MBA1527 Focus on The Things That Don’t Change + Free Ride Friday
2 Feb 2026 · 11 min
Omar Zenhom explains why successful businesses focus on unchanging fundamentals like quality, speed, trust, and ease of use. Apple, McDonald's, and WebinarNinja all built lasting companies by solving the same core customer needs year after year, not chasing trends.
Chapters
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All right, let's jump into today's episode. Heyoo. Welcome to the Hundred Dollar NB show. Pure business knowledge and insights with no shenanigans 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 lesson you will learn why it's so important to focus on the things that don't change. Focus on the things that don't change. What does that mean? One of the best ways to make sure you build a sure fire business that has longevity that is going to last a lifetime for generations is to focus on the things that don't change. Too many people are trying to find that silver bullet, that thing that's going to just change everything, the innovative idea. But a lot of business minds and successful businesses understand that if you focus on the things that people always want, you'll always be successful. If you're opening up a restaurant, what is something that will never change when it comes to a successful restaurant? Delicious food. You need to focus on creating delicious food. People like delicious food. And that doesn't change. No matter if it's today, tomorrow, the next day, a year from now, 10 years from now, people will still want delicious food. If you have an online business, do people want a slow and clunky website? No. They want a fast, seamless experience. Right? No one says, I want a slower experience. They want a faster experience. They want a seamless experience. They want something that makes their life easier when they're shopping. So focus on the things that will never change. There's much more to this that I want to explain and share with you in today's episode so that you have a long term business. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Focusing on the things that don't change is a concept that I learned from a lot of successful entrepreneurs that I've read about, listened to their talks, people from Steve Jobs to Elon Musk to Jason Freed from Basecamp. And it's the idea that whenever you're building a new product, a new business, a new service, a new offering, you need to focus on the fundamentals, the, the essential reason why somebody would buy this. What are the things they're looking for? And most of the time it's simple. It's not that complicated. It doesn't mean that it's not hard or difficult to implement. It just means that if you don't focus on the essentials of why somebody would buy your product or service and why they would be a happy customer, you're missing the point. You're actually wasting your time and energy and money on things that don't really make a difference. Let's take the company Apple, for example. It's the most profitable company in the world. It's had a really amazing run of success over success over success. They're a company that understands if they focus on the things that really matter to people, that doesn't change. No matter what year it is, people will still want these things. They will be successful. Okay, people like quality products, right? They like things that feel nice in their hand, that feel solid. And that's why Apple really focuses on that above anything else. They say, hey, people will never say, I like low quality products. I love when things break. I love when things after a few months need to be thrown out or need to be replaced. No one likes that. What they do know is that people love quality products that feel great, that feel quality, that give them that sense of, hey, I bought something that is valuable. So even though Apple is known for being more expensive than the competition, they understand that that will never change. People like quality. Let's take one of their competitors, Samsung, who is in the phone game for a very long time and competes with the iPhone. And they were humming along and they were doing pretty good. They were actually making some good sales and they had a pretty good market share. But in the last few years, they really didn't focus on what doesn't change. Their quality really deteriorated. Phones started exploding because of their batteries were overheating in people's pockets and hands. And it really damaged your reputation. And not only did it happen once, it happened several times with different models. And therefore Samsung took a huge blow in the cell phone market. They'll never be the same because of that. If you're in the services industry where you're providing a service to people, if you're a coach, if you're a teacher, if you're a photographer, if you're a designer and you're working with your clients, one thing that will never change is people want to be able to work with people they can trust. They are having a relationship with you. They want to feel like they're getting what they're paying for and they can trust that you're actually going to deliver. So if that's a high priority in your business to over deliver, to show them that they can trust you to earn that trust quickly, those customers will be your customers for life. Because you're capitalizing, you're focusing on what never changes when it comes to the services. We do business with people we trust. So even if you increase your prices, even if you change your rates, they will continue to be your customers because you delivered on what matters. And no matter how long you're in business, because you invested on what matters and that doesn't change no matter what happens in the world. You backed the right horse up the street from me. There's a restaurant that keeps changing hands. We all have businesses like that in our town where, you know, there's like a place that's for rent or you know, a spot for rent. And it keeps changing, like it's a Mexican restaurant, then it's a Turkish restaurant, and then it's a kebab shop. And it's not that space is cursed. It's just that a lot of people are trying to win quickly rather than focusing on what never changes. And you don't have to focus on everything that never changes. You can just focus on something that never changes and be good at that. McDonald's, for example, okay, they are not the best food. You can get a better meal at pretty much anywhere, right? It's not the best food. It's not the highest quality food. But they focus on something that won't change. People want things fast. They want to be served fast, and they want it at a reasonable price. And they're focusing on that need that won't change. That need will be in the market forever. And that's their whole business model. Now, there's fancy restaurants up my street as well, where it's three and $400 ahead. And their focus is an incredible dining experience with amazing food and amazing atmosphere and all that kind of stuff. And that's never going to change. People are going to be willing to spend big bucks to have that experience. Now, the businesses that don't do well are those who don't recognize this. They try to do everything. They think they can be special at everything. They think that they're going to chase the latest innovation or the latest trend, and that's going to change everything. Nothing can be further from the truth. That's how businesses go out of business. They don't focus, they don't understand. I got to get the fundamentals right. They don't understand that, hey, let me just focus on one thing to do amazingly well that won't change over time that people will always want. Instead, they hop around. They never actually get good at anything that people want forever. Let me give you a practical example with my own business, Webinar Ninja or Webinar software. One thing that will never change when it comes to software is people want something that's easy to use. People love Instagram because it's easy to use. People love Spotify because it's easy to use. They love the experience on Amazon because it's easy to use. You don't need a PhD to use the software. You don't need a consultant. You don't need even a manual, okay? To buy something on Amazon, you don't have to read a tutorial. So that's why we focus on making sure Our software is easy to use. This is great for your business. And I'll tell you why. When you have that straight focus, when you have, hey, this will never change. People want something that's easy to use, so let me just give it to them and focus on that and be the master at that. Now what's great about that is that it becomes a filter. It becomes, hey, if it does this decision I'm about to make in my business make my software easier to use or harder to use. If it's not easy to use, then we have a problem. We don't do that. Okay? And it allows me to have laser focus on every decision I make. And understanding the value of the things that don't change is really important. Like the value of easy to use means that they're saving time, they're saving headaches. They see the value in my product because it's actually a solution for them. They don't feel like this is a hindrance or something else they have to learn. So they actually feel like I'm relieving them of something. Not only am I giving them something, but I'm relieving them of a pain. So choosing something that will never change and focusing on that in your business is a great, great tool and it allows you to have a long term vision and long term growth.
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.
If your team isn't using ClickUp, you're wasting time. And data proves it. 61% of knowledge workers manage work more than doing it. Switching apps a thousand times a day, that's work work sprawl and costs millions. ClickUp replaces 20 apps with convergence, uniting projects, docs and chats while AI super agents handle the busy work. Join 4 million teams using ClickUp to finish work 30% faster, try it free, and get 15% off AI upgrades@ClickUp.com podcast. That's C L I C K U P dot com podcast. To wrap up today's lesson, focus on the things that don't change. And the best way to kind of envision this is try to stretch it out over the course of history. A software is a tool really, and tools have been around forever. What are the things that people want no matter what. Throughout the years that humankind has been around, right when it comes to tools, they want to make sure it's easy to use, it's simple, that it's useful. It actually solves a problem right. When somebody carved the first knife, the purpose of the knife is to cut things, and if it doesn't cut things, then it's not useful. So usefulness is really important to focus on. Ease of use is something that to focus on and think of those terms of like what people actually have been wanting all their life, all these years, all these generations, since the beginning of time really allows you to focus on how that applies to your business. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. But today's episode's not over because it's Free Ride Friday. I gotta give a lifetime membership to ezcourse. Let's see who won this week's Free ride. And the winner is. DN05011999. That is the handle on iTunes. DN050 says new listener. Five stars. Just found out about these daily podcasts. I'm currently a college student and even though I have no experience in business or starting a business, this podcast is perfect for preparing me for the future. I started with the first episode and I listen to six to seven episodes a day and I'm trying to catch up to the current episode. Thanks for all the great tips. Well, thank you for listening to the podcast and going in our back catalog and starting from the start. If you want to do the same, just hit subscribe so you can get access to over 1500 episodes in our archives. Congratulations, DN050. Your mission is to email me over at omar00nba.net so I can hook you up with the lifetime access to Easy course. So awesome that you're preparing for the future. You're learning, you're growing. I love that. If you want to win a free ride, leave us an iTunes rating interview and you enter our weekly random draw. Listen out on Friday to see if you won. That simple. Thank you so much for listening. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Sometimes we get bogged down in the details and the stress of daily business life, and we forget about the fundamentals. We forget that essentially business has very simple rules. They're not easy. It's still a challenge. It's still hard. But it's simple, really. It's not complicated. People have needs. You fulfill those needs. They pay you for it. Make sure you're building something that is fulfilling needs that don't change. Thank you so much for listening. I'll check you in Monday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.
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.
