The $100 MBA Show

It’s one of the best ways to become an entrepreneur: start with a side hustle. But how do you turn a side gig into the real thing?  How do you scale up and achieve “escape velocity” when you’ve only got so much time and money?  You do it the same way we did! Today, Omar explains how to stop trading time for money, and start helping your business grow into full maturity. You can’t keep doing it all...

Decisions can be like quicksand. If you’re not careful, you can get stuck in a place where the more you do, the more trapped you become. It’s Q&A Wednesday, and one of our listeners has a classic problem: they’re a big-time second guesser, never quite comfortable with their own decisions —  even long after the fact. And as their business grows, so do the potential consequences of “analysis paralys...

It’s one of the most tempting mistakes you can make: measuring yourself by someone else’s ruler. Or more accurately, measuring yourself by what you think other people are achieving. It wastes time and energy. It throws off your confidence and creativity. Through self-imposed feelings of inadequacy, FOMO, and simply falling for the Insta-version of other people’s lives and businesses, you can reall...

Sick of online meetings? Who isn’t? Since an unprecedented number of us suddenly became remote workers, “Zoom fatigue” has set in hard. For many of us, virtual meetings are the worst part of our day. Between staring at our own webcam feeds and sneaking peeks at Facebook, we’re forced to ask: is there a better way? Turns out there is. Lauren Sergy is a speaking and communications expert. Today, she...

In business, you have to be selective. You have to be selective in how you spend your time, money, and energy. You have to prioritize, and focus on what matters at the cost of what doesn’t. And when it comes to other people, you won’t have bandwidth for everyone — especially not jerks. That’s right, jerks. Toolbags. A-holes. People who just aren’t nice.  Sometimes, they’re your customers. Other ti...

“Not seeing color” isn’t an option for some of us. Whether we like it or not, the experience of minority groups is different. But that’s not always a bad thing. In fact, being different can be an asset.  Overcoming the challenges unique to POC can make you the kind of entrepreneur who’s uniquely qualified to navigate other challenges. Business — especially marketing — is about perception. It’s abo...

The first challenge of e-commerce: keeping track of inventory. It can be a nail-biting affair to predict exactly how much product to order or create, without knowing exactly how much people will buy. Too much, and you lose money on overhead. Too little, and you lose money on lost sales and slow fulfillment. How do you strike the right balance? It’s Q&A Wednesday, and we’re helping one listener fin...

Company policies: do they uphold your principles and offer a guidepost for how your team conducts business? Or are they just fluff? We all know that the only real rules are the ones that actually get enforced. Is it realistic — or even necessary — to have hard-and-fast policies? Do your policies keep your team grounded and in line with company values, or are they just words? Is it professionalism,...

Every business owner has to deal with forces beyond their control. But handling what you can control is usually enough to guarantee that you can navigate whatever happens. That’s the basic premise of Great by Choice, Jim Collins’ study of businesses that thrive in unpredictable, even hostile conditions. Researched like a thorough work of academia, but written like an accessible guide for real-worl...

Which software is best? Whether it’s for web design, CRM, payment processing, fulfillment — you name it — every new business eventually runs into the question above. And yes, you can sift through company websites, review forums, and more as you search for The One.  But listen to this episode first! Today, we’re not reviewing software. Instead, we offer a matrix, a list of questions you should ask...

One of the biggest reasons for unsubscribes: too many emails. Of course, one of the biggest reasons for slow sales is not enough emails. So how many is enough? What’s the Goldilocks Zone for email frequency?  Healthy open and click rates are the key to online marketing. Even in the age of social, email is still the highest-converting way to reach out to your audience. But inboxes are becoming hard...

The written word: it’s still your most powerful tool for creating online traffic. But sometimes, you have to stimulate that traffic by getting your thoughts onto someone else’s site. The question is, why would anyone let you? Guest posting was huge for our business in its early days. By posting on more popular sites, Omar was able to build a foundation that made everything else possible. In fact,...

In business, you have to play the hand you’re dealt. In the age of COVID, that means moving traditionally IRL activities online. Sometimes that works out. Sometimes…not as much. Following up on our episode about why we chose to hold a virtual retreat , today we discuss the results. Our online “retreat week” just ended, and we learned a few things. Some aspects of it worked well — really well.  But...

Think of yourself as a coach, and watch your team win. Too many team leaders act as “managers.” But think about how we use that term outside of business. We “manage” problems, difficulties. Our employees are neither.  Instead, our employees are investments — and they can only deliver returns when we bring out the best in them. Ruchira Chaudhary is a renowned consultant who teaches leaders how to l...

Apple knows what they’re doing. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the world’s leading tech company has a unique ability to excite their own market. Each year, Apple’s fall announcement of new products and updates causes a stir — and offers incredibly valuable lessons for entrepreneurs. Today, we share 4 of those lessons. Apple events are worth watching for any business founder. When this company puts what the...

Marketing isn’t just about what brings customers to your door. It’s what brings customers together that counts.  When your business model includes some element of a movement, you do better than creating leads and sales. You create a sense of community that drives long-term brand loyalty, and full-blown evangelism for your brand. In other words, your customers become your greatest marketing asset —...

What’s a symbol worth? When you start a business, you start lean. That means making careful choices about where to spend your marketing dollars. When it comes to branding, how important is the company logo? How much is really worth investing when you have plenty of other costs? It’s Q&A Wednesday, and we’ve got a listener with a brand-new business who needs to know. Some schools of thought say tha...

Peloton is one of the most successful fitness business models ever.  How did they pull it off? Exercise equipment comes and goes. Most of the time, companies that sell in-home workout machines have terrible churn, as New Years’ resolutions become next year’s regrets and laundry starts to pile up on the treadmill. What makes Peloton different? Peloton didn’t invent the stationary bike. What they cr...

Hi [First Name], Do your cold emails…work? Most people’s don’t. That’s because writing cold emails is different from any other kind of copywriting.  If you want results, you have to craft emails in a way that strikes the right tone — and doesn’t come off as a phony attempt to be personal. Fortunately, we have an expert on that. Laura Lopuch is a copywriting expert who teaches people how to turn wo...

Take a cue from the tortoise. Slow & steady is the way forward. Entrepreneurship is not a sprint; it’s a marathon. In fact, it’s not even a race —  it’s a lifestyle! And slower growth is the most stable kind of growth. Instead of fretting that you’re not an overnight (or over-week, or over-year) success, take a breath, and realize that’s probably a good thing. We’ve seen businesses collapse under...

As anyone in business can tell you, all tragedies contain opportunities.  Today, we discuss how in certain situations, it’s never been easier to start a business (or expand one) — because of the pandemic. Savvy entrepreneurs can identify the gaps in the market the disaster left behind. If you’re able, the chance to fill one of those gaps could be a once-in-a-lifetime shot. For every door that COVI...

Blogging is still one of the most effective (and cost-effective) kinds of content marketing. But does frequency matter? If so, how often should you post? It’s Q&A Wednesday, and we’re helping a relatively new blogger figure out how much content to pump out. In 6 months, this blogger hasn’t seen the needle move much. Does it make a difference if you publish every day, week, or month? The short answ...

If you don’t listen to your customers, you’ll lose them. Just as true: if you listen too much to your customers…you’ll lose them. Feedback matters. What your customers say should help guide your product development, or you won’t be competitive for long. But you can’t please everybody — and you can’t let yourself be blown around like a leaf in the wind by a thousand different opinions. So what shou...

“Marketing.” The term is vague. New entrepreneurs don’t always know exactly what it means — let alone how to do it effectively. That’s why we’re so happy to have John Jantsch. A best-selling author, sought-after speaker, and founder of Duct Tape Marketing , John specializes in helping small businesses market effectively. In today’s extended conversation, John and Omar discuss what marketing is rea...

We love teachers. As the founders of a webinar platform (and former educators), we live and breathe coaching, training, and consulting as a business model. Our experience in that realm is what brought us into the webinar game, and continues to guide our development.  But at some point, our good ol’ Omar had to hang up his consulting hat. Today, Omar shares why he made the difficult decision to giv...