Did You Start The Wrong Business? (And What to Do If You Did)

Here's a gut punch question you may be afraid to ask yourself. Did I start the wrong business? It's a scary thought. You've put in the time, you put in the energy, you've put in hard earned money. But something feels off today. I'm going to help you figure it out and we're going to get honest and we're going to find out what to do next, whether that's to pivot, whether that's reposition or power through where you are right now. Let's take a time out and get really real for a moment, okay? There are some red flags that some things not quite right in your business. I want to go through them. Number one, you dread the work. Listen, you don't have to love every second of your business. But if everything feels like a chore, if you're constantly forcing yourself just to show up every day, that's a signal. You need to pay attention to that. Number two, you're not solving a real problem. If your product or service isn't a must have for someone, it'll never scale, it'll never take off. I know this from experience. You might have started something interesting, but it's not a must have. It's not something incredibly valuable to somebody that they're willing to do anything to get your product or service in their hands. Business is as hard as it is. So having a product that's not really something that people crave is making things harder on you. The margins just don't work. If you're selling but you're still not profitable, that's a math problem. And if you can't raise prices and you can't really cut costs that much, that might be just your signal that you're in a dead end. Right? That this business model, this product or service or this whole concept is just not viable. Number four, you can't see a future you want. Even if you grew 10x, would you want the business it becomes? Think about that. What would your business look like if. If it grew 10 times tomorrow? Do you like the way that looks? Managing all those people or dealing with all those customers? If not, that's your intuition trying to save you. And often business owners, because they know the future looks like that they will sabotage their own businesses so it won't grow. So what do you do if you recognize these signs in your current business? Well, here's what most people do. They panic. They quit. They beat themselves up. Does this sound familiar? Right. Here's what you should do instead. Step one, you want to just Pause and zoom out. Ask yourself, why did I start this business? What parts do I actually enjoy? What have I learned about the market that I've been serving? Sometimes the business isn't totally wrong. It just slightly misaligned. It needs a few small tweaks that will change everything. Step two Reposition or pivot. You don't have to blow it all up. Okay, Maybe you can keep the same audience but offer a different product. Maybe you can keep the product but target a different audience. Maybe you could narrow the niche a little bit more. Maybe you could change the business model from services to products or from one on one coaching to group coaching. Small shifts can lead to big results and give you the type of business you want. Step three. This one's tough, but it's essential. Don't let your ego keep you stuck. Sometimes we stay in the wrong business because we're afraid to admit we made a wrong turn. You didn't fail. You're just gathering data, right? You've gathered data about what you don't like and now you're smarter even if you scrapped your entire business. Listen, I've scrapped entire businesses and started all over. Those experiences that I had where I created businesses that didn't work out and failed were the foundation for my trajectory, for the 100 MBA, for my software company Webinar Ninja and everything I do today. Listen, I'm not afraid to be a little bit vulnerable and share from my own experiences of when I went through this. In 2009 I started an e commerce business called Zenome Design. It was a custom tailored men's clothing line. We had sales, we had warehouses, we had one of the most visited websites in our niche. But we had nearly no profit, very low margins, massive overhead, constant headaches. It took me a while to admit the fact that I started the wrong business for me. I realized that my customers, the people that were consuming my products were more passionate about my business than I was. That was a sign for me that I had to close up shop. I'm so glad that I walked away because that created the space and the time and the freedom for what to come next which was my service based business. I had a business consulting firm. I built websites for people. It really built the foundation for what I knew was a successful business and the rest is history. What I learned from that business allowed me to build a stronger business with a hundred mba. What I learned from that also allowed me to build a stronger a software company with a webinar Ninja. I really believe that there is no failure in business, there's only feedback. The only way you could fail is when you give up. Don't give up. Before you go, I want to leave you with this. If you feel like you started the wrong business, you're not alone and you're not doomed. And you're not a failure. You're just early. Use what you learned, make adjustments if needed. Move forward with intention, not ego, and use what you learned today in today's lesson. Sometimes the best decision is to quit, but sometimes it's just course correction, right? Shifting a little bit. And I've done that as well. Thanks so much for tuning into the $100 NBA show. If you want me to keep helping you build a business that is actually right for you, you want to join my 3 things newsletter? It's absolutely free and it's my way to coach you from afar. Every week I send you a email with three things. Number one something to think about, something to grow your mindset. Number two Something to do so you're doing getting wins week after week. And number three, something to learn so you're scaling up as each week goes by. It's absolutely free. Just go to 100- MBA-NET and sign up for any of our guides and you'll get added to our newsletter automatically. If you're still listening to this episode towards the end of the episode. Thank you. Thank you for being a listener and a subscriber and part of this community. I think of you every time I step up to the mic and record a new episode. I think of you as a completionist, somebody who's a hard worker, somebody that wants to keep growing and learning and keep building their dream business. So I appreciate you being a listener as well as the fact that you're my kind of person. Love it and I'll check you in the next one. Take care. Of.