MBA1159 Why I Wear My Own T-Shirts
2 Feb 2026 · 12 min
Podcast episode (MBA1159) hosted by Omar Zenholm explaining why he habitually wears his company-branded T-shirts (Webinar Ninja). The episode mixes sponsor ad reads (QuickBooks, Dell, ADP, IKEA, Capella University) with a first-person lesson covering rationale (branding, simplicity, marketing exposure), operational choices (use high-quality shirts, simple designs, hire a designer, order in bulk), and practical recommendations (order ~100 units; stock more mediums and larges). References to Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg illustrate the ‘wear the same top’ productivity argument. Closing includes show CTAs (iTunes rating, Q&A Wednesday).
Questions this episode answers
Omar Zenholm
MBA1159 Why I Wear My Own T-Shirts
2018-12-18
About 80% (as of two years before the episode)
A minimum of 100 T-shirts
Chapters
Let me tell you about Intuit QuickBooks. When I was starting out my business, I remember sitting at my desk late at night, not working on my business but cleaning up numbers, tracking and reconciling payments and wondering how this became my life. But once I automated the admin side of things, of my finances, those nights had disappeared and I felt a whole lot better. Outdo it with intuit QuickBooks QuickBooks is the trusted end to end solution that businesses rely on for getting paid, managing finances, paying employees, finding new customers and more. QuickBooks provides a team of AI agents and trusted experts. So doing it yourself no longer means doing it alone. Their payment agent gets you paid faster, their customer agent finds leads, follows up and secures more sales, and the accounting agent automates and categorizes transactions. Get your critical business jobs done with QuickBooks on the Intuit platform. Ready to save on new tech? It's time for Dell Tech Day's annual sales event celebrating our customers with fantastic deals and benefits. Product perks include Dell rewards, free shipping, premium Support and more. PCs like the Dell 14 with Intel Core Ultra processors will help you do more faster and with a premium suite of monitors and accessories, you can upgrade your whole setup with amazing savings. Visit Dell.com deals. Hey O. Welcome to the Hunter. Because your business depends on you. That's why we deliver daily 10 minute business 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 why I wear my own T shirts. If you've seen me at a conference, on a webinar, on a video in the last two years, you might have noticed that I wear my own branded T shirts. T shirts that say our company on it. Webinar Ninj Voter Ninja is our software company, a business that we run alongside the $100 MBA and as of two years ago, 80% of the time I'm wearing a webinar Ninja T shirt. Why is that? Why did I make that decision and why has it made my life more productive and efficient? Well, that's what I get into in today's episode. You might like what you hear and the strategy I use and want to print your own T shirts for your own company. I got a lot to cover so let's get into it. Let's get down to business. I try to attend a good number of conferences every year. I speak on stage. I do about 70 to 80 live webinars a year. I do videos, I get on video calls, and for the most part, in all of these interactions, I'm wearing a branded T shirt, a company branded T shirt with my company on it. I also pretty much wear a web Indonesia T shirt every day, when I go out, when I run errands, when I go to the gym. And unless I'm going to a fancy restaurant or a formal occasion, you guessed it, I'm wearing a webinar T shirt there. Well, why is it? Well, let me take it back to my first career. I was a teacher and an administrator at the high school and university level. Every day I wore a suit and tie to work. I did this for 13 years. But when I made the leap to full time entrepreneurship, I basically said goodbye to that suit and tie forever. So I actually prefer to dress casually on the day to day. And even when I go to conferences, I dress nicely. But it's pretty casual and luckily it's very much accepted in our space in entrepreneurship. So if I'm going to be dressing casually, why wear a branded T shirt from another company like Nike or Under Armour or Ralph Lauren? I might as well wear something that I love, that I'm proud of and that helps my company, not another company. Now I love Nike and different brands, but I'll keep their brands on my feet instead. So I decided to print some really high quality T shirts with the webinar Ninja logo and branding. Now, in my day to day, in my interactions, I'm probably seeing the same people in my neighborhood, in my community. So really I'm marketing to 100 people, max. It's not really a big deal, but it's really about just wearing something you're proud of and comfortable. So it's not really a marketing strategy, but it's something that I'm comfortable in, something that I'm proud of and it's a conversation starter. What is that? What's webinar Ninja? But when it comes to conferences, when it comes to webinars, when it comes to videos, you're exposed to hundreds and thousands of people. So it is a good marketing strategy to be a walking billboard. I also would keep this in mind. When you're going to high attendance events or places like the airport, when you're going to travel, when you travel, you're going to interact or you're going to be exposed to thousands of people. When you go to a concert or a sporting event, same thing. So you might as well wear something you're proud of that supports you and your business. Another reason why I do this is because it just makes my life simple. I don't have to think about what to wear. I printed Webinar Ninja T shirts in about five different colors, colors that I enjoy. And I printed them on the highest quality T shirt that was available. Why? Because I'm going to be wearing these T shirts a lot and I want to make sure that they last in the washing machine, wash after wash. Now, I'm printing more than five, obviously. I actually printed hundreds and I give away some and all that kind of stuff. But the point is, is that you don't want to go cheap here. You want to go high quality so that your brand is associated with quality. So it's not a raggedy T shirt. You get the point. But when I go out, it's pretty simple. I have a draw for all of these T shirts. I put it on, I feel good and I don't have to think about it. This is actually a strategy that's borrowed from Steve Jobs as well as Mark Zuckerberg. Both of these CEOs wore the same shirt every day. Steve Jobs wore a black turtleneck that was designed by Issey Miyake. He bought hundreds of these and wore them every day. Mark Zuckerberg pretty much wears a gray T shirt every single day. Wears blue jeans every single day. It may sound boring and it may sound, you know, not so creative, but he says he saves so much time and mental energy not thinking about what he's going to wear every day. And I found that was the case for me, especially when it just came to my top, my T shirt, and I could just kind of think about my jeans or my pants or my shorts. It just simplifies things. Now, if you're thinking about printing your own T shirts for your company, here's a few pieces of advice. Number one, keep it simple. Don't over clutter the T shirt, a logo, the name of the business, along with a tagline, Max. That's all. That's all you really need. You really don't need to do front and back if you don't want to. Front is just totally fine. You don't even need to put the URL the. You know, the actual site like webinar ninja.com why? Because most people just Google things. They see my T shirt, they'll Google webinar Ninja first. Result, easy to find. Number two, I already mentioned this. Go with the highest quality T shirt available that you could buy to print your actual logo and information on your T shirt. Don't go Cheap on this, trust me. Number three, if you can go to a T shirt printing shop that's local to you that you can actually see how they make them and the quality of the T shirts in person, that's probably your best bet. That's what we did and we got to choose which T shirt quality we wanted. Now if that's not an option for you, I recommend custom Ink. They're not a sponsor of the show, we are not affiliates, but we've used them in the past and the quality of their printing is really good. They offer American Apparel as one of their T shirt brands and that's a really good quality T shirt. They have one called the American Apparel 50 50. That's like a blend that really sits well and has a good cut. And I find that they actually last pretty long. Wash after wash. Number three, when it comes to the actual design on the T shir, what you're going to print on the T shirt don't go cheap. Find a designer that could do it for you. Go to Freelancer.com or Upwork. It's going to cost you maybe $100, but they're going to vectorize it and make sure it's going to fit on a T shirt. It's going to look good and they're going to give you the file format you need for the actual printing on the T shirt. Next, you're definitely going to save money if you order in bulk. These T shirts will cost less money. Each unit, each T shirt will cost less money if you order more than a few. I would say order a minimum of a hundred T shirts just to get you started. You can keep maybe 20, 25 for yourself and you can give away the rest to maybe your team or to some really high end clients. You can keep 20 to 25 for yourself and the rest you can give to your teammates. Some special clients, maybe as a marketing type of tool when you're at an event or maybe even as a giveaway as a part of a promotion for your customers. Lastly, in our experience, if you're looking to order as many T shirts for other people, we found that large and medium are the most pop sizes. Now of course you're going to get people that will need an xl, XXL or a small. But we've ordered hundreds and hundreds of T shirts and when we gave them to customers or as promotional materials, the most popular ones are medium and large. So you want to make sure that you have a good amount of those when you order. ADP knows anything can change the World of work. Like what if a blocked shipping port caused a worldwide coffee shortage? Suddenly, businesses are scrambling to manage an increasingly drowsy workforce. Productivity slips 20% just due to the extended time it takes to conduct a job interview while yawning. Anything can change the world of work from HR to payroll. ADP helps businesses take on the next anything. ADP always designing for people Department of Rejected Dreams if you had a dream, rejected IKEA can make it possible. So I always dreamed of having a man cave, but the wife doesn't like it. What if I called it a woman cave? Okay, so let's not do that. But add some relaxing lighting and a comfy IKEA hofberg ottoman. And now it's a cozy retreat. Nice. A cozy retreat, man. Cozy retreat, sir. Okay, find your big dreams, small dreams and cozy retreat dreams in store online at ikea.us dream the possibilities to wrap up today's lesson. You're going to wear something every day. Something on your videos, something on your webinars, something at conferences, something when you travel. It might as well be something that promotes you and your business. Something you're proud of, something that sparks a conversation. And for the most part, I found it to be less expensive than buying a bunch of expensive clothes. Yes, I wear things other than my webinar ninja T shirts, but it probably makes up half my wardrobe. And why not? My business is a big part of my life. Thank you so much for listening to the hundred dollar NBA show. If you love what you hear, drop us an itunes rating and review. We'd love to hear from you. Love to hear what you love about the show, what your favorite episode is, reread every single review that comes in. That's it for me today guys. But before I go, I want to leave you with this. If you're buying these T shirts so you can market, you can give it away as giveaways so you can wear my conferences speak to your account. It could be a business write off. It could be a business expense. Or at least a good portion of that expense will be if you're giving away for marketing purposes. Hey, Nike and Ralph Lauren can't do that for you. They can't save you money. So there's another reason to wear your own brand. Thank you so much for listening. I'll check you in tomorrow's episode Q and A Wednesday. I'll see you then. Take care. Of at Capella University. Learning the right skills could make a difference. That's why our business programs teach you relevant skills you can take from the courseroom to the workplace. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella. Eduardo.
