The $100 MBA Show

Your marketing and advertising resources are limited. You can’t afford to waste them on people who might buy what you’re selling, or even on people who almost certainly will buy it. To grow a small business, that’s simply not good enough. You want to focus on people who will love what you’re selling, and tell everyone they know. In other words, you want the perfect leads. And as it turns out, they...

What really gets your new business off the ground — friends or followers? As they say, your “network is your net worth.” But as we say, your audience is the single most valuable asset you can build, one that can support you across multiple products and businesses. So which should you put first? It’s Q&A Wednesday, and we’ve got a listener who’s just starting out, and asking exactly the right quest...

We all know consistency is key.  …but we’re terrible at putting it into practice. Making real strides in business (or anything else, really) isn’t about monumental efforts or drastic measures. It’s about the small, daily decisions we make that add up to something bigger over time. So how can you stay on the ball, day after day? Today, we break it down. From his years of experience in both educatio...

Hard work does not guarantee success. In fact, the unsuccessful are some of the hardest working people out there. That’s because instead of leveraging what comes easiest to them, they dig in and grind. Meanwhile, other people are experiencing less stress — and passing the hardest workers by. Ayman Al-Abdullah was CEO of AppSumo. In his time there, Ayman took the company from a modest 7-figure annu...

Your team can (probably) do even more. In our experience, most founders don’t realize how much their people are really capable of. But once employees settle into their roles, they have a tendency to go on autopilot. Then — lacking a challenge — they operate at less than their full potential. Today, we explore the different ways you can fire up your team, and get them excited to work, not just will...

Losing a customer isn’t fun — but it doesn’t have to be a total loss. There are a few ways you can make lemonade (by which we mean money) when a customer is on their way out the door.  Some of them are…well, odd. But today, we’re sharing our favorites. The key is to not write off every soon-to-be former customer. Instead, you can build a “cancellation flow” that helps identify a best-case scenario...

You found your voice. You found your audience. Now it’s time that podcast got you paid! It’s Q&A Wednesday, and we’ve got a listener who’s just over a year into their own podcast, and ready to monetize. There’s only one question: how? You can’t exactly walk into the nearest sponsor store and ask someone to put an ad on your show. Fortunately, we have lots of experience with this. Today, we’ll expl...

In business, you need to go in with a plan. But how much planning is really useful? At some point, strategizing stops being preparation and starts becoming procrastination. If you spend all your time drawing the map, you can’t take enough steps to get anywhere. Today, we explore how too much strategizing can be more limiting than helpful. With examples from various businesses, we’ll discuss how th...

Don’t hope people will buy your product. Know it. If you have an idea for a product or service, it’s just that: an idea. And even if it sounds like a great one, you can’t really tell if people will actually part with their money for it.  Not without a little research, anyway. Today, special guest Narek Vardanyan walks us through the “pre-launch,” a way to put your product on the market before you...

If you have an established coaching business, it’s time to grow it. Maybe you know that already. Maybe you’re even trying! Today, we break down how to do it, and the key principles you can organize your scaling efforts around. Too many coaches make too little for what they do — make sure you’re not one of them. And yes, we will talk numbers. Today’s lesson applies to every kind of coaching, from b...

Is it feasible to juggle 2, 3, or more business simultaneously? …and just as importantly, should you? We get this question a lot, probably because our business consists of quite a few operations. From this very podcast to our webinar software to Omar’s public speaking engagements, our income streams are varied. So, is it a good thing? Or are we pulling ourselves in too many directions? Today, we d...

Every business needs a website (seriously, every ).  But not every business can hire a website designer full-time. Fortunately, there are a ton of DIY site builders out there. Unfortunately, there are so many, it can be a major task just to figure out which one is right for you and your needs, wants, and skill set. We’ve got you covered. It’s Q&A Wednesday, and we’ve got a listener with just enoug...

If you’re charging 2 figures for a coaching program, you’ve already lost. That’s a bit of a bold statement, but in today’s episode, Omar explains why it’s true. From years of experience coaching, being coached, and working with coaches, one thing is clear from where we stand: the bargain-bin pricing model is a no-go — even if it’s designed to create upsell opportunities. It may seem like a solid p...

The best way to “make it” as an entrepreneur?  Don’t learn the right strategies — create them. Matt Giovanisci built a successful brand and business without anyone else’s money, anyone else’s formulas, or even a post-secondary education (unless you count everything he taught himself, which you should).  So how did he do it?  By fearlessly experimenting, adapting what works, and ditching the rest....

Should you “do what you love?” Or is that exactly the kind of advice that’ll keep you from doing what you love? Entrepreneurship is supposed to be about freedom, and the ability to choose your livelihood. But just because you love something doesn’t mean it’s a viable business. So if you’re starting out, should you try to create a business out of your passion, or a business that can fund your passi...

If you know our host Omar, you know he prides himself on a healthy lifestyle. But everyone eventually meets the bug they just can’t beat. …no, it wasn’t that one. But Omar was recently laid out for 10 days with one of the nastiest infections you can get without heading to the hospital. And while it wasn’t life-altering like a serious illness, it did force some serious reflection, specifically abou...

It’s a depressing scenario: you built a business. You’re not happy with it. And you’re stuck exactly where you are…forever? It’s Q&A Wednesday, and we’ve got a listener who invested 10 years into a small business — and hates it. It does just well enough to survive, but not well enough to support the ideal lifestyle or allow its founder to cash out. So what now? This is more common than you might t...

When success is followed by a rut…what do you do? What holds a business back from reaching that next level? When your business started off good, but levelled off, how do you get off that plateau and move forward again? Our answer will probably surprise you. When your business hits a flat spot in terms of growth, it’s probably not your marketing, sales, product development, or anything you can quan...

For a small business, customer loyalty is the best guarantee of success. Ultra-happy customers create more business for you than any amount of marketing or advertising. Word of mouth is — and always will be — the undisputed champion of business growth, stability, and long-term success. So how do you create those die-hards? Today, special guest teacher Dave Charest is here with a system you can use...

Let’s just say it: coaching isn’t always a good idea. There are times when it’s the best way to grow and advance as an entrepreneur. And there are times when it’s a colossal waste of time and money. Over years of developing businesses, Omar has had quite a few coaches. And of course, he’s been a coach too! With lots of experience from both sides of the coach/coach-ee equation, Omar is uniquely qua...

You’re supposed to diversify and spread risk. But ideally, you’re also supposed to focus on one thing at a time. What’s an entrepreneur to do? For some of us, businesses are like potato chips or tattoos — it’s hard to have just one. That’s why so many independent founders have 2, 3, or more brands going at the same time. Is this some kind of addictive behavior? Or is it a smart way to keep your eg...

It can be easy to forget when you run your own business: you’re an employee, too. As such, you need compensation as much as anyone else on the team. No one can run a business when they can’t pay their rent. But too often, we feel like every dime we take for ourselves is somehow stolen from the company. It’s Q&A Wednesday, and one of our listeners is finally starting to see some real traction in th...

Think of small businesses as David, and big businesses as Goliath. SEO is your slingshot. Paid advertising is getting wildly expensive, rapidly approaching the point where it’s out of reach for new and small businesses. Paying for attention and traffic can quickly deplete your resources. Bottom line: it’s not sustainable. But getting organic traffic from loyal followers who actually want to be on...

You can get better at selling, just by thinking about it differently. Too many of us approach sales as an intimidating or mysterious skill — or worse, as a form of manipulation. As a result, we shy away from it. We think of it as one of those necessary evils that we just have to do to run a business. But what if sales isn’t like that at all? Sell It Like a Mango is a practical, easy read that’ll r...

When you put a lot of effort into your marketing, there’s nothing worse than the sound of crickets. So many of us blog, vlog, tweet and post, only to get nothing out of it. We pump what we think is great content out into the Internet, and then…nothing. How can you turn this around? What can you do to finally get noticed by the audience you want to convert? Today, we finally shut those crickets up....