MBA1347 Is it Better To Be The Best at One Thing or Good at Many? + Free Ride Friday!
2 Feb 2026 · 10 min
Omar Zenhom argues that specialization beats being good at many things, using Zappos, McDonald's, and Luxury Escapes as examples of companies that won by mastering one thing. The episode also announces Gabe Fair as the Free Ride Friday winner of an EasyCourse lifetime membership.
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But somebody's gonna win it for free right here on the show and you can win for free as well. Every Friday you have a chance to win. All you gotta do is leave us an iTunes rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw. It's that simple. It's our way to say thanks for leaving us love on itunes. All right, let's jump into today's episode. Hey O. Welcome to the $100. No fluff, just the good stuff every day with our 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 $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online. And in today's episode you will learn is it better to be the best at one thing or good at many? This is a question I get asked when it comes to product creation. Whatever offer you're going to give your customers, whether it's a product like a software or a physical item or a course or consulting or coaching, whatever you offer. Is it better to be well rounded and be pretty good at everything for your customers or is it better for you to narrow in and be the best in one particular area and kind of be all right with everything else? This is what we're going to be focusing on today. This is so important because I struggled with this in my own businesses for years and I learned the hard way which one will always give you long term success. See, the thing is is that when you make this choice, you're setting the foundation for your business. You have to make a choice. Are you going to be something for everyone or everything to someone? We're going to take a look at some case studies as well as my own personal examples. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Just a few minutes ago you heard me say, do you want to be something for everyone or everything to someone? I didn't make that up. That actually comes from an advertisement billboard I saw when I was a kid, actually when I was 13 years old. I remember it's because my father was a salesperson. He was a car salesperson at a dealership when I was 13 years old. And at the dealership, one of the cars that they sold were Porsches. And the dealership had a billboard created by Porsche right outside that dealership. And it was a Porsche ad. And the Porsche ad said, we're not something for everyone, we're everything to someone. The ad really stuck in my head for a very long time because it had me thinking, what's so wrong about being something for everyone? Why is it better to be everything to someone? And I kind of followed it away to my head. And then I grew up, I started working, I started businesses. And one of the biggest pain points I had when I was growing my first few businesses was this pain of being ignored. Every business owner hates being ignored. And one of the easiest ways to be ignored is to be vanilla, is to really try to cater for everybody. Where you're trying to speak to everybody, you're trying to serve the needs of everybody in your marketplace. And then we wonder, why are people not resonating with my brand or my business? The businesses that I started to see that were really making a difference, that were really having some real growth, were specialty businesses, businesses that specialized in an area. And let me give you a quick example. There is an app called Luxury Escapes, okay? It's a travel app. Basically it offers you deals on high end five star vacations in exotic lands. Now, Luxury Escapes could have said, hey, we're going to give you the greatest deals on all the vacation spots that everyone wants to go to. The Caribbean, Orlando, Florida, Disneyland, things like that, right? But there's already people doing that. There's already guides that help you out with that. There's Groupon and all the other copycats of Groupon. Instead, Luxury Escape says, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to do something totally different. We're going to do something very, very well that no one else is doing well, which is hand pick some really amazing places. To visit and to enjoy some R and R. I actually met one of the senior members of Luxury Escapes recently at a meetup and they actually physically go to each location. So for example, if they're going to do a luxury escape deal, which is like a seven night deal at a really swanky five star hotel in Shanghai, they will go to that hotel, they'll do videos and they'll create a special experience for their customers. So they'll put together a VIP deal with massages, fine dining, interesting experiences, and of course the accommodation, maybe even a specialty one on one tour. Now is Luxury Escapes cheap? No, it's expensive. Okay. But for those who are willing to spend money on a really nice vacation and don't want to do all the homework about what's a good place to go to in a major city that I want to go to or where some nice beaches in the world, it's almost like people that spend money on their holidays, they will go to Luxury Escapes because they're going to do all their work for them. That's their specialty. So let's bring it back to your business. What do you do that no one else does? Better answer that question for you. It might be outstanding customer service. A good example of this is Zappos. Zappos won the game with amazing customer service. This is a joke that even Zappos will order you a pizza if you ask them to. Basically saying that, you know, their customer service agents will do anything you ask them. Now, does Zappos have better shoes than other shoe stores? No, they didn't. Or I should say they don't. Right? But they won in the shoe retail game with their excellent customer service. They did something exceptionally well and that's why they were able to stand out from the crowd. They were the best at it. I'm going to use another example that might catch you by surprise. McDonald's. Now you might be thinking, oh, McDonald's is for the masses. It actually isn't. Okay, McDonald's is created and if you read their origin story for the sole purpose of providing good fast food at a low cost, their specialty is giving you your meal quickly at a low cost. That's really what it is. Now. Now, is McDonald's something for everyone? No. There are people that I know personally that wouldn't be within, you know, 500 meters of a McDonald's. It's the last thing they would want to eat. They like to take their time when they eat. They're not necessarily looking for the cheapest meal possible. They're willing to invest a little bit in a better meal and feel a little bit better about themselves and their health. So even the giant of McDonald's does something specifically very well and specializes instead of trying to be everything. They don't serve lobster at McDonald's. Right? Can't get, you know, a tablecloth kennel like dinner at McDonald's. So I want you to commit to this. I want you to go and look at your business. Where is your biggest strength with your product, with your service, with your team? Where can you differentiate yourself by being the best at something? I'll give you an example from our business. Our software, Webinar Ninja, our webinar software. The number one thing that people say when they use our software is that it's easy to use. It's so simple to create a webinar. We do it better than everyone else. So we double down on that. We make sure it's super simple. We really sell that fact on our videos and our sales pages. Now, it doesn't mean we're horrible at everything else, but it tracks the right people, attracts the people that want to create webinars but don't want to deal with the hassles. They're leaving our competitors for those reasons. And we want to clean them up, pick them up, support them, say, hey, we got your back. Come into our arms. Right? That's what we say. We really want them to feel better about that pain of dealing with webinars and having a hard time creating them. Now, another reason why being the best at something is that when you're really the best at something, people come to you for that reason and it's hard for them to leave. Retention is the name of the game in business. Just like Porsche, the example I gave you in the beginning, people that love Porsches, it's hard for them to stop driving a Porsche when it's time to get a new one. They're just going to get the latest model. If people love running webinars, they love how easy it is. They're not willing to look at another competitor and see how they do their webinars, how it is to use that software. They already fell in love with you because you do it so well. If you love Zappos and that shopping experience and if you have to return something, it's so simple and easy and pain free, it's hard to switch. It takes a lot of mental and physical energy to switch to a competitor. Why do it? These people do it great. I can kind of put up with anything else. I can say hey, it's not so bad that sometimes the shoes are sold out. Hey, it's. Maybe the shipping is not as fast as I want. I'm making that up. I don't know. But the point here is, is that people will be okay if other areas of your business are not that fantastic. If you do what they're looking for very well. You're the best at it. So look at your business, look at your team. Where could you be number one at what aspect of your product, of your business, of your offering? Can you be number one at LifeLock? 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Is super hard for a lot of people to choose something to be the best at. Now the best thing I can say to you, the best advice I can give you is just see this as the first step. This is just the first thing you're going to be the best at. Now a lot of people be like, I can't be good at one thing. I gotta be good at pretty much everything, right? Can't just neglect the rest of my business. I'm not saying that. I'm saying be great at one thing and okay at the rest, acceptable at the rest. Why? Because it's hard for you to focus and be the best at everything at one time. So what I'm asking you to do is choose one thing right now to start with, be the best at that and then move on to the next thing. Then you'll be the best at that and then the next thing. See them as like six months challenges. In the next six months. I'm going to be the best in my market when it comes to this area. Then after that, take on the next challenge. This is going to help you really stand out. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. Today's episode's not over though because it's Free Ride Friday. I get to give away a lifetime membership Too easy course. Our 30 day course on how to build your online course. Let's see who won this week's Free ride. And the winner is Gabe Fair. Gabe Fair says more Real world awesomeness. Five stars. I'm totally on board with a purpose driven company. I can't wait to implement it. Gabe was commenting on an episode that we published at the time of his review back in February of 2018. Gabe, thank you so much for leaving us that review. You are a Free Ride Friday winner. All you got to do is email me over@omar00nba.net so I can hook you up with the lifetime membership to ezcourse. It's that simple. If you want to win a free ride, just leave us an itunes rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw. Just listen in on Friday to see if you won. That simple. Before I go, I want to leave you with this Specializing will always give longevity to your business will help you survive the ups and downs Generalists tend to get ignored. A perfect example is if you have a medical condition. You're having problems with your liver. Would you prefer to see a gp, a general practitioner, or a specialist when it comes to the liver? Someone who dedicated their study and practice to the liver. Somebody that has seen your case over and over and over and knows the solution to your problem? Of course, a specialist. And you'll value the specialist so much higher. You're willing to pay much, much more to get that person's help because you are his target audience or her target audience. You're confident in her abilities, you're confident in that you're gonna get an roi. You want that kind of connection with your customer, that kind of confidence that they have in you. And you only get that when you're the best at something. Thank you so much for listening. I'll check you in Monday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.
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