MBA2236 The Truth About Business Success You Don't Want To Hear

Summary

The $100 MBA Show: Episode MBA2236 – "The Truth About Business Success You Don't Want To Hear"

Host: Omar Zenhom
Release Date: February 2, 2023
Podcast Description: Awarded Best of Apple Podcasts, The $100 MBA Show delivers practical business lessons for the real world. These no-fluff episodes are packed with only the pure business-building training you want.

---

Introduction

In Episode MBA2236 of The $100 MBA Show, host Omar Zenhom delves into a candid discussion about the fundamental truths behind business success that many entrepreneurs are hesitant to acknowledge. Drawing from over two decades of entrepreneurial experience, Omar dismantles common misconceptions and highlights the simplicity at the core of successful businesses.

Business Success Simplified

Omar opens the episode by addressing a widespread belief among business owners: the notion that achieving success is inherently complicated. He challenges this by asserting, “Business is simple. It's not complicated” (03:15). According to Omar, the perceived complexity is self-imposed, stemming from a reluctance to embrace the basic, fundamental principles that drive success.

Consistency Over Complexity

The crux of Omar's message revolves around consistency in executing foundational business tasks. He emphasizes that while innovative ideas and strategies can provide temporary excitement, it is the unwavering commitment to the basics that sustains long-term success. “It's the consistency that makes it hard, makes it challenging. Anybody can run to a new idea, a new concept, a new strategy, and get excited. What's hard is to do the basics every day, consistently” (06:47).

Practical Examples

To illustrate his point, Omar uses relatable examples from everyday businesses:

1. Hair Salon Example:

   • Quality Service: Ensuring that haircuts are well-executed and safe.
   • Cleanliness: Maintaining a tidy and hygienic environment.
   • Timeliness: Respecting appointment times to avoid client waiting.
   • Friendly Service: Creating a welcoming atmosphere for customers.

   He underscores that these are not advanced tactics but simple, essential practices that, when consistently applied, lead to customer satisfaction and business growth. “They do the basics, the fundamentals, day in, day out. No matter what's happening in their business, no matter what's happening in their life, no matter if they feel like it or not, they do it day in and day out. They're the ones that are successful” (05:50).

2. Podcast Longevity: Omar cites his own podcast as a testament to the power of consistency. Having produced over 300 episodes without a single sponsor initially, the $100 MBA Show thrived by focusing on delivering quality content consistently. “We published over 300 episodes before we even had one sponsor. We just focused on having a great show” (08:30).

The Three Pillars of a Sustainable Business

Omar breaks down business success into three fundamental phases:

1. Attract (Marketing): Drawing in potential customers through effective marketing strategies.
2. Convert (Sales): Turning leads into paying customers through robust sales techniques.
3. Deliver (Service): Providing the promised product or service with excellence to ensure customer satisfaction.

He advises business owners to “focus on all three areas and say, hey, how can I improve my attract portion of the business? What am I doing that is working in my marketing? Let me do more of that now” (09:15). This tri-phasic approach ensures a balanced focus on acquiring, converting, and retaining customers.

Embracing the Mundane

Omar highlights that the most effective business practices are often the least glamorous. He draws a parallel with master pianists who practice daily routines diligently, contrasting them with semi-professionals who lack the same level of commitment. “The master would do it eight hours a day, consistently, every day, not skipping a beat” (10:45). This analogy reinforces the importance of persistent effort in mastering the basics.

Overcoming Resistance to Consistency

A significant barrier to maintaining consistency is the human tendency to seek excitement and novelty. Omar acknowledges this challenge, stating, “We resist the mundane, we resist the boring stuff, the thing that we have to do over and over, the consistency” (14:20). He encourages listeners to embrace these repetitive tasks, as they are the cornerstone of enduring success.

Actionable Assignments

Towards the end of the episode, Omar provides listeners with practical assignments to implement the discussed principles:

1. Attract:

   • Identify effective marketing strategies currently driving engagement.
   • Amplify these tactics to maximize reach and attraction.

2. Convert:

   • Enhance sales efforts by increasing the volume of successful conversion activities.
   • Example: If sales calls are effective, scale the number of daily calls.

3. Deliver:

   • Continuously improve the customer experience by refining service delivery.
   • Example: Introduce enhancements based on customer feedback, such as scented towels in a hair salon.

Omar emphasizes that these actions, when performed consistently over time, will organically lead to business growth and success.

Conclusion

Omar Zenhom wraps up the episode by reinforcing the episode’s central thesis: “If you want to be successful in your business, you just have to do the basics and commit to them every single day” (14:50). He urges entrepreneurs to adopt a long-term perspective, focusing on delivering consistent value rather than chasing fleeting trends or strategies.

He concludes with a motivational note, reminding listeners that perseverance and dedication to the basics are what ultimately distinguish successful businesses from those that falter.

---

Key Takeaways

• Simplicity is Key: Successful business practices are often straightforward and fundamental.
• Consistency Trumps Innovation: Regularly executing basic tasks reliably is more impactful than sporadically implementing new strategies.
• Focus on Fundamentals: Master the three pillars of attracting, converting, and delivering to build a sustainable business.
• Embrace the Mundane: Overcome the inclination to avoid repetitive tasks by recognizing their critical role in long-term success.
• Long-Term Commitment: Adopt a patient, long-term approach to business growth by steadfastly adhering to foundational principles.

---

Notable Quotes

• Omar Zenhom: “Business is simple. It's not complicated.” (03:15)
• Omar Zenhom: “It's the consistency that makes it hard, makes it challenging. Anybody can run to a new idea, a new concept, a new strategy, and get excited. What's hard is to do the basics every day, consistently.” (06:47)
• Omar Zenhom: “The master would do it eight hours a day, consistently, every day, not skipping a beat.” (10:45)
• Omar Zenhom: “If you want to be successful in your business, you just have to do the basics and commit to them every single day.” (14:50)

---

Learn More: For additional insights and practical business lessons, visit The $100 MBA Show.

Transcript

[Jim]

And we're back folks. It looks like Jim from sales just got in from his client lunch and he's got receipts. His next meeting is in two minutes. The team is asking, can he get through his expenses in that time? He's going for it. Is that his phone? He's snapping a pic. He's texting Ramp. Jim is fast, but this is unheard of. That's it. He's done it. It's unbelievable.

[Ramp Ad]

On ramp expenses are faster than ever. Just submit them with a text. Switch your business to ramp.com.

[Omar Zenhom]

Hey O. Welcome to the hundred dollar MBA show. Powerful business lessons you can count on every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder in 2014. And in today's lesson, you will learn the truth about business success. You don't want to hear. I've coached and taught and helped thousands of business owners over the last decade. And almost every single one of them comes to me saying, my business is complicated. It's hard. My problems are unique. The market I'm in is competitive. All these quote unquote reasons why they're not successful. And when I share with them the truth about what makes a business successful, when I actually get it through to them and they have that light bulb moment, it's a magical moment because it changes everything. They realize they had it all wrong. They realized that the challenges they listed before were really just excuses. And trust me, by the end of today's episode, you will agree with me, this one insight can likely change your whole business today. And I'm not saying this is some sort of like hype sizzle before the beginning of an episode. I'm saying this because it changed my life, it changed my business. When I realized this, and this is why I think it's so powerful and I share it with so many of the people that I work with to help them break through those barriers of growth and success in their business. And today I'm sharing it with you. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. So what is this truth about business success that most people don't want to hear? And here it is. Business is simple. Okay? It's not complicated. No matter where you are in the world, whatever business you're doing, whatever niche it is, whether it's highly technical or very basic, business in itself is simple. We are trying to make it complicated. We are telling ourselves it's complicated, and it's for a good reason. Because if we admit that it's basic and that it's fundamental and that it's simple, then we have to answer the question, why aren't we doing it then? Why aren't we doing these things if they're simple things? And the answer to that question is actually quite simple as well. It's because the basic stuff that you have to do to have a successful business is hard to do consistently. It's the people that do the basics, the fundamentals, day in, day out. No matter what's happening in their business, no matter what's happening in their life, no matter if they feel like it or not, they do it day in and day out. They're the ones that are successful. It's the consistency that makes it hard, makes it challenging. Anybody can run to a new idea, a new concept, a new strategy, and get excited. What's hard is to do the basics every day, consistently. Over a decade, over 20 years, over 30 years. Look at any successful business, big or small, and you'll see that I'm right. Let me give you an example. We don't even need to make this example like some sort of crazy, innovative idea or product. The example I'm giving you is I'm opening up a hair salon. Okay? A hair salon. There's a million hair salons in the world, right? There's probably several just in my local area. But let me say I'm opening up a hair salon. What are the basics of a successful business and in particular, a successful hair salon? Well, as a customer, you want to make sure that whoever's cutting your hair does a good job, does a decent job, that they don't cut you, right? That they're safe, that their premise is clean, that they're timely. Meaning if you make an appointment, they're available at that time. You don't have to wait, that the service is friendly. These are not hard things. These are basic things, okay? Anybody who opens a salon or is a barber or a hairstylist knows how to cut hair, knows how to make sure they don't cut anybody, right? As much as possible. They know how to smile, right? They know how to use a broom to keep the shop clean. They have a clock. They know how to tell time to make sure that they're on time and they don't overbook people and they have enough buffer between appointments. If a business, a hair salon, does these basic things every single day with every single customer, they're going to be successful, that's it. Over. Why? Because most people don't do that. And that's the truth. Their competition will cut corners, their competition will get lazy. Their competition won't be as clean, won't be as friendly. Might rush the haircut, and it's not a great cut. Don't know how to keep their appointments. How many of us seen this in anything that we buy any service in our daily life, we're like, man, can I get a decent person to do xyz? And that's it. Business is not that complicated. You have customers, you give them what they want, what they're asking for. You collect money. That's it. Whatever your business is, what's going to make you successful is not trying to be the latest and greatest thing. It's actually just delivering on your promise, consistently, no matter what. I mentioned WP Engine in the past as our sponsor, and we have used WP Engine for years. Why there's so many website hosts out there. Well, because they do what they say and they do what I'm paying for, no matter what, consistently. My site is always reliable. It's always fast, it's always up. And I know from past experiences with other providers this is not always the case. So I'm happy to pay them, even if they're a little bit more money than the competitors. So the truth that people don't want to hear is that to be successful at business, all you have to do is do the basics of business every single day, deliver on your promise every single day, consistently. Let me give you another example. This podcast, okay? I've been recording this podcast as a daily podcast since 2014, right? So we're talking about over eight years. There are so many amazing, huge podcasts that launched the same time that we did the same around the same year that we started the $100 MBA show. Those shows, many of them are nowhere to be found. Why? Because they didn't do the basics. They didn't do the basics of a successful podcast. What are the basics? Well, you got to produce great content, you got to publish on time, and you got to do it consistently. Those are the basics right there. Okay? They might have produced great content, but they didn't do it consistently. Or they publish late or they skip a week. Many of them have stopped publishing altogether. So what happens is that you outlast the compet because you're committed to the basics, because you're committed to the fundamentals, because you're committed to excellence and doing what you have to do. Every single day you outlast them. You dominate the competition because they get distracted and they don't do the things they're supposed to do. People love reliability, they love consistency. They love people that are tried and true. And this becomes your secret sauce. It's not even a secret. This is what business has been doing for years, for centuries. So if you want to be successful in your business, you just have to do the basics and commit to them every single day for the next 10 years, next 20 years. If you're willing to see that long term view and say, hey, if I deliver on my promise, as long as your product fulfills a need in the market, right, People want what you have and you have product market fit people have proven to you, hey, I will pay you for what you have. You just have to do more of that, right? Whatever you did to get that customer, do more of that focus, do the basics, Continue to deliver on your promise, continue to give value. However way you capture that audience through maybe content marketing or ads or whatever, do that over and over. Don't be distracted, whatever works, just do more of it. Many people come to me and they're like, I think I need a new strategy or I need a new technique to do this. And I'm like, no, you don't need anything new, okay? You just need to keep doing what you're doing consistently for longer. You're not patient enough, not allowing the work to actually pay off. They don't realize that with this podcast we published over 300 episodes before we even had one sponsor. We just focused on having a great show. It takes reps, it takes time. Stick to the basics, do them consistently and you will win eventually. Now I'm going to break down exactly what you can do in different areas of your business, give you some assignments that you can work on so that you can consistently deliver for your company and grow your business. Today, tomorrow and 10 years from now.

[Employee 1]

Got a 7am meeting on a Monday. Expensing breakfast because it's in policy, wasting all afternoon submitting an expense report for that breakfast. If your company used Ramp, you could submit expenses with just a text.

[Ramp Ad]

Free your team from expense reports today. Switch your business to ramp.com.

[Omar Zenhom]

Every business has three stages or three phases or three parts to be a sustainable business. It's very simple. It's attract, it's convert, it's deliver. Attract is basically marketing, Convert is sales. And deliver is you actually doing the service right, delivering on what people have bought. And this is basically having a great customer experience and all you need to do is focus on all three areas and say, hey, how can I improve my attract portion of the business? What am I doing that is working in my marketing? Let me do more of that now. Warning that you will resist this because it's boring. Okay? What makes things successful are the boring stuff. What makes anybody good at anything is the willingness to do something over and over and not get bored or do it regardless if they're bored. A good example of this is they actually studied master pianist and they said what's the difference between a grandmaster and a semi professional or somebody who's professional but maybe not a master kind of hacking it. The hacker would spend about two hours a day practicing the piano. The master would do it eight hours a day, consistently, every day, not skipping a beat. So just doing the same thing, more of it. That's it. And this is why we resist is because we want to do something exciting, something new, change it up, all that kind of stuff. And that's why we feel like business is hard. We keep trying different things and we don't really have any momentum. But what you actually have to do is just choose what's working and do more of it over and over and over, whether that's you or somebody on your team. Move on then to the convert. How can I get more people from my email list? My audience, my interested buyers, my leads into customers? How do I convert them? How do I do that right now? How do I make a sale? Do I do it via webinars? Do I do it by calls? How do I convert my customers now? What's working? So maybe for you, you convert them via sales calls. Right now, maybe you're making 10 calls a day to make sales. Guess what? If it's working, just put up the volume. Do 20 calls, 30 calls, 50 calls, 100 calls a day. Hire some people to do the calls for you. Imagine your business if it did a thousand calls a day. It's working. Do more of it. Same thing with Deliver. What are some things I do that make my customer happy? They have a great experience. How can I improve that? How can I do better at that? Let's go back to the hair salon. And maybe you've noticed that customers in their reviews are saying they love that hot towel they get at the end that moisturizes their face or opens up their pores. It's a great little touch. Okay, let's make sure every customer gets that. Maybe I can even improve it and infuse my towels with eucalyptus. Double down on what's working. And just do more of that. You do these things over and over and continuing to improve those areas, all three areas, the track, the convert, the deliver. Day after day, month after month, year after year, decade after decade, your business can't help but be successful. You're doing the right things and you're doing more of it. Don't fool yourself and say it's more complicated than that, because it's not. And I've seen so many businesses in my time and I understand why we say this, because again, we resist the mundane, we resist the boring stuff, the thing that we have to do over and over, the consistency. But in my opinion, in my experience, it's the consistent stuff, the boring stuff that no one wants to do consistently is what makes you great and makes you better than the competition. I've seen it firsthand in my own businesses. I've seen it in my clients businesses, I've seen it in my friends businesses. This is what matters. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe, hit, follow, hit the triple dots in the top right hand corner and hit follow. And while you're at it, leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify. We'd love to hear what you think of the show. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. From time to time on this podcast, I'm going to give you some tough love like today, but it's just for your own good. I know, I've been there. I know sometimes we tell ourselves a story and I'm here to tell you what's the truth and what's not. Because I've told myself stories in the past that just are simply not true. I'm here to help you. I'm here to guide you. This is my job. This is my responsibility as the host of this podcast, is to tell it like it is. So if you need to listen to this episode again, hit rewind, listen to it again. Maybe you have a slow day or hard day or a day you're feeling a little bit tired or lazy. Listen to it again, bookmark it, write it down, your notes so you know the episode number. Episode 2236. Okay. Because the people that persevere and do things consistently and do the things that matter consistently are the ones that win. Thanks so much for listening. I'll check you in tomorrow's episode for out Friday. I'll see you then. Take care.

[Employee 1]

Got a 7am meeting on a Monday expensing breakfast because it's in policy.

[Employee 2]

Yay.

[Employee 1]

Wasting all afternoon submitting an expense report for that breakfast. If your company used Ramp, you could submit expenses with just a text.

[Employee 2]

Yay.

[Ramp Ad]

Free your team from expense reports today. Switch your business to ramp.com.