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Omar Zenhom (0:23)

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Fidelity Representative (0:24)

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Omar Zenhom (1:24)

Qualifying credit required I've started over 20 businesses over the last 25 years and only three of them made me wealthy. Not because I got small, it definitely happened because I worked harder, but because I stopped choosing the wrong type of business. The irony is that the three businesses that paid me the most were actually less stressful and more predictable and frankly, almost boring. Today I'm going to give you the shortcut I wish I had 25 years ago. The only three business models that actually are worth your time. Welcome Back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host Omar Zenholm where deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday to help you start, grow and scale your business. If this show has helped in any way, it would be amazing if you could drop us a quick review on whatever app you're using to listen to this podcast right now. It helps me and my team bring new episodes every week and more importantly, more entrepreneurs will be able to discover our podcast so you can help someone else start their journey. Thanks so much. Business number one a premium service business. This was My first real breakthrough. And it sounds boring, which is exactly the point. This is why it works. A premium service business means that you're solving a specific painful problem for a specific type of client at a high price point. Not cheap and cheerful, not anyone with bulls. Okay, premium. My early failures. I tried to do everything for everyone. And that is a recipe for disaster. I tried to build websites and logos and copy and do marketing for them. I did low prices, high stress, endless revisions. And then something clicked. When I raised my prices and narrowed my focus, everything changed. I got better clients. I had better conversions and conversations with my clients. I had better margins, which allowed me to keep more money. And the whole thing was just almost like night and day. Like all of a sudden I was like, wow, this is what business should be like. And here's the secret most people miss. High prices don't scare off good clients. Confusion does. Actually, high prices attracts a lot of great clients. The best clients you can find. When someone understands exactly what you do and who it's for and why it matters, price becomes really secondary. Premium services really work because you are cash flow immediate. You make profit immediately, right? You learn fast about how to improve your product or your service. And most of all, you build confidence and skills quickly because you have some money to invest in your skills and gain some confidence. And that's the whole key. If you're not making enough money to reinvest in yourself and your business, it's very hard for you to grow and scale. This business didn't just make money, it taught me how value actually works. Now for me, what I did is I created custom websites for entrepreneurs and then I niched down to just focusing on building websites for bloggers. So this is 2012. So 2012, blogging was all the rage and bloggers were making a lot of money, so they were willing to invest in building a beautiful website that was very functional. I had a standard base price for a standard website that included three pages and then every additional page had an add on fee. This made things a lot simpler for me, but also allowed me to have more additional revenue per customer as they wanted to add more pages to their site later on after the project was over. I can charge them as an add on and I would make more and more money from customers I've had for years. I also offered a reoccurring fee where my customers can host their websites with me. I can host them and they don't have to worry about hosting or paying for that. Every single month. I would update all their security protocols and make sure their site was secure. And they would pay me a monthly fee for that. And this allowed me to have reoccurring revenue because I worked hard to get that customer. Let me make sure that I keep them and have them pay me month over month. So every time I got a new customer, I got more reoccurring revenue. And that leads me to business number two, a reoccurring digital business. This one changed everything for me because one time payments is very exhausting. Like I mentioned, you sell, you celebrate. But then you realize you got to do it all over again. You got to work hard and get a new customer so that you can get paid. You have to reinvent the wheel over and over again. You're starting from zero with every new customer, and that is really exhausting. Then I built a software business called Webinar Ninja. It was a SaaS business, a software as a service business. And it's exactly what it sounds like. People would pay me monthly to use the software. And this was a novel kind of concept back in the day, but now it's kind of the standard. So customers paid us repeatedly for ongoing value. This is where I built real leverage. So instead of me waking up every morning and saying, how do I sell more today? I would ask myself, how do I keep my customers happy for years so they can continue to pay me? That shift alone changes how you think about business. Reoccurring revenue businesses are high value businesses because it's predictable revenue and it's sustainable. It's also long term. You know, people understand how much money you're going to make in the long term, and this makes your company a whole lot more, more valuable. When a buyer comes to buy your company, they're going to say, oh, wow, this is reoccurring, predictable revenue. I know how much money this company will make in the next month and next year, next five years. But let's say, for example, you're an E commerce business and you're selling physical products, okay? And you are selling these products by getting customers through ads on Facebook. Or maybe you're using SEO, or maybe people are finding you through ChatGPT. What if that stops happening? What if the algorithm changes on Google? What if ads become too expensive for you to be able to run them and be profitable? You don't have any more customers. It's game over. You don't have reoccurring revenue of customers you've already established. And that's why reoccurring revenue businesses are so valuable. This is how I built wealth that didn't require me to burn the midnight oil every single day. And yes, this is where Webinar angel, my software company, came in. And it didn't happen overnight and not magically, but steadily, impatiently and intentionally. And it took 10 years, but it changed my life. After 10 years we sold webinar Ninja for life changing money so I never needed to work again. But I was too young to retire. I was 43 and I went all in on my third type of business that I want to share with you. Today's episode is sponsored by Quo. This year, let's make it all about not missing opportunities. And that starts with not missing calls. Because a missed call is money out the door. Quo helps you and your team share one business number, reply faster, and stay on top of every customer conversation so you never miss an opportunity to connect with your customers. Which is why today's episode is sponsored by Quo, spelled Q U O. The modern alternative to run your business communications, Quo works everywhere you are right from an app on your phone or computer and lets you keep your existing number, add new numbers or teammates in minutes, sync your CRM and rely on seamless routing and call flows as your business scales. Quo isn't just a phone system, it's a smart system. Quo's AI automatically logs calls, generates summaries, and highlights next steps so nothing gets lost. Make this the year where no opportunity and no customer slips away. Try quo for free plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to quo.commba that's quo.commba no missed calls, no missed customers.