I'm Sick Of My Business. What Do I Do?

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Let's go.

Welcome back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host, Omar Zenhom, where I deliver practical business lessons 3 times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. to help you start, grow, and scale your business. Hey, if this show has helped you in any way, leave me a quick review wherever you listen to podcasts. This helps us reach even more people who need the same no-fluff, practical business advice. It literally takes a few seconds, but it makes a huge difference. Thanks for being a part of our journey to help others on their journey. So the first thing I want to start with is a quote that I saw from Chris Do. Chris Do is an awesome branding guy that we met. Chris Do You don't hate the work, you hate what you charge for it. And I think that's an interesting thing to think about because it has 2 meanings. Number one, if you are charging more, it'd probably be worth the work, right? It'd be worth the effort. Number 2, when you charge more, you get different types of customers. Okay? When you get high-paying customers, there are often less headaches. You know, a lot of people, especially in the branding world, know this, you know, getting a contract with Coca-Cola to do a commercial. Mm-hmm. is far less headaches than getting the local pizzeria that is going to be all over you like a hawk and ask for 3,000 revisions, right? So you get higher caliber clients when you increase your prices. Sometimes you just need to change how you are running your business in order for you to enjoy it more.

So I— when you mentioned that, I hadn't heard that quote by Christo. I thought it meant because you're not making enough revenue.

Yeah, it could mean that. It could mean that it's not worth your time and effort.

Right. Yeah. Your business isn't profitable. And I think a lot of the times people get to that point, the friends that I'm thinking about that are in this state right now, they're not as profitable as they would like to be. So I guess, yeah, the solution is to charge more or to choose, you know, change your client base or who you're targeting. But I think it speaks to maybe a bigger problem is, is your business actually broken?

Yeah. One, you could be not making enough money for you to enjoy it in terms of enjoying the fruits of your labor and enjoying the money that you're making. But it also could mean like you could be making good money, but like you're just not willing to do all this work again. Like we know people that are just sick of saying the same thing over and over and they're in the coaching business, they're coaching their clients, they're still not getting the results because they're not taking action with their advice. They're getting tired of it. So after a while it could be like, I can't go through this again given the fact that no one's actually implementing. Well, a good way to do that is to increase Increase your prices, triple your prices, add a zero to your prices, and you're going to get different clients and you're going to get people that are going to want a return on their investment. So they're going to take action.

Yeah. I think we're in this situation because we've been now in business, what, 14 years? I feel like it comes up around the 10-year mark. You know, what is it? The 7-year itch in marriage, a 10-year itch, I feel, in business, because I've seen that across people who've been in the same business for 10 years. So this could be like a word of warning if you are approaching a 10-year mark or okay, even if it's not your 10th year, but you're sick of your business, let's step back and look at like diagnose the problem before you just burn it all down.

Now there's a few reasons why many people are sick of their business. I'm going to outline some of the top ones that I am familiar with and have heard from whether they're students of the Huddle MBA or whether we've experienced them ourselves. Number one, they might be sick of their business because They haven't evolved themselves. The business hasn't changed. So they're just bored of it. And maybe the business is not doing as well as it used to be because they didn't actually improve the business or they didn't actually move the business to another world, another level. And I feel like often if you just do the same thing over and over and expect better and better results, this is not going to happen. You have to innovate in order for you to be able to get those results. So that's reason number one.

Okay. So yeah, you're just tired of the repetition. I mean, there is a good thing in the business. Making a healthy, whatever income or whatever the revenue that you're generating, but it doesn't really stay the same forever. I mean, okay, so wait, you're making the same, you're making great revenue, but you're bored because of the repetition?

No, there's a couple of reasons. One, you could be sick of your business because it's not worth your time and money anymore. Maybe in the beginning it was because it was novel, was new, you're fulfilling a need, but those needs have changed in the marketplace. And you didn't change with them. Right. So therefore you're kind of sick of all the grind you have to do in order for you to do that. You could also just be bored of it because you haven't changed anything and then you're just bored of what you're doing every day. Yeah. You know, it all kind of falls in the same bucket. You're not innovating, right? You're not— if your business is doing the same thing day in and day out as it did 10 years ago, of course you're going to be sick of it, right? You are not growing as a person.

Yes.

So that's number one. Number 2, you're probably sick of the people around you, meaning that you are not hiring and Training your team so they're growing with you, right? You might be like, I'm sick of like micromanaging and telling people what to do. I know a lot of people, they say like, I hate managing a team. And I say, you just hate managing a team that's incompetent.

Yeah.

Right. If you hire talented, smart, hardworking people that are coming up with great ideas all day, that's gonna be an exciting place to work. Right. But often people don't hire these people cuz they can't afford them. Number one, cuz their profit margins are not there. Or number 2, they just get lazy with the hiring process. I was actually quite surprised as I started growing businesses and meeting other entrepreneurs, how bad people are at recruitment. They just hire people very quickly and they don't really think about, one, are they able to do a great job at this, at this position? But number 2, are they going to be adding value to the actual workplace? Am I going to want to hang out with this person every day?

Well, yeah. And are they helping the business evolve? I think this speaks to, are you going to mention a 3rd point? Because I want to stay on that point. about really diagnosing what's actually wrong. If you're just blaming the fact that you've got incompetent people and it's not, it's not on you, then yeah, you're going to get sick of it because you actually don't see that you can solve the problem. Yeah. And that it's something that lies with you as the business owner. Maybe you are hiring people that, you know, it's frustrating and you're, you know, they're not great and the business isn't moving in the direction that you want, but you're not actually pinpointing the problem and solving it. You're just choosing to stay In that frustration.

It's staying a victim. I mean, blaming your staff is the saddest and most ridiculous complaint ever. But we've seen it. Because who hired them? You hired them. All right. Like, it's your fault. You have to take ownership and say, hey, I got to get better at recruitment. I got to get better at recognizing talent. I got to get better at creating a better job description so I'm attracting the right talent. So reason number 1, you know, you're not innovating. Reason number 2 is that you're not recruiting the right people around you to build the business that you want and to enjoy the process.

And to maybe remove yourself a little bit. From some of it.

Right. And number 3, the market has changed, right? A lot of people don't recognize the world changes. Okay. What people want and what they need changes. And if you don't change with it, you're going to have a tough time. You're going to have a hard time selling your products or service. We saw this in software when we built Webinar Ninja. We had to constantly evolve the software and the product because technology was changing and what we can do with the technology changed and what people want and what they expect. You know, it was very novel in the beginning. It was so easy to sell the software at the beginning. It was like, wow, this is so easy to use. You can get on a live video and sell my products and services. Versus that wow factor dies very quickly once people get used to it. Just like AI. AI used to be like this crazy amazing thing, and now people are sick of it and think it's like garbage.

It seems so obvious now that you say that. When you think about the 10-year issue, the 10-year itch, it probably speaks to the fact that you're getting to a point that you haven't recognized. Well, you believe that you can just do the same thing. You can rest on your laurels. You can rest on that business that started, that was getting all that traction that worked, the things that worked, whether it's marketing, whether it's the product itself. And then there's a likelihood that in 10 years' time, the world looks different and we've seen that. So it kind of seems obvious, but that's why I think we're very bullish on that constant evolution.

I mean, any business, by the way, like if you're an author and you're writing books, you used to just write books and your publisher markets it and maybe you do a couple of TV interviews and that's it. Now authors have to be influencers. They have to have social media profiles and they have to be posting on Instagram and TikTok. They have to have a YouTube channel. They have to maybe do some consulting and coaching and show their stuff. Like, the business changes.

Yeah.

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We experienced this when we were in our Webinar Ninja days. There was a very particular moment because I remember we were on vacation. It was one of those times we're supposed to be on vacation when vacations were not really vacations. So we would take vacations, but we were not on holiday. Americans say vacation, we say holiday. And we read a book at that time that took us through some thought experiments. We read the book Before the Exit by Dan Andrews and Ian Schon, I believe. And they exited a SaaS company and—

It wasn't a SaaS, it was an e-commerce business.

Oh, sorry, e-commerce business. My bad. I believe I was in that moment where I wanted to sell. I was a bit sick of Webinar Ninja and that book took us through a series of thought experiments that really changed the way we saw— well, I saw anyway, our moment in time with the business. And I think maybe what happens when someone reaches that burnout, that frustration where they're just like, I am so sick of my business. I think some key questions, some thought experiments are helpful.

Yeah. There's a lot of self-reflection that happens in those exercises. One of the suggestions they make in the book is like, why don't you hire somebody to do everything that you're doing? Like, just hire a manager.

The mediocre CEO test.

Yeah.

Even someone like less competent than you could maybe do a better job.

Yeah, just put in somebody, even for like a test, like for 3 months, 6 months, to see if they can run the business without you. And you could step away and just see yourself as an investor in the business. They just get a salary. The first rebuttal a lot of people get is like, oh, I don't have enough money to pay. Then you have an economical problem with your business if you can't make one hire, right? Yeah, because the point there

You still, rather than just letting go of a business, which I think you sometimes think like, no, why would you not just burn your business down?

Yeah. 'Cause I made that mistake.

Not sell it. Right. You're like, okay, you can still retain some freedom and still some cash flow, but someone else will run the business for you. I think the point of that is you retain freedom, you retain the cash flow that the business gives you, but you delegate it to somebody else. Let somebody else run the business and you can give yourself a little bit of time to Recover if it is burnout, or step away and actually work on the business and, you know, and see it through to its next evolution.

Yeah. So I want to give some solutions to some of those 3 reasons that we mentioned of why you might be sick of your business. Number 1, one exercise that's fantastic that you could do is, and we've done this with Webinar Ninja, is if you had to, you had no choice, you had to fire everybody on your team. You had to fire them, and then you do the exercise of who would you rehire? Mm-hmm. If you had to just clear the decks and you had to fire them and you had to start from scratch again, who would you rehire? It's interesting how few people you would rehire when you're struggling with this whole team dynamic thing. Yeah. Yeah. So it gives you a, an understanding like, oh, if I could do it all over again, if I could have a redo, these are the people that are really important. And it gives you an understanding of who you gotta let go.

Right.

And a lot of us, we don't want to go through the effort of rehiring for those positions. It's so much, so much of a lift, but you just proved it to yourself that this is not somebody that you really want to invest in. So why continue to put good money after bad money? So that's number 1 exercise. Number 2, I absolutely love. If you were to buy your own business, if you were to say, okay, I'm going to buy my own business, you remove yourself. You're not the owner of this business. You're going to buy this business. What are the top 3 things you would change about this business? The first thing you would do as a new owner, you would say, well, first of all, I would change management or I would change my pricing or I would move into this new product line or move into this innovation.

Or cut X amount of products from the product line or services from the product line that are draining and not doing as great as I would want them to do. Yeah.

It gets you out of your head. It gets you out of the position you're in and starts thinking a little bit more practical and more objective about what you need to do To change your business so that it is exciting, that it's improving, that it's growing.

They're both audits, aren't they? They're both a way of auditing the business.

Yeah.

Right. Auditing the team, auditing the entire structure, the finances. Yeah.

I would also say that I have stumbled upon very few entrepreneurs that are sick of a business that's doing very well financially. Like I have a very hard time finding that. Often it's good money, maybe okay money. It's just not worth their effort anymore. They're kind of looking to maybe reinvent themselves because— but I have found very few business owners where they're like, I'm making so much money, I'm making 90% profit margins, I'm making millions of dollars a month or a year, and they're like, I'm sick of it. No, no one is sick of winning.

Yeah, because I think at that point those people managed to remove themselves and put other people in place. And so, cause I mean, the thing is often what I've seen when people are sick of their business, they're drained. They're doing a lot of the work. That's what leads to the burnout. That's what leads to the frustration because they're doing most of the work. Yeah. Or they're the bottleneck or everything stops with them. And I think if you're a highly profitable business and your business is killing it, You're going to start building that team in place that allows you to start to remove yourself and you become more of that investor in the business. So I think for sure, if a business is really crushing it, it's unlikely that you're going to hate it.

If you're getting value from today's episode, make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss this upcoming episode, all about the top 5 mistakes that entrepreneurs make in their first year, in your first year of business. I know this very well because I made all 5 mistakes. So if you want that episode, make sure you hit that subscribe button, whatever app you're listening to or watching right now, whether it's YouTube or Spotify or Apple Podcasts or on them all. By subscribing, you get the episode automatically when it drops, but also you support the show. So thanks in advance for doing that. One of my favorite learnings from Derek Sivers, author, friend, amazing guy that was on the show too— I love that interview— was Business is a chance for you to create your own utopia. When you create a business, you create your own world. You make the rules. So if there's something about your business that you don't like, you can change it. If you don't like your business, if you genuinely don't like your business, you can sell it. You can do whatever you like, pivot, change, whatever you want so that you can build something that gives you joy. Maybe it's time for a reinvention. Maybe it's time for you to create something new and express yourself. Maybe you've grown, but you haven't built a business that allows you to express yourself the way you want to. So that's important to recognize that you are in control. This is why you're an entrepreneur in the first place is so you have that control.

Following on from that, I think sometimes you miss, when you're in that frustration, you miss what freedoms and privileges or freedoms that the business gives you. And I think if you would imagine a world, that thought experiment, imagine a world without your business, you might think, yeah, I'd be so great. I'd be so much happier. But you might be giving up a whole bunch of things that you don't realize. And to your point, what are those other things that you can create that do, you know, give you more freedom or create that utopia?

Yeah. In your business, you could change the product. You could change your team. You can change your customers. You can change your prices. You could change anything that creates a different business. But if I was going to start somewhere, I would definitely start with your price point. I would change what you're charging to increase your prices so that you can attract a different type of customer. Mm-hmm. And by increasing your prices, it's gonna demand of you to add more value, which means you've gotta get better. That's gonna challenge you. You're gonna make you innovate yourself, innovate your business, innovate the product, and also just allow you to be like, hey, we're becoming something new now. And it's gonna give you some energy. And I love this concept of just adding a zero to your price. Like, mm-hmm, what would you have to do? So say for example, You're a coach and you teach people how to get fit, right? And you're currently charging $500 a month as a coach. What would you have to do in order for you to justify a price of $5,000 a month? Think about all the things that you can do for this client. Well, maybe you'd have a personal person that would pick 'em up and take 'em to the gym. Maybe you have somebody that would create their meal plans, order their food, and get it delivered to their house. This is all possible. You could do whatever you want. You know, that's the point is like, but you increase your price, you're gonna get a different clientele. You're gonna get different results. You're gonna get people who are serious. They're gonna get you testimonials. So increasing your price is a good way to kind of get started.

I think it forces you to change the business that you're actually operating. And oftentimes that can help to fall in love again with your business because it's actually the current version of your business that you're not happy with. And the people that I've spoken to that are in this situation, spoken to people who are actually in this right now. So I really appreciate this question from Oscar. Their focus is a bit spread. When you have that opportunity to perhaps increase your prices, maybe reduce your offerings, and people are, you know, maybe offering a few too many services and products, focusing in on one or two of them exclusively and increasing your prices is a way to, yeah, maybe fall in love with your business again. I think

it's funny that you mentioned that because I'm thinking of an entrepreneur myself, a friend of mine. that does so many things. And I think they do so many things, whether it's investments, whether it's new products, new businesses, new ventures. I think the reason why they do so many things is because they're bored of their main business. They're trying to find excitement and joy outside of that. And the problem is, is that they don't do well with any of those things. They do okay. Yeah. They're not the best at any particular thing because they're scattered. They're not focused. Like you mentioned, they're, they're not really putting all their energy, focus, resources into one thing and becoming like the go-to person for this area. Instead, they're doing okay in all these different areas, and it's because they're bored. It's because they're not recognizing the fact that, hey, maybe my business hasn't changed in a decade or two, and I need to innovate and change what I do and deliver and, and bring on new people. And yes, that means you're gonna alienate your current customer base, but that's okay. That's, that's the nature of growing.

Yeah. And I think it's easier probably for someone to coast a little bit longer in that state, especially if they are generating enough revenue and their lifestyle is okay and it's, it's not dire straits. I think what's the maybe the harsher side of this where you have to recognize that you're sick of your business because your business is broken? I think it was one of the thought experiments too, like why is it that you want to leave your business? Is it really because You know, you are bored with it, or is it really not working? And what do you have to recognize to fix it? And

yeah, I think a lot of times that you're the bottleneck. Your hands are everywhere. You're trying to micromanage. You're trying to be a part of everything because you think you're the best person to do everything. But the truth is, is that you just haven't hired people that are better than you. There's plenty of people that are better than us at everything. Yeah. So that's just the bottom line. You have to start removing things from yourself so you're not The bottleneck, so you don't feel like the world's going to end if you're not working 15 hours a day. That's a growth inside of you to start to delegate and start to trust people and start hiring great talent. I often feel like 1 or 2 hires in your business can change your whole life. Like if you find an amazing person that can take on responsibility and you can delegate to them decisions and they can take on a whole area of your business, it's going to free you up and make you feel so much better.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm very bullish on like the right team. You can't do it alone. And it changes, it changes your day-to-day if you're working with good people. And what about taking time away?

I think time away gives you some perspective and it gives you an understanding of, hey, is this just burnout? Am I just tired? Did I just need a break? Because often that was something that we discovered. And also time away might give you sometimes a reflective, like, oh, maybe I'm, I'm not making the right decisions. Maybe it is my fault. Maybe I need to make some changes. And maybe time away gives you a chance to listen to an episode like this, you know, just, just to give you a new perspective or read that book that you mentioned, like Before the Exit.

Because you definitely don't want to make a decision in that emotional state of frustration. That's not the place you want to make a big decision like ending, quitting your business.

Yeah. And that kind of brings us to the conclusion of today's episode. You can change anything. You can make anything what you want it to be. Quitting your business is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Like, you have a temporary problem here where you feel upset, you're not fulfilled, you're not enjoying it. You probably enjoyed it at some point, you know? Mm-hmm. So you gotta find that spark again. You gotta find some way to challenge yourself again. You've become something new since starting this business, so feed yourself what you need to be fed. That inspiration, that growth, that challenge, you know, increase your prices, get better customers, change your product line if you want to, change your team if you need to, reduce your team. So maybe you have too much overhead right now, you're not making enough profit. Maybe you need to make just a few key expensive hires that will be better than having, you know, a team of 50 or 60.

Yeah.

So you have the chance now to like reinvent the situation. Just these mere thoughts in your head right now, What I'm suggesting is probably going to inspire you to feel like, okay, maybe, maybe I can salvage the situation and feel alive again.

Yeah. Got me excited. Cause I feel like that stage where things are new and different, it's almost that magical fun time in the business. Right. And then you want to be able to tap back into that because there was that at the very beginning. There's always that period in time.

100%. And I want to end on this. It's okay to reinvent yourself. If you were the marketing person, if you were the fashion person, if you were the whatever person, it's okay to change who you are. Just because you're known for one thing doesn't mean you can't reinvent yourself. We've had to do this several times in our careers, in our business. I was the webinar guy for a very long time, and now I'm, you know, the podcast guy or the media guy. So that's okay. And I always look back at all the greats, people that I admire, whether it's Madonna or Michael Jackson Or Michael Jordan, athletes, they reinvent themselves. Michael Jordan can't be a basketball player forever. He then became a team owner and then he's a brand. He built the Jordan brand and Nike, which is worth billions of dollars. So you have to reinvent yourself so you can continue to challenge yourself because you have stages in life and it's okay to graduate one stage and move on to the next.

It's an exciting thing to do, reinvention. There's only positive connotations that I feel are associated with it.

It's a little bit painful because you have to challenge and start again from zero or start as a beginner again. But I think if you're an entrepreneur, you'll love a good challenge.

Cool!

Thanks, Oscar, for asking today's question. If you've got a question you want to ask here on Q&A Wednesday, you can submit it over at 100mba.net/q. If you want to continue learning, make sure you go back to our recent episodes. We have a recent episode on how to create and sell your first live event. And I always recommend a live event as a great way to start your entrepreneurial journey because you're going to learn so much by just running an event. You're gonna learn how to cost it out, make sure you're profitable, have a P&L, make sure that you have a product people want to buy, how to sell, how to market, all kinds of things by just running a dinner, for example. So if you want to learn how to do that, just scroll back on whatever app you're using right now and look at our recent episodes, How to Create and Sell a Live Event. Thanks so much for being with me here, Nicole, and answering Q&A Wednesday with me today. We'll be back next Wednesday. Don't forget. See you then. Bye. If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help start, grow, and scale your business, subscribe to the podcast. All you gotta do is hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now. By hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically. It's absolutely free, and it's a way for you to commit

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