MBA1460 Q&A Wednesday: Will I put off customers if I share my political and religious views?

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Hey all. Welcome to the $100 MBA show, the business podcast that doesn't waste your time, just practical business lessons every day with their 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 company business training and community online and today's episode is a Q and A Wednesday episode. On our Q and A Wednesday episodes I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you have a question you want to ask, just email me over@omar00mba.net Today's question is from Nina and Nina asks. I'm a mommy blogger. I blog and I sell products on how to balance being a mom and your career. I'm pretty passionate about my beliefs, but my question is will I put off customers if I share my political and religious beliefs and views on my blog and on social media. There's lots of advice telling you you should be transparent and be yourself. But but at the same time I can understand if people don't agree with the way I believe or think. Would love to hear your thoughts on this Omar. Thanks for the amazing content and daily goodness from the podcast. Best, Nina. Thank you for that question, Nina. It's a big one, and I'm going to make sure I answer it in today's lesson. Politics and religion is probably the most polarizing topics on the Internet, and it's mostly because people feel very strongly about about either of them. Having said that, this question is quite common. You know, if I share my beliefs, if I share what I think about politics, it can turn customers away. Is that a smart move? Or should I just let it all hang out? Should I just, you know, be who I am and say everything I believe in in my work and publicly on social media? Well, I'm going to get into all that in today's episode. My recommendations and how to evaluate if you should or should not do this. You might be surprised by the answer I give. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. So Nina asks, do I recommend her sharing her political and religious views on her blog and on social media? She feels like if she does, she might be alienating some of her audience, turning them away from her products and services. But she also feels if she doesn't, she's not being true to herself and being transparent. This is where I stand when it comes to this topic. I first want to say that whatever your views are, you are entitled to your views, to your beliefs, no matter what they are. I may or may not agree with them, but I definitely believe you should have the right to have them. And if you wish to express them, that's your right as well. Now, from a business point of view, the same applies. But I want you to ask yourself this question before you move forward. Before you make a decision on whether to do this or not, ask yourself the question, is it essential for my customers to know and to hear my political and religious views? And in order to get the maximum value from my product or service, if I do not share these views with them, will they not get the full extent? Will they not get the most value out of your product? By holding that back, are you holding back the value? Or even if you do share it, will it add value to the actual outcome that your customers are desiring? So in your case, you're a mommy blogger, you blog about balancing life at home as a mom as well as your career. If you deliver courses or you have services, do you believe that by not sharing your political and religious views, they are missing out? They are not getting the best thing that you can give them? This is a real question. You need to answer it could be yes, it could be no. Only you know that answer. But this is the question I ask you to ask yourself. Why? Because I don't believe in order for you to be transparent and honest with your audience, that you have to share every single thing about your life. Okay? You don't. This is a falsehood. This has been kind of spread by modern day kind of influencers on the Internet, and it's just not true. Look at our parents and grandparents. They didn't share every aspect of their life with everybody. Were they not honest and transparent? Yes, they were. Okay? But some things are personal. Some things you can keep to yourself or to the people that you feel would be comfortable with that. Now, if your political and religious views are essential to your brand and your product, that's a different story. If it's a part of who you are presenting and what you're selling, that is different. Okay, so say, for example, you're a Buddhist, okay? And you are selling courses on meditation. It would enhance that meditation course if you included how Buddhists meditate. You know, this is the traditional way of Buddhist meditation. Now you, of course, can sell a course about meditation without that if you weren't a Buddhist, and that's totally fine, but you would be adding some sort of value to that if you were Buddhist and you had those insights from that tradition and you wanted to share them in your course, in your training. Another scenario is that when you just can't hide your political views because of your business or the credentials you have. Uh, here's a good example. A good friend of mine, John Corcoran, he's got a podcast called Smart Business Revolution. He runs amazing live events. And part of his resume, so to speak, is that he was a speechwriter and he worked during the Clinton administration. So that's just part of his expertise. But I know John and I know his business, and he doesn't post about political things that often. It's not a big part of his business or brand. And he would be the first person that would have kind of the right or the position to do that because he worked for an administration. Right. But again, he finds it, and I believe it's not essential. He doesn't need to do that to actually succeed in his business. But he doesn't hide the fact that he worked for Bill Clinton. Right? So you could be transparent and you can kind of just state facts without kind of pushing or promoting a perspective if it's unnecessary to the success of your business. The last thing I want to touch on is you can do this and you can share your political views and you can share your religious views and you will alienate some people, maybe a lot of people, and you might attract other people that believe the same things as you, but it's definitely going to make your business harder. You're putting up an obstacle that you really don't need. And what I've learned over the years is that business is hard as it is. So if it's not essential and you don't feel that you have to share it, then question why should you? I have friends and worked with people that are from different faiths, from different political views or backgrounds. And publicly you wouldn't know, but privately I know that they're very devout Christians or they are staunch Democrats. You don't have to deny who you are. And in my personal opinion, there's a comfort to keeping some things to yourself, having a resemblance of a private life. But if that's not you, if you like to have everything public, that's your choice. And again, I'm just sharing what I think and what my choice is. And I'm doing that because you asked me. So hopefully that helps you a bit. Nina, I hope you can answer some of these questions in your own business, in your own perspective. The most important thing is to ask those questions of yourself, to kind of get down and understand what's needed and what's not needed. Hey, Fidelity. 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To wrap up today's lesson, no lie. This is a tough one. This is a tough question. But I want to end with this. This is really important to Remember, for all of us, whether you have this question in your mind or not, as a business, your responsibility with a capital R is to serve your customers and serve them well. Serve them the best you can. You're offering a product, you're offering a service in exchange for money. That's your job, to offer the best service solution possible. If that solution possible includes whatever you believe in, then that's what you got to do. If it doesn't include that, if it doesn't have to be up a component of that, if it doesn't help it or it deters from the value, then it's your obligation as a business owner to your patrons, to your customers, not to do it. We all have responsibilities and obligations in our different roles of life. As a son, as a father, as a daughter, as a mother, as a sister, and as a business owner. And your obligation is towards your customers. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Make sure you hit subscribe right now on whatever you use to listen to podcasts. Whether it's Stitcher Radio, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Himalaya, Spotify, we're on them all. Hit subscribe right now. And if you're on SoundCloud, make sure you move on to one of these players. Because that way when you hit subscribe, you automatically get the next episode once it's available. If you're listening and you have a question you want to ask, make sure you ask it. Just email me over@omar00mba.net Before I go, I want to leave you with this. At the end of the day, the choice is yours. This is your business. You have an obligation to your customers, but the choices you make are yours. You're going to have to deal with the consequences. You're going to have to deal with ramifications. You're going to reap the benefits. You're going to gain the rewards. So understand that it's your choice. But whatever happens because of that choice is also going to be something that you're going to have to deal with, enjoy, live with. So whatever you do, own up to it. Go 100%. Thank you so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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