MBA2483 Q&A Wednesday: What do I do when things aren't working in my business?

Summary

The $100 MBA Show: MBA2483 Q&A Wednesday – Navigating Business Stagnation

Episode Overview: In episode MBA2483 of The $100 MBA Show, host Omar Zenhom addresses a pressing concern from a listener named AJ, whose online catering business has hit a plateau, experiencing inconsistent patronage and an unpredictable feast-or-famine cycle. Drawing from his extensive 20+ years of entrepreneurship, Omar provides actionable strategies to overcome such business stagnation by emphasizing the importance of systematic approaches.

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1. Introduction to the Episode

Omar Zenhom kicks off the episode by welcoming listeners to another installment of Q&A Wednesday, where he responds to real-world business challenges faced by his audience. Today's focus centers on AJ's struggle with maintaining consistent business growth in the online catering sector.

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2. Understanding AJ’s Challenge

Listener’s Query: AJ reaches out with concerns about his online catering business, which once thrived on referrals but has recently stagnated, leading to unpredictable business flow.

Omar’s Acknowledgment: Omar empathizes with AJ, noting, “AJ, you are not alone. This is so common. Most businesses will experience this at some point where they don't see consistency in business.” (01:50)

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3. The Role of Control in Business Success

Omar begins by dispelling the myth that business success is purely a matter of luck or external circumstances. Instead, he emphasizes the significant control entrepreneurs have over their business outcomes.

Key Insight: “The level and amount of control you have in business is far greater than the amount of not having control.” (03:10)

He argues that while external factors do play a role, the deliberate actions and strategies implemented by the business owner are paramount in steering the business toward success.

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4. The Essence of Systems in Business

At the heart of Omar’s advice is the concept that businesses function through systems. He defines systems as structured processes that produce consistent outcomes.

Omar Explains: “Businesses are basically systems. You have to have systems that work.” (04:00)

He underscores that without reliable systems, businesses are left to chance, making them vulnerable and undervalued.

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5. Building Reliable Marketing and Sales Systems

Omar identifies marketing and sales as critical systems often neglected by businesses. He explains the necessity of evaluating and restructuring these systems to ensure consistent customer acquisition.

Practical Steps:

• Assess Current Inputs and Outputs: Determine what actions (inputs) are leading to desired results (outputs).
• Implement Repeatable Strategies: Develop methods such as paid advertising, SEO optimization, or cultivating reviews that can consistently attract customers.
• Example: Omar shares his experience, stating, “I broke down my system and said, okay, how am I bringing in customers consistently?... I can just do these actions.” (05:45)

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6. Establishing and Refining Business Systems

Once a functional system is in place, Omar advises doubling down on its effectiveness and exploring avenues to enhance its performance.

Strategic Recommendations:

• Expand Successful Systems: Increase investment in successful strategies, such as scaling ad budgets to maximize ROI.
• Diversify Customer Acquisition Channels: Develop multiple systems (e.g., content creation, partnerships) to create backups and adapt to changing market conditions.
• Continuous Improvement: Regularly refine systems to maintain competitiveness and respond to external factors.

Notable Quote: “The real work is sitting down and building out systems in different parts of your business and then implementing this stuff consistently over and over, doubling down on what works and not getting distracted.” (08:30)

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7. Experimentation and Implementation

Omar encourages a proactive, experimental approach to business problem-solving. He likens entrepreneurs to scientists, urging them to test multiple strategies rapidly to identify what works.

Actionable Advice:

• Implement Quickly: Start executing strategies without overthinking to gather real-world data.
• Evaluate and Adapt: Assess the effectiveness of each strategy and pivot as necessary based on results.
• Embrace Failure: Understand that not all experiments will succeed, but each provides valuable insights.

Inspirational Insight: “Even if things don't work out, even your experiments fail, that's okay. But you feel like you're actually taking matters into your own hands.” (11:10)

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8. Final Takeaways and Encouragement

In wrapping up, Omar reinforces the significance of building and optimizing business systems. He highlights that the most successful businesses are those that exceed expectations through reliable and well-implemented systems.

Closing Thoughts: “The best businesses I've run or been involved in are the ones that just exceed your expectations, where it's like, wow, it's doing way better than I expected.” (14:00)

Omar motivates entrepreneurs to take decisive action, implement structured systems, and remain resilient in their pursuit of business excellence.

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Conclusion

In this enlightening episode, Omar Zenhom provides a comprehensive roadmap for businesses facing stagnation. By focusing on creating, refining, and expanding reliable systems—particularly in marketing and sales—business owners like AJ can navigate periods of inconsistency and steer their ventures toward sustained growth and success. Omar’s blend of empathy, practical advice, and strategic insights offers valuable lessons for entrepreneurs at any stage of their journey.

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Additional Resources

For more business strategies and actionable lessons, visit The $100 MBA Show and subscribe to their podcast on your favorite platform. To participate in future Q&A sessions or seek personalized advice, reach out via email at [e-mail].

Transcript

[Omar Zenholm]

Hi, I'm Kimiko, the founder of Miko's Hot Chicken. When we started our family restaurant, we were also raising a family. But let me tell you, it wasn't easy. Our Chase Ink card was there to reward us on all of our business needs. Now we have a thriving location and we're hungry for more. With the Chase Ink Business Unlimited card, you can earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase. So your business can go from here to possible Chase for business. Make more. What's yours? Real business owners compensated for their participation.

[Jim]

Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase bank and a member FDIC subject to credit approval Terms apply. Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? Well, with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers. You can even target buyers by job title, industry, company seniority skills. Wait, did I say job title yet? Get started today and see how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign. Get started at LinkedIn.com results. Terms and conditions apply.

[Omar Zenholm]

Hey. Welcome to the $100 BA Show. Honest business strategies and advice to help you along your business journey. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zenholm. And today's episode is Q and A Wednesday where I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you got a question you want to ask, go ahead and email me [e-mail] Today's question is from AJ and AJ asks, hey Omar, what do I do when things are simply not working in my business? My online catering business has really plateaued. I used to get a lot of referral work and get a lot of business without trying. But things have slowed down and it seems like feast or famine these days. What advice can you give me? Thanks. Firstly, aj, you are not alone. This is so common. Most businesses will experience this at some point where they don't see consistency in business. They don't see things developing like they used to. They're not getting the same level of business as they used to. But don't worry, I got your back. But there's a caveat. I will be giving you some tough love. This is not easy for me to say, but there are some things that many of us need to hear when we're in this type of position. I. I needed to hear this when I was in this position. The good news is that if you are open to the advice, you're Going to be able to change things around. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. A lot of people think that business is happenstance. It's chance, it's luck, it's circumstances. It's just not working right now. Don't get me wrong, there is a level of luck or element of luck in life. In business, there is an element of that our circumstances will contribute to our success or our failure. But it's not the only thing. It's not the deciding factor. The level and amount of control you have in business is far greater than the amount of not having control. Yes, it contributes, but the amount of control you have in your success is enormous. I want to start by saying that secondly, businesses is basically systems. You have to have systems that work. And one of the systems that a lot of businesses neglect is, is their marketing and sales. It's a system, inputs and outputs. What do I mean by that? Well, what you're doing right now, the inputs you're doing or contributing in your business, those things are not working. How do I know? Because the output is not what you want. So if you want different results, you need to do different things. So if you're not doing much to bring in business right now that's not working, okay, you need to do something else. And even if it worked before, it's not reliable. You need to have a reliable system to bring in business. Think of it this way. If I were to buy a business and I'm examining all the aspects, how that business runs, I want to know exactly how do you bring in customers? What do you do to bring in customers that's repeatable so that when I buy this business, I could just do the same actions and bring in customers. But if you tell me, oh, I don't actually do anything and it's just by chance how people get, you know, get to me or referrals or whatever it might be. If you don't have a hard, factual system that can be repeated by anyone, then you don't have a real business or you have a very low value business. I can't really do much with your business if I decided to buy it. And that's not a fun business to be a part of because you're not in control. So what you need to kind of look at right now in your business is you need to see how would you build systems around your business. If you're just kind of building your business from the ground up from forget about what happened in the past, forget about how you were successful before, what would a successful business have in place? Well, they would have a way to bring in customers consistently, whether it's running paid ads that give them return on investment. So even if they're paying for ads, it pays for itself and then some because they're bringing in customers. Or maybe they have really good SEO. So therefore when people search on Google, they found them easily, or find them easily, I should say. Or maybe you really focus on getting great reviews for your business so that you show up on Google reviews and TripAdvisor and all other kinds of review sites. Maybe you have an affiliate program. You have to have a system, okay? You can't just say, oh, I hope, you know, business comes my way today. So find a system that works for you and implement. Okay, you need to do different stuff. Now, this is going to take some time to build because at first you're not used to doing this stuff. You're not used to having a system. But once you start having a system and you start seeing the fruits of your labor, you know, this might take a few weeks, maybe even a few months to see the fruits of your labor. But once you see it, it's going to feel incredible. I remember when I started doing this and somebody gave me this advice and I broke down my system and said, okay, how am I bringing in customers consistently? What can I do? What inputs can I do to bring in customers? And once I broke it down and started build the system out and I started to actually implement this system and started getting customers, I was like, oh my God, I have an atm, I can print cash now because I can just do these actions. And customers come, they pay me money. I do the service, I do the business, I give them product. Amazing. And guess what, you double and triple down on it. You start seeing this as a game. You start bringing things to the next level in terms of your system of bringing in customers. And by the way, what I'm talking about today is applicable to every aspect of your business. Recruitment. What is the system of bringing in great talent? What's your system for that? What's your system for reinvesting your profits into your business? What's your system for retaining great talent in your team? What's your system for improving your products and your services over time so you're competitive. Business is just a bunch of systems. And a lot of people don't talk about this because honestly, it sounds boring. But the boring stuff is what makes businesses successful. This is what people don't talk about that needs to be talked about more and this is what I try to do on the show is that really the stuff that people don't want to talk about or do is really what makes businesses work really well. And this is why the best of the best are so few. Because they're willing to do the boring stuff day in and day out. They're willing to build out these systems. They're willing to kind of do the grind work that no one actually wants to do. They just want to do the fun stuff, the creative stuff. They want to talk about their business, they want to go to events, they want to go to business lunches. But the real work is sitting down and building out systems in different parts of your business and then implementing this stuff consistently over and over, doubling down on what works and not getting distracted. So to bring it back to today's question, what do I do if things are not working in my business? You need to do different things. You need to build a new system so it does work. That's level one. Once you have a system, okay, say for example, you are trying to sell an online course, and you now have a system of running paid ads that go to a free opt in that joins your email list, and then you nurture them on the email list and then you invite them to a webinar and on that webinar sell your online course. That system works for you. Let's say that every time you do that, you get customers and it's a ROI positive for the ad spend that you're spending. You have a system. Now you're happy right now you're making money. Now you have a reliable way to bring in customers. What do you do next? You go as hard and intense as possible in that system. You don't just rest on your laurels. You start now doubling, tripling down on the system. How can you create more ads, more different types of ads, differentiation of ads? How could you appeal to a different market, a different niche? Instead of, you know, writing, running five ads, or testing five ads, try going and testing 20 ads, 30 ads. If something works, you need to focus on it and really dedicate yourself on getting the most out of it. If you, let's say, make $100 ROI on every $50 you spend, then, you know, reinvest half of that ROI and increase your ad spend and increase your velocity at this new way of bringing customers. So step one, have a system, Figure out that system, Test out these systems. Once you find something that works, and that may take some time, that's okay. But once it works, now we're going to try to exploit that system as much as possible. We want to make sure we get every ounce of positive juice and benefit from that system and reinvest, reinvest up the ante. If I'm spending $4,000 on ad spend this month, next month, I'm going to try to go 6,000 and then 8,000 and then 12,000 and then 20,000. I'm not going to put my foot off the gas. I'm just going to continue to push down on the accelerator and do more to make sure I benefit from this system. And guess what? You can have multiple systems for the same thing. So you might get customers in one way and this ad system is working for you. But what are some other systems you can build to get customers? Why? You want a backup? You want other varieties? Maybe you want to do content creation, Maybe you want to do partnerships. That system can work for you. Refine it, same steps. Refine it and then double down on it. Because maybe because of the forces we talked about before, that can play into your business market, luck, circumstances, the economy, whatever it is, might influence how well that thing can go on forever. You know how well you can execute and get the benefit from that system that might change because of those unseen, uncontrollable systems. So by having a backup system, two, three, four different backup systems, I can then start to double down on that. But my advice is find one system that works, double down on it, focus on it, continue to reinvest in it, and as that's going, start a small little experiment. Don't spend a lot of money or spend a lot of time on that. Knowing that you need to have variety, you need redundancy in your systems.

[Jim]

Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? Well, with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers. You can even target buyers by job title, industry company seniority skills. Wait, did I say job title yet? Get started today and see how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign. Get started at LinkedIn.com results, terms and conditions apply. And we're back, folks. It looks like Jim from sales just got in from his client lunch and he's got receipts.

[Omar Zenholm]

His next meeting is in two minutes. The team is asking, can he get through his expenses in that time?

[Jim]

He's going for it.

[Omar Zenholm]

Is that his phone?

[Jim]

He's snapping a pic. He's texting ramp.

[Omar Zenholm]

Jim is Fast, but this is unheard of.

[Jim]

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

[Omar Zenholm]

On ramp, expenses are faster than ever. Just submit them with a text. Switch your business to ramp.com I want to bring this home in today's episode. I get it. It's frustrating when things are not working in your business, and it might feel like you're trying a lot and you're spinning your wheels, but in this situation, your job is to be sort of like a scientist and experiment. I got to do as many experimentations as possible as quickly as possible to find what's working. So really you should be doing and not thinking as much. Yes, you need to plan, you need to strategize, but you need to start implementing on those strategies immediately so that you can get a result. See if it works. If it does, awesome. If it doesn't, move on until you find something that works. Sitting and relying on what worked before is not a strategy. If you can't reliably bring in customers and make money, make revenue, you're asking for trouble, you're asking for heartache. That's not a business that you can rely on. So get going, get working. And trust me, you'll start to feel better once you start doing things. Even if things don't work out, even your experiments fail, that's okay. But you feel like you're actually taking matters in your own hands. You're not just leaving things up to chance. Aj, thanks so much for listening and asking Today's question on Q and A Wednesday. If you've got a question you want to ask, don't forget, you can email me at Any time at omar100mba.net if you loved today's episode, if you love our podcast and you want to help us out, if you want to support us, all you got to do is just hit follow on your favorite podcast app. That's the best way to show the algorithm that, hey, this show is great. And by doing that, you help us reach new audiences so that we can get bigger and reinvest in this podcast every single episode. So click on follow, click on subscribe, whatever it might be on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much in advance for doing that. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. There are levels of things not working in your business. You know, things might not just work flat out, zero output, zero results, but there's also a decline in results. You know, things are not working as well. And the same advice today apply. You need to find a system that will work better, that will work more consistently, that will actually give you the results that you need. The best businesses I've run or been involved in are the ones that just exceed your expectations, where it's like, wow, it's doing way better than I expected. And that's all due to the fact that you have a reliable system and you're implementing 100% of your energy on implementing that system. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in the next episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

[Jim]

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 Zenholm]

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