The $100 MBA Show

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MBA907 Do Bonuses Increase Sales? Dec 25, 2017

Show notes

‘Tis the season — let’s talk giving!

Offering free bonuses is a common sales-boosting strategy, used by everyone from the smallest mom-and-pops to the biggest corporations. But do these giveaways work? If you’re starting or running your own business, it’s important to use every resource wisely.

You’ve got to carefully consider everything you offer to customers, or it’s money down the drain.

The key to effective bonuses is to remember what they really are: not gifts, but investments. The value of the investment relative to the value of the outcome has to be favorable, for both you and the customer. Give the wrong bonus, and the outcome is nothing but increased expenditures and lost credibility.

It’s all about the ROI.

Today, we’re discussing exactly what kinds of bonuses work, and what kinds don’t. We’ve used bonuses to promote our own products, from our webinar software service to The $100 MBA course. We’ve seen bonuses succeed, and we’ve seen them fall flat. In that time, we’ve learned a thing or two about precisely what makes a bonus effective.

Specifically, we’ve compiled 4 distinct characteristics that define a successful bonus offer. By ensuring these 4 keys are in place, you can craft an offer that will be worth every dime you “give” away, to yourself and your audience. You gain the trust that drives sales, and your customers get one step closer to the solutions they seek.

Bonuses are the gifts that keep on giving.

In a nutshell, a great bonus comes down to relevance, actionability, and value. The 4 principles we discuss today are the keys to establishing those things for your bonus offers. By aligning your offer with your own product and your own customers’ needs, you can pinpoint the offers that will truly generate sales.

You’ll also learn how to “sell” the bonus, and deliver it in a way that’s targeted towards results.

This is our last episode of 2017, an incredible whirlwind year that’s seen major twists and turns to our own business journey. It’s been a privilege to share those twists and turns, in our effort to make our experience valuable to you.

From the complete overhaul of WebinarNinja, to our decision to mine that overhaul for insights for our audience, to our experiment with our current weekly podcast format, we’ve learned a ton — and we hope you have too.

Starting on January 1, we return to our daily podcast format, with 5 episodes per week — including our ever-popular Q&A episodes, and our FREE RIDE FRIDAY subscription giveaways.

We can’t wait to tackle 2018 with you. Learn how to maximize your success with effective bonus offers, so you can make the new year all yours. Click Play!

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MBA906 5 Things I Learned From 5 People in 2017 Dec 18, 2017

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It’s that time of year!

No, not that.

Even better: it’s time to reveal this year’s 5 lessons from 5 of the greatest business teachers around!

Every year, we choose 5 entrepreneurs whose unique approaches, strategies, and styles inspired us, educated us, and made us better business people — whether they knew it or not. Some of them we know personally. Some of them, we’re just fans of. But whatever the case, their choices informed our business, as well as the personal entrepreneurial development of our host, Omar.

We learned from them, and so can you.

These 5 special individuals have no idea we’ve been studying their work so intensely. We have no arrangement with them to be the subject of this podcast, for sponsorship or any other purpose. In fact, they don’t find out how much they’ve taught us until the day the episode airs!

They are simply the people whose examples were of the greatest genuine value to us — and we’re hoping, to you.

Some are writers. Some are software developers. One is a comedian who started with nothing but a YouTube channel. But all of them are dynamic entrepreneurs. All of them have taken on their own business development with creativity, flexibility, and ingenuity. They’ve done something different.

They’ve all done something completely their own, but with implications for anyone who wants to learn entrepreneurship.

Each of these 5 incredible game-changers has a unique twist on independent business, one that allowed them to stand out from the crowd. Their accomplishments were not insanely well-funded or corporate-backed ventures. There are people whose success was derived directly from their willingness to find new roads, to do what true entrepreneurs do: give the market something it was missing.

By forging their own approach, these great teachers (whether they meant to teach or not) are the year’s best examples of the founding principle of The $100 MBA: that being true to your own vision will reveal your value to consumers.

Tune in. Hear what our 5 inspirers have to teach us about marketing, selling, innovating, managing, and all the rest. Take what we’ve gotten from them, as we pass it on to you. Learn from the best, just like we did. Click Play!

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MBA905 Solopreneur vs. Entrepreneur Dec 11, 2017

Show notes

There’s more than one way to start your own business. When plotting out your entrepreneurial path, it’s important to establish something early on: what kind of independent business person you are.

Would you make a better entrepreneur, or solopreneur?

Maybe you’re the type to go it alone. Maybe your product is best produced, marketed, and sold by its creator. In that case, solopreneurship might be the path for you. If you love leading a team, and your product requires diverse skill sets to bring to market, entrepreneurship could be the way to go.

It’s important to start thinking about this now, especially if you’re at the beginning of your business journey.

Your own talents and skills, plus the nature of your product and business goals, need to be carefully considered. Many factors determine the best way forward, and it’s crucial to choose correctly.

That’s what today’s podcast is all about: helping you decide what will work best for you.

Let’s be clear — neither solopreneurship nor entrepreneurship is better or worse. Neither is easier or more difficult. These are two very different, but equally valid, ways to build a business. In fact, our host Omar has found success with both approaches, depending on the kind of product and the goals for the business.

Some entrepreneurs even start as solopreneurs, building their brand on their own until it grows to the point where it takes a team to scale up. Some solopreneurs go it alone all the way to the top, reaching 6-figure incomes without hiring a single employee.

As they say, it all depends.

Both options have their advantages. Both have their challenges. Today, we want to explore all the ups and downs of both, so that you can apply this knowledge to your own business ideas. By understanding the strengths, risks, and unique factors of each approach, you can optimize your chances of success. Whichever you choose, though, it’s important to choose as early as possible.

This episode offers a comprehensive explanation of solopreneurship, its practical differences from entrepreneurship, and concrete, actionable steps you can take to move forward with this information in mind.

We don’t just want to help you get started; we want to help you get started with every possible advantage. That begins with defining your approach to business with clarity, specificity, and forward-facing vision. With that accomplished, you can move on to building your audience, creating your product, and shaping your strategy towards achieving the lifestyle you want.

Tune in, compare and contrast these two approaches, and get ready to take action. Click Play!

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MBA904 5 Businesses You Can Start Today Dec 04, 2017

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So you want to start your own business. What’s taking so long?

Here at the $100 MBA, we battle a myth. We battle it day in and day out, because it’s the one thing holding more entrepreneurs back than anything else: the belief that you need huge amounts of funding, education, time, or resources to start a successful business.

It’s not that you won’t ever need things like knowledge or capital. You just don’t need as much as you might think to get started! You can begin the journey any time, including right now, and gather those things along the way. All it takes is a little guidance, and the will to move forward.

So many people want to be independent entrepreneurs, but too many people overestimate the obstacles to doing so. You don’t need a huge budget. You don’t need the experience of an expert. You don’t need a degree. You don’t need “passion,” or some Earth-shattering product idea.

You just need to take the first steps.

You can build a business right now, today. What business will depend on you, but there are a few categories of business that anyone can establish with minimal resources and experience. We know — we’ve built these businesses ourselves. Today, we’re sharing 5 specific types of businesses that you can start with nothing but a laptop and decent wifi.

The greatest preparation for entrepreneurship? Just plain doing it.

We talk all the time about the MVP, or Minimum Viable Product. It means that every product has to start somewhere, that it can’t be perfect before you get the ball rolling. The same applies to entrepreneurs. If you want to be in business for yourself, the most important thing you can do is to get started! You don’t need the features of a long-established career to begin one. Sometimes, you just have to stop packing and get on the road.

Whether it’s service, creative, or educational, there are countless ways to leverage your talents into a real-world business. With this lesson, we offer 5 examples. We discuss why you don’t need to wait for conditions to be “perfect” to start a business, how to find your niche, and how to find your first clients.

Tune in, hear how jumping into entrepreneurship really works, and decide how you can start your independent business journey, right this minute. After the lesson, stick around for a very special, very important announcement for all our listeners. We can’t wait to share this lesson, and we can’t wait to share this week’s exciting news.

Let’s kill the excuses. Let’s kill the doubt. Let’s get going! Click Play!

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MBA903 Not Selling During Holidays? Nov 27, 2017

Show notes

Every business is different. So why assume that what works for some businesses will work for yours?

It’s pretty standard practice in most industries to ramp up sales for the holidays. After all, it’s the most wonderful time of the year — to generate revenue. The big holiday sales push is so commonplace, we just assume that it’s a smart, effective strategy.

Let’s stop assuming.

For some kinds of businesses, it might be smarter to consider something different. Something outside the box. Something downright radical: taking the holidays off.

Crazy, right? In retail, suggesting we take a holiday break would be enough to get you pilloried. But for small service businesses, a little holiday hiatus is not just harmless; it could actually increase your profits. A strategic holiday shut-down is an opportunity to retool your product, push for a pre-holiday sales boost, and recharge your whole business.

It’s counterintuitive, but that’s what makes it so brilliant.

Great entrepreneurs don’t chase the crowd. They find the underserved market, they seek the niche, they go where other businesses aren’t going. And while most companies are decking the halls for the holiday sales explosion, lean, smart, small-time entrepreneurs think differently.

On this episode of The $100 MBA Show, we’ll discuss how to plan and execute a strategic holiday sales break. We explain exactly why this strategy works, how to determine if your business would benefit from it, and how to execute it. We detail the exact steps you should take to temporarily shutter the sales end of your business, and quietly prepare to come roaring out of the gate in the new year.

Our experience building small businesses has taught us the value of thinking differently. Bucking the holiday trend of pushing for sales might sound like anathema, but we’ve seen it work. By closing your doors for a bit, you can start the new year with a burst of activity, well-rested and equipped with a fresh influx of new customers.

This holiday season, let’s think outside the tastefully-wrapped box. Learn how a little downtime can create an upward trend. Click Play!

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Total Recall: My Unbelievable True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger

Entrepreneurs On Fire

$100 MBA Free Idea Validation Course

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MBA902 Better to Hire Early or Late? Nov 20, 2017

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Is it time to hire?

As your business grows, this can be a tough question. As entrepreneurs, we all want to be proactive. Why wait ‘till tomorrow when you can do it today? But when it comes to personnel, it’s not quite so simple. Growing your business is about many things, not the least of which is timing.

No one can hire the people they need at the exact moment they’re needed. So the question is: should you hire late or early?

Is it better to have the people you need in place before the work rolls in? Or should you save the capital until the investment is absolutely necessary (not to mention guaranteed to pay off)? What’s worse: spending money you don’t have on people you don’t need, or scrambling to handle the workload with inadequate staffing?

What’s the lesser of two evils?

We’ve been entrepreneur-ing for some time now, and we’ve got pretty strong views on this topic. Today on the podcast, we’re weighing the pros and cons of both early and late hiring, and explaining why we consistently choose one path over the other. While no two businesses are alike, we think our reasoning can help any entrepreneur, whichever policy they prefer.

It’s advice worth hearing.

To help you with your hiring plans, we discuss all the factors that go into this important decision. What positions are truly necessary? How much momentum and revenue is required to make a new hire a safe bet? How much work is too much for a solopreneur or small team? Most importantly, how can you establish a new position in a way that lets your new employees hit the ground running?

Whatever you spend on your team, it needs to be money well spent. On this episode, we’ll teach you how to project timeframes, analyze the cost/benefit ratio of every new hire, and scale up while keeping your business lean.

We’ll help you hire with the timing and finesse every entrepreneur needs to make strides without losing ground.

There’s a risk in every decision. Nowhere is that more true than when it comes to the timing of your hires. Tune in, hear how we’ve dealt with this deeply important policy question, and decide if our logic applies to your business. We offer detailed insights, plus practical exercises you can use before you decide to hire.

Make sure that every investment is a worthy one. Click Play!

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MBA901 Why I Quit Social Media Nov 13, 2017

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Are you addicted to social media?

More importantly, is social media having a negative impact on your business? There’s lots to love about Twitter, Facebook, and all the rest. For business owners, social media is an undoubtedly useful tool for outreach and marketing. But many independent business people — myself included — think there’s a fine line between useful and necessary.

I’m not the only one who thinks that (depending on the business) social media is often wildly overrated. Its power to grow your audience and generate leads is far more limited than many new entrepreneurs realize. While there are those who’ve built their followings primarily through social media, those are exceptions, not the norm.

I like to say that your business isn’t done on Facebook, or Snap, or any other social media platform. It’s done on your webiste, in your store, in the space you create.

To really take this principle for a test run, I made what some would consider a pretty radical decision: I quit social media. Indefinitely. For the last several weeks, I’ve suspended all my social media accounts. And you know what? I can’t say I miss it.

Again, I’m not here to bash social media. It’s valuable, it’s useful, and its effects on society are better discussed by sociologists than business people. I may even return to social media once this experiment has yielded all its results. But I’ve found that since I kicked the habit (and it is a habit), both my business and personal life have demonstrably improved.

Today on the podcast, I discuss what exactly was behind my decision to quit social media. I describe my motivations and inspiration for this experiment, and what I hoped to get out of it. I also discuss what I have gotten out of it so far, from increased emotional well-being to greater focus and productivity.

In fact, I’d argue that leaving social media has actually helped my marketing efforts, by allowing me to focus on marketing strategies with far greater ROI.

Social media is a boon in many ways, but it is undoubtedly a habit, one with the potential to create addictive, distracting patterns of behavior. In this episode, I even propose a short experiment for you, the listener, to decide if backing away from social media could be beneficial. Maybe a social-free life isn’t for you, but it could be worth finding out.

Tune in, hear my 3 specific reasons for giving social media a break, and consider my results. A healthier, more focused, balanced approach to work and life might just be the outcome. Click Play!

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Deep Work by Cal Newport

Cal Newport: Quit Social Media TEDx Talk

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Noah Kagan on Social Media

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MBA900 How Much Money Do You Need? Nov 06, 2017

Show notes

What do you want?

It’s the most basic of questions, underlying the motivations behind everything we do in life and business. What’s it all for? Why are we striving to make our businesses successful? What’s the point of profit?

For all of us, the money isn’t the answer. It’s the means to achieve the answer.

That said, we shouldn’t abandon all thoughts of quantifying our personal definition of success. No, money can’t buy happiness. But it can give you the freedom and resources to do whatever it is that does make you happy. That’s a quantity worth calculating. How much money, exactly, do you need to live the life you want?

Do you want to travel? Support a family? Drive your dream car? Order the appetizer? Whatever it is, there’s a number attached to it. The life of your choosing can’t be defined by money, but it can be enabled by a concrete number.

On today’s podcast, Omar introduces a life/business planning exercise by which you can nail down your personal number. Using this simple but thoughtful process, you can legitimately determine what the life you want will cost— and start moving towards it.

This isn’t about dreaming. This exercise is an act of doing.

By quantifying the key to your goals, you enable yourself to take concrete steps towards attaining them. In fact, after you do the math, you may find that your goals aren’t as far off as you think!

Too many people define their life goals to broadly, carrying nebulous ideas of how much money they need. Yes, we all want to be “wealthy” or even just “comfortable.” But we can do better than that. We can define what specifically we want, and work out a realistic price tag.

Doing this exercise can radically alter your approach to business. By defining your personal goals in terms of exact numbers, you can focus your business goals on achieving those numbers. The number is a bridge between your dreams and your reality. By seeing your business is the means to cross it, your focus intensifies.

It’s not about making the most money; it’s about making the right amount. By plotting an actionable path to your goals, you can achieve what too many people in business forget about: working to live, instead of living to work. Find out how.

Special thanks to all our listeners as we celebrate this, our 900th episode! It’s a good one: Click Play!

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I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi

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MBA899 Must Read: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson Oct 30, 2017

Show notes

What to say about Steve Jobs? He’s the first person that comes to mind when you think of the word “entrepreneur.” He changed the world we all live in, by virtue of his commitment to a business vision. Much has been written about, by, and for him. What can you, as an entrepreneur, learn from the legend?

Now, we have the ultimate guide to his life and career: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, the most complete, relevant biography for any entrepreneur who wants to take lessons from the life of the iconoclast.

Isaacson’s biography is the latest addition to our Must Read list, and the subject of this week’s podcast. With so many books about business and entrepreneurship (not to mention about Apple and Jobs specifically), we like to highlight the ones that can best impact your growth as a business person. In this episode, Omar breaks down the key takeaways from this incredible (and incredibly long) book.

It’s a page-turner, and good thing — there are quite a few pages to turn. This fascinating biography paints a narrative of struggle and innovation, of idiosyncrasy and vision, of controversy and perseverance. Despite how close the biographer was to Jobs, his access didn’t spoil his objectivity. This is no work of flattery, but an honest, revealing exploration of what made Jobs so…Jobs.

Innovators don’t happen by accident. They build and define themselves as they create and grow their businesses. Jobs may reign as the greatest example of that spirit of his generation. None of us will ever be Steve Jobs, but all of us can benefit from the fearless dedication to innovation that drove his life, through all its ups and downs.

To learn those vital lessons, we highly recommend this book. For a succinct breakdown of those lessons, tune in to Omar’s synopsis. You’ll be glad you did. – Click Play!

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MBA898 The Top 5 Tasks to Outsource Oct 23, 2017

Show notes

What’s the best return on investment? What’s the most valuable thing an entrepreneur can gain from any expense?

Time.

Time is the greatest ROI. Some say time is money, but money pales in comparison to the value of time, the one resource you can never replenish once lost. A goal of every entrepreneur should be to free up as much of their time as possible: time better spent innovating than managing, moving forward rather than treading water, or even just spent living and enjoying the freedom entrepreneurship offers.

So how can we get more time? Outsourcing.

The smartest, boldest thing you can do as an independent business leader is to get things off your own plate. Spend your money to free up your time by zeroing in on the most time-consuming tasks best left to others. Not only will this allow you to focus on the leadership aspects of your business, it may significantly improve the quality of your product. Why be the jack of all trades when you can hire a master of each?

On today’s episode, we discuss the top 5 tasks you should consider outsourcing. By utilizing team members, freelancers, even affiliates, you can stop working and start leading. Free up time, headspace, and personal resources to make yourself more effective than ever. Minimize stress and focus on the creative, exciting parts of running a business. Through outsourcing, you and your business can become more agile than ever.

What about the cost?

That’s the best part: today’s global marketplace is teeming with talent, available to work remotely from all over the world. With the prevalence of skills in everything from content to accounting, it has never been more affordable to outsource.

This is especially important as your business grows, and your success forces you to scale up. As your business gains momentum, your leadership will be far more important than your labor. Not only that, but the odds are that for each of these 5 tasks, you can find someone who can do it better than you can!

That’s been our experience, anyway. These 5 areas aren’t just tasks we recommend outsourcing, they’re tasks we’ve outsourced ourselves! It’s worked for us, and it can work for you. Find out how- Click Play!

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