is really what I'm offering. I'm offering changing their life, really. You might feel like, wow, this offer that I'm creating is a little grandiose. It's okay if it's grandiose. It's good. The more compelling the offer, the more likely they're gonna buy, the more value they're gonna perceive. But make sure you can deliver. I know I can deliver because I've done it several times for myself, but also for my students and for the people that have followed me for over 10 years at the$100 MBA. So I know I can change people's lives, help them change their life. They're changing their own life, but I can help them change their life by showing them the path forward of how to start and grow a business.

9:35So they're changing their life, have a business. And what does that business do? One of the key phrases I like to use in any offer is so you can. If you're teaching somebody to snowboard, I'll teach you how to snowboard so you can enjoy snowboarding with your friends without wasting your money or getting hurt. So you can is really like why it's important. So I'm going to put this here. So you can have a business. So you can have financial freedom. OK, so that's really my offer. Now, I'm going to also include when I can in this box how I'm going to pull this off. How am I going to be able to get them here?

10:13Right. So it might be, you know, videos, right? Worksheets might be some software or tooling or AI or something. I'm using my own example here. It might also be templates, right? So how are you going to get them there? Maybe if your model is coaching, it's going to be totally different. Coaching calls, accountability, you know, a buddy. If you have a membership site, you're going to be like a community, whatever it might be, right? What are the, I guess, the features or the things that are going to actually get them to that result? Next, you want to set up your platform. You want to choose the right platform to deliver your product.

10:53There are many options out there from course platforms to digital product platforms. And to be honest with you, they all are pretty much the same, okay? They all pretty much do the same thing. They might have, one might have one feature, another won't. but I want you just to choose one that is affordable to you, that you feel like is easy to use for you, that just, you know, calls you out. That kind of is like, okay, this looks like a good fit for me. They'll fit your needs and fit your business model. Okay. They'll actually help you with that. So the ones that come off the top of my head that I think are worth exploring are Podia, Teachable, and Kajabi.

11:30I'm not an affiliate of any of these guys, but these are something you can look into. If you're launching an online course, you may want to look at one that's more suitable to online courses, whether it's Teachable or Kajabi. If you have downloadable products like e-books and things like that, Podium might be a good way to go. So look at what you're doing and see which platform will actually deliver on your mission or on your business model. So here when we say set a platform, you're basically going to choose one. You're going to evaluate. And what I like to do is write down your needs. So let's say, for example, with me, online courses, I need to have online courses.

12:06I want to be able to have worksheets because I said that's how I'm going to do it. Remember, up here it says worksheets, AI templates. I can have some sort of downloadables in there, worksheets, downloadables. Maybe I want to embed my own tool there. So I'm going to go through all these that I mentioned. You know, there's more, by the way, but these are just somewhere you can get started. Podia, Teachable, Kajabi. and I'm going to say, okay, which one will fulfill all these needs for me? I'm going to go do some research. Okay. The next step is pretty simple. Okay. Cause you're going to start marketing your product with your product ready.

12:42And as a concept, it's time for you to start marketing it. Cause you can start marketing it, start selling seats and then open the doors when you are ready to actually offer when the product's actually ready, whether it's a course or an ebook or a coaching for that matter. So here, start brainstorming. How are you going to market your product? Are you going to grow an email list, right? Email list. Are you going to use social media? Are you going to use ads, paid ads? Are you going to get on podcasts, right? Are you going to use print media if you want to do that? So what I would do is just start brainstorming every way you can market your product or service.

13:20Okay. Maybe you want to bring on affiliates and do affiliate marketing, give them a commission if they sell your product or service affiliate, right? I'm just going to dump everything I can think of. And then what you want to do is choose two or three of them to start with. So I might say I want to grow an email list. I really love email marketing. I love paid ads because they just work, right? It's like throwing money at the problem. You know, if you don't have a budget, maybe you want to just use organic social. And then maybe I can also do podcasting. I like podcasting being on podcasts or start my own podcast.

13:49So there you go. Now, the last step is setting your pricing for your product or service. A lot of people struggle this at the beginning. And I understand people feel like, I don't know how much I'm worth and I don't know who's going to buy. And I want to be too expensive. People won't buy. And if it's too cheap, they're going to think it's not nice or it's not worth it. I get it. And I can do a whole, you know, three hours on pricing. And we probably have three hours worth of content of all the different lessons we've had on pricing over on our website. You can check it out, 100mba.net, and you can search all our lessons on pricing on our podcast.

14:20But I want to give you a few tips just so you can get the ball rolling. First one is price is an experiment. Price equals experiment, right? You are experimenting with pricing. Whatever you price your product right now won't be the price forever. It's just a starting point, okay? You want to make sure that you're experimenting with pricing all the time. Now, a lot of people like to do the research, other courses, see if it's competitively priced. I'm not into that. What I like to do instead is two things. First thing I want to like to do is I like to look at the result and 10x that value. So the result versus value, okay, equals price, right?

15:00So what is the value of changing somebody's life and giving them business to allow them to have financial freedom? It's kind of hard to put a price tag on it. How much would it be worth to do that, to have exponential wealth, to be able to have sustaining growth, to be able to have financial freedom. Let's say this is worth$100 ,000. Now, I can easily charge$10 ,000 for my course because it's 10 times as worth that much money, right? But I like to make it even more compelling. What if it was$1 ,000, okay? Wow, that's incredible. So really work off the result. that allows you to really be able to demand more and you can compare that with your price, the result value versus the price.

15:49Okay. So what you want to do here is think about even if you're not in business. So say for example, like I said, a snowboarding coach, how much is it worth to be able to have an enjoyable first day on the snowboard without getting hurt, without feeling like this whole ski trip was a waste of money, right? Without embarrassing yourself in front of friends, how much is that worth, right? If you had to put a price, a dollar amount to that, well, we can actually calculate how much a ski trip is worth, how much it costs you with traveling and hotels and everything. So at least$5 ,000, right? And then plus we got to talk about the time and the embarrassment and the fact that this memory is going to be with you forever and you want to make sure it's a good one.

16:30So that experience is worth at least$10 ,000 to get it right. Okay. So$10 ,000 I'm going to charge? No. What if I just charge a thousand dollars? What if I charge$500 to show them how to do well on the first day on a snowboard? That is really worth it. So as you can see, that's a good way to set your pricing. The next thing is what I want. What would be worth it for you? So say for example, you want to make$10 ,000 a month and you want to figure out how you could do that. Work backwards. How much you need to charge to get$10 ,000 a month? Do you feel confident you can get 10 customers at$1 ,000?

17:06If so, then make it$1 ,000. If not, if you think you only get five customers, charge$2 ,000. You can always discount with offers and specials and sales. So it's better for you to anchor your price higher at where you need to be. Okay. So that's a good other way to think about it. Just think about what you need out of this. Very important, right? There's three E's in this need. Anyway, the point here is what do you need out of this whole situation? Okay. And price accordingly. You can always adjust pricing later and figuring out through time what the willingness to pay of your audience is. And there you have it.

17:44I've walked you through all the steps on this worksheet and you can just go ahead and fill this out yourself, right? And now you have a game plan. You can get started. You know exactly what you need to do. And you just now need to implement what you just planned out on your worksheet. Now, one of the things I would recommend is go through the worksheet and then start thinking about what are the two dues you need to get done to get each part done. Do you need to outsource a graphic designer to get you to, you know, come up with a cover of your ebook? Do you need somebody to help you edit the videos for your online course.

18:20Just write down the to-dos so you can figure out who's going to do that later. How am I going to get that done? So that it's very clear, it's digestible, and you know what needs to be done in what order. So there you have it. See, you already have the skills, the knowledge, the experience to build the business you want. It's all about identifying the assets you have, choosing the right business model, packaging your knowledge, getting it out there in the world with some marketing, and there you got a business on your hands. You got something that you can actually build upon and start growing. Now, if you want to continue to grow, if you love today's lesson and you want more, check out all our business lessons over at 100mba.net.

18:58You can dive into over 2 ,500 business lessons in our archives. And don't forget, you can download this worksheet and all our worksheets over at our worksheet library at 100mba.net slash worksheets. I'm Omar Zinhome. Thank you so much for listening to The$100 MBA Show, watching us on YouTube. If you want to learn more, If you want to keep on going, subscribe to the show, whether you're listening on your favorite podcast app or on YouTube. We publish three days a week and we've been doing it for 10 years, so we're not going anywhere. We got your back. See you soon. Take care.