MBA2351 Why Chasing Home Runs is a Bad Idea + Free Ride Friday

Summary

The $100 MBA Show: Episode MBA2351 – Why Chasing Home Runs is a Bad Idea + Free Ride Friday

Release Date: August 18, 2023
Host: Omar Zenhom
Podcast: The $100 MBA Show
Episode Title: MBA2351 Why Chasing Home Runs is a Bad Idea + Free Ride Friday

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Introduction to Free Ride Friday

Omar Zenhom kicks off the episode by introducing Free Ride Friday, a weekly giveaway where listeners can win a lifetime membership to the $100 MBA program. To participate, listeners are encouraged to leave an Apple podcast rating and review. Omar mentions:

"If you want to win a free ride, just go ahead and leave us an Apple podcast rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw we call Free Ride Friday."
[00:55]

The episode’s winner, Mark R., is later announced for his stellar review, praising the podcast for its "focused format" and "great detail" that helps listeners make confident business decisions.

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Main Lesson: Why Chasing Home Runs is a Bad Idea

Omar delves into the core topic of the episode: the pitfalls of aiming for "home run" business ideas—those big, viral successes that promise overnight wealth and fame. He argues that this mindset is misleading and detrimental to sustainable business growth.

The Myth of the Home Run

Omar emphasizes that the allure of a single, explosive success story is deceptive. He states:

"Home runs are a myth, and I'll explain why in today's lesson."
[02:05]

Drawing a parallel to the classic fable, he likens business success to "the story of the tortoise and the hare." Success, he explains, is typically achieved through slow and steady growth, not sudden breakthroughs.

"Slow and steady wins the race. Slow, almost painfully slow. Incremental improvements and growth is what gets them to the promised land."
[02:45]

The Rare Exception vs. The Common Rule

Omar acknowledges that while there are rare instances of businesses achieving rapid success (e.g., Instagram’s acquisition), these are exceptions, not the rule.

"These home run successes are very rare, rare, rare occurrence... it's the exception to the rule."
[04:10]

He cautions against using these rare successes as benchmarks, as they set unrealistic expectations and can lead to disappointment and wasted effort.

The Importance of Consistency and Incremental Growth

Omar advocates for a focus on consistency and incremental improvements. He advises entrepreneurs to:

1. Validate Their Business Ideas: Ensure there is a market for their product or service.
2. Iterate and Improve: Continuously refine the product, service, and business operations.
3. Focus on Systems and Routines: Develop repeatable systems that drive steady growth.

"Your whole job is to make your business better, your product better, your offer better, your service better, day in and day out."
[06:20]

He likens this approach to training for a sport, where consistent effort yields significant long-term results.

"Instead of going to the gym for 10 hours one day and not going for the rest of the week, you're going to go for 45 minutes for five days a week. And those five days is going to be more impactful because of the consistency."
[07:10]

Embracing the Boring and Mundane

Omar highlights that much of business success involves mundane tasks that require persistence and professionalism. He asserts:

"Most of business is pretty boring. It's pretty boring. You got to do things over and over, over and be consistent and be professional and show up."
[07:45]

This willingness to engage in routine tasks distinguishes successful entrepreneurs from those who give up when immediate results aren’t evident.

Building a Repeatable Blueprint

By focusing on gradual improvements, entrepreneurs develop a repeatable blueprint for success. Omar emphasizes:

"The whole point of a lot of us becoming entrepreneurs is for us to be in control. And this is the ultimate feeling of control, is being able to repeat wins."
[08:25]

He encourages studying both successes and failures to replicate wins and avoid past mistakes.

"Study when you have wins. Study what happened? Why did you win? Why did it work? Why did it sell? Why did customer like it? How do I repeat this over and over."
[08:50]

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Practical Takeaways

1. Avoid the Home Run Mentality: Focus on sustainable, incremental growth rather than seeking sudden, massive success.
2. Consistency is Key: Implement daily improvements in various aspects of your business.
3. Embrace Routine Tasks: Understand that mundane tasks are fundamental to long-term success.
4. Develop Repeatable Systems: Create systems that allow for the replication of successful strategies.
5. Learn from Both Wins and Losses: Analyze successes to understand what works and apply those insights consistently.

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Omar wraps up the episode by reinforcing the importance of grit and commitment over chasing unrealistic successes. He shares a poignant story inspired by Angela Duckworth’s Grit, where an Olympic swimmer explains that while the rigorous training is not enjoyable, the love of winning and the commitment to success drive the perseverance required to excel.

"I love winning these races. I love being a part of the sport. So I'm willing to do the grind. I'm willing to do the hard work day in, day out."
[13:30]

This encapsulates the episode's core message: Success is built on consistent effort, patience, and the willingness to engage in the unglamorous aspects of entrepreneurship.

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Final Segment: Free Ride Friday Winner Announcement

The episode concludes with the announcement of Mark R. as the winner of Free Ride Friday. Omar highlights Mark’s positive review, which emphasizes the podcast’s focused and detailed approach to delivering valuable business insights.

"Mark R says Great info delivered in a focused format. 5 stars... This focus approach on every episode helps ensure the listener will not be wasting any time at the $100 MBA Show."
[13:55]

Mark is instructed to email Omar to receive the lifetime membership to the $100 MBA program.

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Key Quotes

• Omar Zenhom: "Home runs are a myth, and I'll explain why in today's lesson."
  [02:05]

• Omar Zenhom: "Slow and steady wins the race. Slow, almost painfully slow. Incremental improvements and growth is what gets them to the promised land."
  [02:45]

• Omar Zenhom: "These home run successes are very rare, rare, rare occurrence... it's the exception to the rule."
  [04:10]

• Omar Zenhom: "Your whole job is to make your business better, your product better, your offer better, your service better, day in and day out."
  [06:20]

• Omar Zenhom: "Most of business is pretty boring. It's pretty boring. You got to do things over and over, over and be consistent and be professional and show up."
  [07:45]

• Omar Zenhom: "The whole point of a lot of us becoming entrepreneurs is for us to be in control. And this is the ultimate feeling of control, is being able to repeat wins."
  [08:25]

• Omar Zenhom: "I love winning these races. I love being a part of the sport. So I'm willing to do the grind. I'm willing to do the hard work day in, day out."
  [13:30]

---

Final Thoughts

Episode MBA2351 of The $100 MBA Show delivers a compelling argument against the allure of chasing big, viral business successes. Through practical insights and relatable analogies, Omar Zenhom encourages entrepreneurs to embrace consistency, patience, and incremental growth as the true pathways to sustainable success. The episode serves as a valuable guide for both new and seasoned entrepreneurs seeking to build resilient and profitable businesses without relying on unrealistic expectations of overnight fame.

Transcript

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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 pick. He's texting round.

Jim is fast, but this is unheard of.

That's it. He's done it. It's unbelievable.

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

[Omar Zenhom]

Welcome to the $100 MBA show, powering up your business with our practical business lessons. 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 back in 2014. And today's episode is Free Ride Friday. On Free Ride Fridays, we give away a lifetime membership to our $100 MBA program. If you want to win a free ride, just go ahead and leave us an Apple podcast rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw we call Free Ride Friday. Listen in on Friday to see if you want. It's that easy. We announce this week's winner a little bit later in the episode. In today's lesson, you'll learn why chasing home runs is a bad idea. Many entrepreneurs, especially new entrepreneurs, think that success lies in the big thing. The big idea, the one product, the business that's going to blow up and make them successful, make them rich and solve all their problems. Many of us will keep chasing these home run ideas, home run businesses, hoping that the next one will be the one that's going to make us big and take us to the promised land. But this is a huge mistake and can cost you a lot more than you think. In my experience and the experiences of all the entrepreneurs that I've studied, ranging from billion dollar companies to who sold businesses doing seven figures, this is not how they get rich. It's not how they get successful. Home runs are a myth, and I'll explain why in today's lesson. And I'll also show you what you should do instead, what you should focus on, and what actually equals success. There's nothing wrong with being ambitious and shooting for the stars. But when you expect one idea, one business, one action, one product to set you in the stratosphere, you're setting yourself up for failure. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. I've heard so many entrepreneurs say, if I just had that one business idea, that one product that everybody loves, that one thing that just takes off. If you ever find yourself saying this to yourself in your head or even out loud to a friend, I implore you to reverse engineer, to go back and study some of your favorite products and really find out how they became successful. What you'll find might surprise you is it more closely resembles the story of the tortoise and the hare. Slow and steady wins the race. Slow, almost painfully slow. Incremental improvements and growth is what gets them to the promised land. It's only when we hear about these products and services that we think, wow, this company just blew up and came out of nowhere. No, they were around for a very long time in most cases, but you just never heard of them. They were struggling. They were really working hard on, on perfecting their product and service. This is how people become successful, period. Let alone get rich or have a very popular or successful business. It's not one thing that makes them successful. It's not one thing that makes them rich. It's small, little wins day after day, month after month, year after year, that compound over time. And when they look back in the last 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, a lifetime, it looks like a big deal because they were just consistent. Now, there is one problem. There are companies and people that make it big with home runs. There are very rare, rare, rare occurrence where they come up with an idea, they launch this business or app or whatever it might be, and a year or two later they get acquired for a billion dollars. Instagram is a good example of this. And whenever we hear these stories, we think that this is the rule. No, it's the exception to the rule. It's the very rare exception to the rule. And it's actually CA causing more harm than good. It's doing less good to people who think it's inspiring. I actually think it's pretty harmful because it's setting a precedent that's just not Reality, it's not actually likely. I'm a big believer in working on things that increase my chances of success. If there's something out there that is a low likelihood of success that's about to happen, I don't want anything to do with that because that's a bit of a waste of time. Because I want to have everything in my favor. So people will see these headlines, they hear about all these news stories. But what you don't realize is that this is like one in a million businesses that have this story. And if you study those stories, you realize that they just had everything right at the right time, with the right team, with the right valuation, with the right people, the right space, the right location. It's very hard to do that. And I don't like to do things that are, again, not in my favor, that are very hard to replicate. I like to do things that I know my hard work will pay off. And that's why working on a business, a product, a service that you know will serve your clients for years to come, that will help them grow, that help them and help you in the return, day after day, month after month, is a better strategy, because you know, you have something viable here. You know that people want it, they're paying for it. You just need to rinse and repeat over and over and over. And what people don't like to talk about is that most of business is pretty boring. It's pretty boring. It's mundane. You got to do things over and over, over and be consistent and be professional and show up. And the people that are successful are the people that can do the boring stuff over and over for the sake of success. The people that quit don't make it. And that's just the raw truth. Pinning your hopes on this product, just going gangbusters, going viral, being picked up on, you know, TechCrunch or whatever you think might make your business blow up. It's just not a reality. A lot of those things are not in your control. The other thing is that a lot of people overestimate what those viral moments will do for their business. They're often really great for some bursts of traffic for your website, but die down after a day or two and you're back to where you were grinding it out. The sooner you accept the fact that it's not going to just blow up, all of a sudden, it's going to take time and it's going to be so imperceivably slow like you're not really going to see it happen. But you'll see it in hindsight, the better it is for you, because then you can just get to work and focus on what you gotta do to grow your business rather than chasing that home run and then giving up when things don't just blow up all of a sudden and start to go your way or just start to have this explosive growth. I've been doing this business thing for almost 20 years now, and any kind of success I've had over the years, it's a trend. I have some peaks and valleys. It's never a hockey stick. It's up for a bit, then steady, sometimes a little bit down, then back up, and these slow incremental wins. And if I look back at the year or two or three or four in the past, I could see the trend is, yes, I'm going up, but nothing in particular is actually making anything go crazy or blow up or be a home run. And I'm here to tell you, I'm not special. I'm not unique. This is how most businesses grow. But that's not sexy, that is not newsworthy, that's not a headline. So therefore, you don't hear about it. But I'm here to tell you about it here on the podcast. So if you aren't supposed to chase these home runs, what should you do? Well, you should spend some good time, especially in the beginning, when you're starting your business, validating your business idea, making sure people are willing to spend money for your product or service, mvp ing it, putting it out there. And once you start getting traction, you know that, okay, customers like this product or service. They're willing to pay for it. They've paid for it. Let me improve it, let me iterate it, let me double down. And your whole job is to make your business better, your product better, your offer better, your service better, day in and day out. What are the ways you can improve your business so that today is better than yesterday? Whether it's your customer support, whether it's your packaging, whether it's your value metrics, whether it's the product itself or your marketing or your sales funnels or your newsletter or your email correspondence, every day you can work on something to slightly increase one area in your business just by half a percent, right? So if you improve your marketing half a percent every Monday, by the end of the year, you have grown tremendously and your marketing has done so much better. This is very similar to training for a sport or even going to the gym. Just showing up and lifting the weights every single day will Help you get better. Instead of, you know, going to the gym for 10 hours one day and not going for the rest of the week, you're going to go for 45 minutes for five days a week. And those five days is going to be more impactful because of the consistency.

[Narrator]

Because if you go 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.

[Omar Zenhom]

Yay.

[Narrator]

Free your team from expense reports today.

[Omar Zenhom]

Switch your business to ramp.com@it every day improving. Same thing with your business and the different areas in your business. That's what you just got to focus on. You're just competing against yourself. How can I be better than yesterday? And I do this with everything I do in my business, including this podcast. Before I recorded this podcast, I asked myself, how can I show up to this recording, to this episode better than yesterday, better than the last episode. How can I be more impactful? How can I provide better value? How can I communicate better? And that's my focus getting better. Because I know if I do this every single time, as I have in the last 2300 plus episodes, I will get better, the product will be better. In this case, this podcast will be better. And I'm relying on myself to win and not on something else helping it go viral. The other thing that's great about this is that when you don't chase home runs and you just deal with reality of just getting better every day in your business, you start to understand what you have to do. You break it down to a system into a routine so that when you build one business that's successful and it's starting to get traction and it's helping you become profitable and you're making money and it's great and you want to start something else, you know the blueprint, you know what to do, you've done it already. And the whole point of a lot of us becoming entrepreneurs is for us to be in control. And this is the ultimate feeling of control, is being able to repeat wins. A lot of people say when you make mistakes, review, figure out what you did wrong so you can learn from it. I'm 100% on board with that idea. But I think it's just as important, if not more important, for you to study when you have wins. Study what happened? Why did you win? Why did it work? Why did it sell? Why did customer like it? Why did customers like it? How do I repeat this over and over. In my business, how do I repeat this in something new? I got to transfer one concept or one strategy from one business to the next. Or if I'm helping other businesses or other people in my niche, how do I transfer that win to somebody else? A client? Stop chasing home runs and focus on getting better. Every day you're going to waste a whole lot less time changing direction, pivoting, scrapping ideas that are half baked. No, not one thing is going to make you successful. It's the consistency. It's the repetition. It's the compounded work and success that's going to help you ultimately reach the promised land. Thanks so much for listening to the hundred dollar NBA show, but today's episode's not over. It's Free Ride Friday. Let's see who won this week's Free Ride. And the winner is. Mark R. That's the handle on Apple Podcasts. Mark R says Great info delivered in a focused format. 5 stars. This podcast explores very timely topics in great focus and detail. This focus approach on every episode helps ensure the listener will not be wasting any time at the $100 BA Show. If any topic of the podcast is of interest to you, then the podcast delivers details and explanations about that topic that can help you make decisions with confidence. Thanks Mark R. For that great review. Your mission is to email me over at Omar at 100- MBA-NET to make sure I hook you up with the $100 MBA program, our six part course on how to become a better entrepreneur. 100% guaranteed. If you want to win a free ride, just leave us an Apple Podcast rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw we call Free Ride Friday. Listen in on Friday just like right now to see if you won. It's that easy. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. One of my favorite stories from a book called Grit by Angela Duckworth was when she was interviewing an Olympic swimmer and she asked the swimmer, do you love swimming? And I'm paraphrasing here, but he was like, do you mean do I love waking up early in the morning, jumping in a cold pool, looking at a blue line in the bottom of the pool for four hours, doing laps, going back, going to the gym, hitting the pool again? Of course not. That's really hard work. It's boring. But I love winning. I love winning these races. I love being a part of the sport. So I'm willing to do the grind. I'm willing to do the hard work the day in, day out. Commitment. I need to give to the sport to be successful in it. I love that because it doesn't ignore the fact that there's going to be some things in your business, in your life that you're not going to love doing, but you have to do it in order to be successful. It's going to be boring sometimes, and that's okay. If you're willing to do it, you're probably willing to do the things that people are not willing to do, which is to be patient, to work hard and be consistent. That's your competitive advantage. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you on Monday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

[Narrator]

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 around.

Jim is fast, but this is unheard of.

That's it. He's done it. It's unbelievable.

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