MBA1144 Lessons Learned at The Flea Market

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Hey O welcome to the $100 MBA Show Real World Business Lessons every single day with our daily 10 minute lessons for the Real World. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the Hundred Dollar mba a complete business training and community online. And in today's lesson you will learn lessons learned at the flea market. Yes, the flea market. Last weekend, me, Nicole, her mom and her brother headed on over to the local flea market and there were lessons everywhere. A flea market is basically a collection of small businesses. Businesses that are about to either make it and move from a weekend hobby to a full time business or they might discover this is just going to be what it is, a hobby. Something they do on the weekend, something they dream about. It's where the rubber meets the road because their products interact with real customers. As I was walking around, I couldn't help but jot down all these mental notes, all these great lessons I was picking up along the way that I wanted to share with you on the show. You're going to love these lessons because they're practical, they're real and you can apply them to your business right now. So let's get into it it let's get down to business. So I hopped on the ferry with Nicole, her mom and her brother and we headed to Milson's Point in Sydney where they have one of the biggest markets or what we call in the U.S. a flea market. That's called Kirribilli Markets. Now this is a collection of small stalls of people selling their products. There's a section of used products, but of course there are tons of stalls with new products that people are selling. From knickknacks to candles to clothing to jewelry to household items. A flea market is basically like tryouts, right? Like when you're trying out for a team. It's where these merchants really find out if customers really want Their product, they're willing to pay their hard earned dollar, the hard earned cash, literally cash to go home with their products. So I want to share with you some of the lessons I picked up along the way. As soon as we got there, we were starving, so we wanted to jump right to the food stalls. There are about 15 or 16 food stalls selling different types of food, drink, desserts. But funny enough, only a handful of them was offering to accept credit card. This was astonish. Accepting credit card is so easy these days. There are so many services out there that allow you to do this, whether it's PayPal or Square, where you can basically just plug in a small device into your iPad or even your phone and start charging credit cards. So ultimately, the ones that accepted credit card, those stalls, they were the busiest, regardless of how the food tasted. One of the stalls was a Turkish Gozlemi stall. They accepted credit cards. So I was like, hey, I want to go with them because I don't want to use that shady ATM that's by the trash cans. Plus, it smelled good, it looked great and it was fresh. So lesson number one, if you want people to buy your products and services, make it easy for them to buy it. I remember about two years ago I was trying to buy some printed materials for Webinar Ninja. I believe it was like pens and pencils that we were going to use for a event. We were a sponsor of the event and wanted to give away some free swag. And the website only accepted you to do a bank transfer or send a check. What is this, 1985? I instantly left the website and said, this is ridiculous. They can't get their act together to have credit card on their website. There's no way they're going to earn my business. All right, let's get back to the flea market and back to the Turkish Gozleme stall. If you don't know what goesleme is, Goselemi is a traditional Turkish food. It's a savory Turkish flatbread stuffed with spinach, feta, cheese, meat or chicken. It strikes that perfect balance between savory, salty and fatty. Right now, what's so great about this stall is that the menu is just three options. Spinach and cheese, meat or chicken. Those are the three different gozlemi you can choose. That's it. That's all that's on the menu. So what this does is it allows a customer to make a decision quickly, sit there wondering which ones they choose. If you're vegetarian, you're going to go with the spinach and cheese. Feeling a little bit of lamb, you're going to go with the meat. If you're a chicken lover, chicken, it's a no brainer. It's easy to choose. On top of that, because the menu is so simple, they're able to prepare these gozolemys in advance. So when I made my order, she was halfway through, done with creating my order. So I picked up my order in literally two minutes. Also, because the menu is so simple, she's able to keep costs down. She can buy in bulk in spinach, cheese, meat and chicken and not have to buy a whole bunch of other different ingredients. I was super satisfied with my $12 dish. They were killing at the market because, hey, it smelled great. Easy menu, fast delivery. And it was easy to buy because they accepted credit cards. All right, now that I had food in my stomach, I'm walking around and I'm looking at the shops and I noticed something about the body language of each stall owner. The stalls that actually had potential, that had products that are worth getting excited about or even looking at or stopping by. The stall owner was standing up. They were ready to greet the people, to answer questions. No one was standing by any stalls where the stall owner was sitting down. They looked disinterested. They didn't look enthusiastic about their products and therefore no one was really enthusiastic about their products or even gave it a chance. The best stall owners were not pushy. They just smiled. They'd even say, if there's anything I could do or help you with, I'm right here. If you need me, we know you're there. You're standing right in front of me. So there's no need to say that. They just smiled. I looked at their products, I asked a few questions, we had a conversation. That's a natural way to sell. The person's interested. They look proud, they look happy. I walked right past anybody that looked like a grump because, hey, I don't want to hang out with somebody like that. I don't want to talk to somebody like that, let alone do business with them. So ask yourself, when you do business, what do you look like? What about your website? Is it inviting? Are there smiles on the website or the videos that you have or even the copy? Is it light hearted and fun? I kept on walking and I came across this stall where, where somebody was selling these crinkled types of shirts. They're tops for women that are folded in this sort of diamond shape, wavy way, almost like that paper that's on top of a box. Of chocolates. It just caught my attention. And we asked the stall owner, hey, what's the story about these shirts, about these tops? And he went through this whole process of creating these tops. And it's such a long process, a digital printing and computer rendering and then having to, you know, put the cloth with cardboard so it can fold and create these crinkles and then remove the cardboard later. It's a very long and costly process to make this top. But the thing that struck me the most is that in my personal opinion, it wasn't a very attractive looking top. I even asked Nicole, hey, would you wear this top as a woman? And she was like, no, it looks ridiculous, looks like a costume. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And hey, everybody's got different opinions. But it had me thinking, how much market research did this person do before they started creating all these tops? And, and going through this long procedure to create these tops. And from his story, it sounded like he just created it for himself because he thought it would be cool. But the problem with that is that you can't be your only customer if you want a profitable business. If you want a business, period, you need customers, you need people that are really in love with your product. I could be wrong. I didn't ask and probe. He could have done market research and maybe there are people that love the shirts. But it begged the question, hey, did you do that before you went through this whole procedure? And I say this because this is a rookie mistake. A lot of people do in business, they create products for themselves and forget there's an audience they have to serve. You need to sell more than one unit, one unit to yourself, right? You need to sell more than that. So don't get in love with the idea. You want to make sure other people are in love with the idea. Don't feel like your idea is precious or your products are precious. Especially when it comes to a creative product like this one. It's hard to be critical and kind of see it as a consumer product. But hey, if you're selling it, it is a consumer product. So make sure people love it before you go through the long and costly proced of producing it. We then moved on to another stall where a woman was creating her own custom made candles. Now the interesting thing about this candle stall was that she was creating these great smelling candles that were made out of soy. They were organic, environmentally friendly, and just as good as the big name brands. But on top of that, she was selling these candles also in these great little Holders or you could say like a candle pot with these great straps that you can hang them from so you can hang the candle and have it smell great in the house. Or when the candle's done, you can use it as a plantern. So it's kind of like a two for one type of product. People that buy candles will buy candles anyway because hey, they like their house to smell good. They can get a bonus benefit out of the product. Something cool, something that looks nice, something different. And it's a little bit cheaper than the big name brands because there's no big time packaging. It's a no brainer. When I was at her stall, she told me her candles, $35. I was like, hey, this is so cheap for this big candle compared to, you know, the $40 and $50 candles you see in the big time shops. It's better value, it looks better. It's got this great little planter and thing I can use later. And hey, it gives me a reason to help somebody who's getting started, a small business owner. So I love that. On top of that, she was really friendly. She had a smile on her face, she answered my questions and she handled all our customers with grace. It was an inviting experience. And I would go back to that stall and get candles from her again because she knows how to do business, she knows how to give her customers value and she knows how to create an offer that's hard to say no to. I gotta respect that.

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My day at the flea market was filled with lessons all around. But the biggest lesson I learned is when you're at a flea market, it's like the real world. It's a microcosm. It's an example of one competitor next to another. And the winners, with the great products, with the great services, with the great delivery of their service, stand out. Their stalls are busy, they're making bank. And I'm pretty sure these stalls, they're not going to be stalls for very long. They'll be out of the markets and be doing their business full time out of a storefront or online. Success leaves clues to keep your radar on when you're out there shopping. Especially now with Christmas time and there's gift shopping. There's great ideas and lessons to be learned everywhere. Thanks for listening to the $100 MBA show. If you love what you hear, let us know in an itunes rating and review. We'd love to hear from you. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Back in the day, I had a men's custom clothing line. It was a physical business and I used to go to a lot of conventions and have my own stall. And one of the things I remembered is you had to have a process just like on a website, like a sales process or a funnel, except it's real life. How do you get somebody through your doors? How do you get somebody to start talking, have a conversation? How do you get them to try your product or even just take a look at it? These are all things you have to think about before you actually open your doors to customers. If your business has a website, go to it right now. Ask yourself, is it inviting? Do I have a procedure where people can ask questions, learn more about my product, or try it out for free? How do I get the conversation going? How do I get them through the doors figuratively and get them to go from just being a visitor to a customer? Thanks again for listening. I'll check you in tomorrow's episode Q and A Wednesday. I'll see you then. Take care.

What do the steam engine, electricity and AI have in common? These technologies not only change how we work, they can transform entire economies. I'm Stephanie Wong, host of where the Internet Lives, a podcast from Google and Latitude Studios about the unseen world of data centers. Explore how data centers are unlocking growth in every sector of the economy. From agriculture to medicine to manufacturing, data centers are powering a new era of AI innovation. Listen to where the Internet lives. Wherever you get your podcasts.