MBA2658 The Biggest Threat to Your Business and How To Fight It

0:00The real biggest threat to your business is mediocrity. Yes, this is absolutely true. Being comfortable, being fine, being stable, being just enough. That's the fastest way to fail in business. And I'm going to show you why. And this is very, very serious because it's something that a lot of people overlook and don't realize is causing their business to fail slowly. I'm not only going to show you why, but I'm also going to show you what to do about it. So let's get into it.

0:35Welcome back to the$100 MBA show. I'm your host, Omar Zinhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to help you start, grow, and scale your business. I hear this all the time. I don't want to scale too big. I just want to stay at this level. I'm happy where I'm at. Look, I get the desire for simplicity, but in business, you're either growing or you're dying. There is no staying the same. That's a myth. I hear so many times people like, I like where I am right now. I don't want to be too big for my boots. This is where I want to be. That's literally impossible.

1:11You can't just coast. And here's why. Your costs are increasing. There's inflation. There's wages. There's tools you got to keep up with. Your competitors are improving. Your customers are evolving. Technology is accelerating. So while you're staying at the same level, the world is moving forward. The whole world is leveling up and you are falling behind and what feels like maintaining is actually declining. Listen, we know this when it comes to other things in our life, like health and wellness, right? We're either healthy and we're working towards it and we're getting healthier, we're working out, we're getting exercise, we're consistent with it, we're watching what we eat, we're conscious of our mental health, all that kind of stuff, right?

1:55The opposite is really the only other option where you're not doing those things and you're getting worse in terms of your health. It's very hard to just maintain your health without getting better. Want to know why average businesses fail? Well, because they're forgettable, okay? They don't make waves. They don't stand out. They don't push the envelope. They're not hated, but they're definitely not loved. And in today's attention economy, if you're not remarkable, you're invisible. It's just simple as that. You don't have to be the biggest thing in the world, but you do need to be excellent, right?

2:31At one thing, in some way, you got to provide excellence to your customers in order for you to be remembered and for you to stay in business. Let me be absolutely blunt. If your customers would barely notice if you disappear tomorrow, you've already lost. You are actually dying slowly, which is the worst place to be in business where you're not failing quickly and realizing, oh, this didn't work out, you're actually bleeding slowly, you know, months and years go by. And then you start to realize, oh, this business is actually, you know, not working out and it's killing me slowly. And in my opinion, you're going to put in the time and the effort to build and grow a business and do whatever you want to achieve in life.

3:13You might as well do it right. You might as well be the best at it, to be excellent, to strive for greatness. This really hit me hard early in my business career as an entrepreneur. I was trying to play it safe. I was keeping things manageable, right? But what I realized is that by playing small, I wasn't being humble. I was actually being selfish because I wasn't giving my best. I wasn't challenging myself. I was scared. And most of all, I wasn't delivering the level of value I could give my customers. That's when I made a decision, a very clear decision. We either push or we get pushed out, right?

3:55We either go for it and give 110 % or we don't do it at all. So we doubled down on quality. We improved our offers. We hired better people. We took creative risks and we launched things that scared us a little bit. And that's what helped build the$100 BA and our software company, Webinar Ninja, and built a multimillion dollar business in the process. It wasn't the product. It wasn't the tech. It wasn't our mission and vision. It was the drive for excellence, is saying to ourselves, we're going to do everything we can to be the best we can, and not settling for less. I want you to look at the brands that you really respect.

4:34Like, Apple doesn't release okay products, right? They strive for excellence. You know, Lululemon doesn't create clothes that are uncomfortable, right? Or all right. The Ritz Carlton or the Four Seasons, they don't offer affordable rooms because it costs them money to be great. They strive for greatness, not because it's easy, but because anything less doesn't work long term. It just doesn't. And this is what I've learned in over 20 years of business experience. You know what lives in the middle of the market. Price wars, razor thin margins, burnout, businesses going out of business, trying to please everyone and thrilling no one is a recipe for disaster.

5:19So how do you fight mediocrity? How do you stay sharp when things are working and just fine in your business? Well, here's what I recommend. Number one, set excellence as the standard, always in your business, with you, with everybody that's in your company. Never make it okay to be allowed to settle for good enough. Good enough is not good enough. Every part of your business, from your product to your customer support, should really reflect this sense of pride and care, right? You're working so hard. Everybody's working so hard. You're sacrificing so much. Let's put some heart into it. Even if you're small, especially because you're small, you have to show in everything you do that this matters.

6:08You care and you got to put care into everything you do. Number two, get feedback constantly. Great businesses ask their customers where they can get better, how they can get better. They send surveys. They have real conversations with their customers, whether via phone or via email or in person. Real entrepreneurs, they're not looking for praise, right? You're looking for gaps. You're looking for ways to get better and better. Speaking of which, that's number three. Raise the bar regularly. Every 90 days, ask yourself this question. What are we doing that's just average? And what can we do to make it outstanding, make it great?

6:48Is it our customer support? Is it our onboarding when a customer joins us? Is it our newsletter? Is it our marketing? You need to take a look at your business. What are you doing kind of okay? And how can you make it outstanding, make it great, make it remarkable? Make one upgrade per quarter. Every three months, upgrade something in your business. That's how you leap ahead. Number four, surround yourself with excellence. I've talked about this before on the show many times, but it's worth iterating. Don't just hang around people who make you feel good. Find the ones who push you, who make you question if you're doing enough.

7:27I'm not talking about people that are negative. I'm talking about people that are encouraging to get better. And like I mentioned in a recent episode, the friends you keep equals the life you keep. Listen, I know comfort is tempting and it's easy just to slip into feeling good about your business. I know running a business is already hard, but just doing enough to get by is a trap. It's a slow death masked as stability. Listen, you don't need to be perfect, but you do need to strive to be better and better every day. Even if it's just 1 % better every day, that's going to compound whatever that looks like for you.

8:04Because your business doesn't die when you fail. It dies when you stop caring enough to get better. And that's it. The businesses that just really don't make it are the ones that don't care. And you need to constantly care more and more every day. If this episode lit a fire under you, good. I'm happy. That's the whole point. I want to really get you re-motivated, re-energized to take your business to the next level. If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start grow and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast.

8:43Hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now, whether it's Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. By hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically, and it's the best way to support the show. It's absolutely free, and it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.