The $100 MBA Show

Latest Episodes:

MBA1047 How Much Should You Test Your Product Before Launch? + Free Ride Friday! Jul 13, 2018

Show notes

Is your product ready for launch? How can you know?

Spending too much time in the beta phase can hurt your business. Excessive testing and endless tweaking can delay launch of the only product that matters: the MVP (Minimum Viable Product). As we often remind listeners, entrepreneurs who hesitate are truly lost.

So how can you balance the need to make your product genuinely viable, without succumbing to “analysis paralysis?”

Today, we discuss how to make testing efficient, with strategies for identifying the data you want, finding your testers, getting useful feedback, and using it to move forward. With these strategies, you can get your product into market-ready shape and launch with full confidence. Find the sweet spot between unpreparedness and perfectionism — Click Play!

EasyCourse

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MBA1046 Simple Steps to Onboarding a New Employee Jul 12, 2018

Show notes

Onboarding: it’s not just for customers!

Your new team members need to hit the ground running, feeling comfortable and confident from the start. They’ve got to gel with established team members, find their space, and work out the best ways to contribute.

The sooner all that happens, the better.

To set your new hires up for success, you need more than just a few inspiring slogans and HR-speak. You need a dependable, reproducible process you can apply to every newcomer.

Today, we discuss the features of an effective employee onboarding system. WIth some practical, intentional strategies, you can cut down on the friction new employees experience. You can shorten the time it takes to get their feet wet, and spare them the tedious information dumps of standard onboarding.

Let your new hires shine, quickly! Click Play!

Basecamp

How to Create a Team Handbook

Intercom

Zendesk

Easycourse

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MBA1045 Q&A Wednesday: What Is The #1 Skill I Should Work On as a New Entrepreneur? Jul 11, 2018

Show notes

You’re just starting out as an entrepreneur. You know you’ll need versatile skills, but you can’t do everything well. If you’re gonna be a jack of several trades, which skill should you focus on most? Which ability will have the biggest impact on your chances of success?

What’s the most important thing you can be good at?

Today, we discuss the one skill that applies to everything an independent business person has to do. Necessary to survive in any industry, this one skill is non-negotiable. The time and effort it takes to hone this skill might just be the single best investment you can make in yourself.

This skill makes your ideas understandable, and marketable. It enables networking and strong partnerships. It boosts sales, and helps you run your team effectively. It’s the all-around, hands-down, must-have skill for any entrepreneur worth their salt.

Find out what this skill is, and how to cultivate it. Click Play!

To submit your questions, visit 100mba.net/q.

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MBA1044 How to Create a Team Handbook For Your Company Jul 10, 2018

Show notes

Ditch the old-fashioned employee handbook. Today’s dynamic companies have a new approach.

Rather than carving company info in stone and handing it down, new entrepreneurs can take a much more creative angle. We recently attended the Running Remote conference in Bali, where the good folks from GitLab treated us to an incredible lesson on establishing your company’s go-to guide. The twist? You don’t write it. Your team does.

We were so impressed by this system and its benefits that we decided to devote an entire episode to sharing what we learned.

Whether your team is new and tiny, or huge and established, you can streamline your HR with a dynamic, crowd-sourced handbook your employees contribute to. By making it a community project, you give your employees ownership of the company culture, and make things like employee onboarding more efficient.

Learn how your team can create a fluid, effective handbook that’ll save you and your management time and effort. Click Play!

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MBA1043 Guest Teacher: Dan Stones – The 5 Steps to Building An Unbeatable Team Culture Jul 09, 2018

Show notes

Want to keep your team happy, productive, motivated, and on point?

It’s all about the culture.

Today, we’ve got a special guest teacher with years of experience helping businesses build teams that work. Dan Stones knows team culture — what kind of culture gets the best results, how to cultivate it, and how to get everyone on board. He’s here with 5 tips that any business owner (big, small, or in between) can use to promote optimal teamwork.

Employee turnover is a big-time waste of resources. By establishing a team people are happy to be on, you can keep the real “keepers” around for reasons beyond compensation. With mutual loyalty and a shared purpose, the best teams are truly more than the sum of their parts.

Tune in, and learn how to take a holistic approach to team performance, empowering your employees and creating the most productive dynamic. Stones has the surprising truth about exactly how much influence you can have over team culture — whether your team realizes it or not. Click Play!

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MBA1042 Is Money That Important? + Free Ride Friday! Jul 06, 2018

Show notes

How much does money matter? Where’s the line between realism and materialism? How much of your business’s value can be expressed in dollars and cents?

Today, we discuss money’s true worth. As entrepreneurs, we don’t work for pay. We work for a vision, for a lifestyle, for a principle. But undervaluing money is a dangerous trap, one that can snuff out your dreams if you’re too idealistic.

You should never chase money. But you should respect it.

Money is a tool, one that can be the key to realizing your ideas about work, life, your industry, and any other non-financial motivation that moves you. Understanding the relationship between money and your personal vision is crucial. Controlling money skillfully can help you avoid the most unfortunate fate for any entrepreneur: being controlled by money.

Align your balance sheet with your ultimate goals. Click Play!

EasyCourse

Baremetrics

ProfitWell

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MBA1041 How Small Gifts Can Make a Big Difference Jul 05, 2018

Show notes

A little gift can go a long way.

It’s not a bribe. It’s not an act of manipulation. It’s simply an expression of genuine appreciation for someone you’d like to work with. Today, we share how the simple psychology of gift-giving can forge business connections — and relationships — that open doors.

When done thoughtfully and sincerely, a token of appreciation can create bonds that matter. It doesn’t have to be expensive, or impressive. It just has to be real.

We discuss what kinds of gifts work, when they’re appropriate, and why gift-giving is a smart investment. With a little planned generosity, you can demonstrate yourself to be the entrepreneur people want in their circle, for the right reasons.

Having been on the receiving end of some well-thought-out gifts ourselves, we know the difference between schmoozing and meaningful gestures. Learn the difference yourself, and see what opportunities it can create. Click Play!

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MBA1040 Q&A Wednesday: What do you include on a pre-launch product page if you don’t have product creatives or app screenshots? Jul 04, 2018

Show notes

To get your business rolling, we always advocate for the MVP (Minimum Viable Product). But when it comes to marketing that product, you’ll need another MVP: a Minimum Viable Page on your website!

It’s Q&A Wednesday, and we’ve got a listener who’s ready to make the smart move of building a pre-launch web page for an app. Trouble is, our loyal listener doesn’t have much by way of creatives or even screenshots for imagery. So is a pre-launch page still possible?

You bet it is.

One thing we’ve learned is that you can’t let what’s missing hold you back from what’s possible. In business, lean is the new black. Having fewer bells and whistles can actually be an advantage, as it forces you to focus on showcasing what matters most.

Today, we discuss exactly what a bare-bones pre-launch page should include and look like. Learn what matters, what doesn’t, and what it takes for a web page to do the only thing that matters: convert visitors into leads. Click Play!

To submit your questions, visit 100mba.net/q.

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MBA1039 How to Hire Motivated Players Jul 03, 2018

Show notes

Your business deserves the best. But where do you find it?

It starts with redefining “best.” While many employers look for the most talented prospects with the right skill sets, a much more important metric for an employee’s true potential is motivation.

As we like to say, you can always teach the skill. You can’t teach the attitude.

Today, we discuss how to save yourself time and effort when looking for those top-notch players, the ones who bring a competitive, positive frame of mind. We help you spot the self-starters and self-motivators you’ll want to keep an eye on — but won’t have to.

From the initial job ad to the interviews, we describe our system for filtering out the throwbacks and hanging on to the keepers. We give you exact instructions on pinpointing the professional and personal traits that show who’s in it to win it. In the end, you’ll know who brings the most value.

Go get the go-getters! Click Play!

WebinarNinja

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MBA1038 Must Read: How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams Jul 02, 2018

Show notes

Sometimes, the best advice comes from unexpected places.

Scott Adams is a cartoonist, but anyone who’s read his classic comic strip Dilbert knows he’s an expert in business and corporate culture. A sarcastic, controversial expert, but an expert nonetheless.

After repeated recommendations, we finally got around to reading Adams’ 2013 best-seller, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. This book is unconventional, brimming with Adams’ frank, take-it-or-leave-it approach to understanding success. Love it or hate it, this book has as many valuable insights as hard opinions.

We have to recommend challenging your thinking by giving this book a read. Today, we discuss some of the book’s key takeaways, what makes it so appropriate for entrepreneurs, and how your attitude towards success can manifest real-world results. Click Play!

Audible

Discover all our must-read book reviews at https://100mba.net/bookreviews.

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