MBA1531 2020’s 5 Most Common Online Business Mistakes

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Hey O. Welcome to the $100 MBA Show. Because we know that your business means the world to 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 $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online and and in today's lesson you will learn the five most common online business mistakes in 2020. If you're starting an online business or have started one, you need to avoid these mistakes like the plague. They are the most common mistakes I see entrepreneurs making with their online business. And they're also very, very deadly. They stop your progress in your tracks. And it's the kind of mistakes that when you make them, it's going to take you a long time to make up for them. So I want you to make sure you steer clear. I'll go through each of these mistakes and how to avoid them. I'll share from my own experiences and the experiences of other entrepreneurs that I've worked with. Mistakes will happen, but not all mistakes are created equal. Some are more devastating than others. Let's make sure we do not make these mistakes. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Let's jump into the first most common mistake online businesses are making in 2020, number one. And this is number one for a reason. It's hard work, and that's not publishing consistent content. Many people, they will build a website, they will build a business, they'll have a product for sale. Whether it's a service, whether it's a course, a software, physical product, whatever it is, they'll focus on that. And that's great. You need to have a great product. But then they never publish anything on their website to attract new visitors. Content marketing is the only way you're going to be able to grow in the long term. I know this for a fact. I know this from a experience. You need to be publishing regular content on your website so you can be found, so you can be ranked, so you can be popular, so you can be a market leader, even if that consistency is just once a week. And I really believe that consistency is more important than volume. So, for example, at Webinar Ninja, we started Webinar Ninja back in 2014, and even though we only publish a blog post once a week, that matters, because that builds over time. And what happens is that you get a bank of amazing, great content. Sometimes you'll have to sift through after some time and cut out the blog posts that are just not performing well. And some that are doing well, you're gonna make sure they're front and center and all that kind of stuff. The number one driver for our businesses is Google. People find us through Google because of our content, because of the keywords they're searching for. And that will never happen if you're not publishing consistently. By publishing consistently great content, you are signaling to the world that, hey, I can solve your problem with my product. Come over here. You're signaling to Google that your site is activ. That you're continuing to improve. You're adding great content to the world. Great content allows you to build a relationship with your audience, to build trust, to build authority, and show people what you can do. Many companies, especially in the SaaS world, in the software world, they will publish a few blog posts when they start, and then they won't do anything for months. This is a huge no, no. You got to publish regular content on your website on a consistent basis. Like you're taking your daily vitamins. You gotta just do this. And when I say consistent, even if it's just once a week, a new, fresh blog post that is consistent. All right, let's jump into the second most common mistake. And this is still happening at an atrocious rate in 2020. And that's not having a mobile friendly website. 60% of all web traffic is mobile. That means most of the traffic that's going to come to your website is going to come off a mobile device. People are on their mobile devices all the time. They're searching things or looking up things, they're clicking on links from an email off their mobile device and going and seeing your website. So if your website doesn't look brilliant on mobile, you are going to have problems. You're going to lose great customers. They're never going to come back if the mobile experience is not good. Now if you're creating your website with a website builder like Squarespace or Weebly, usually these websites are what's called responsive. They will look great on mobile automatically. But you need to double check every time you make a change to your website. Make sure it looks great on mobile, not just on your phone, but on tablets as well. And there are softwares out there that will mimic or emulate mobile devices, all kinds of mobile devices, so that you can see what your site looks like on different devices. You can just search on Google and there's plenty of services that do this. Not only does it have to look good on mobile, but it also has to load fast on mobile. Page speeds will differ between desktop and mobile and you need to make sure your site is quick on mobile as well as desktop. This is going over your head and you're like, I have no idea how to do this. No problem. You can hire somebody. You can hire a freelancer off upwork or freelancer.com and for maybe a few hundred dollars, they can fully optimize your website for mobile if it's not already optimized. If you're using a page builder, a website builder, something like that, contact them and ask them, are, are my pages all responsive? Is my site gonna look great on mobile? And of course you can verify by looking on your mobile device or on your tablet and going through all the pages of your website. Third most common mistake, no email capture or it's not apparent, it's buried. You need to capture your visitors emails. Whether you're asking them to sign up for a freebie like a free course or a free guide or asking to join your newsletter. You need to have some sort of opt in. Now many people have this, but it's buried, it's on their blog, something like that footer. This should be on your homepage, this should be prominent on your blog. This should be on any page other than the pricing page, okay? Because that's where they buy. You need to capture email because if you don't have their email address, you cannot speak to them again. They come to your website and then they leave and then you have no other way to contact them. They're gone. So by having email, capture an email opt in offering something of value like, hey, check out this great masterclass I have for you. Just give me your email and in exchange I'm going to send you this masterclass or a guide or a ebook or an email with five great strategies that cures one of their biggest pain points. The point here is that if you get their email, you can follow up with them later on. You can ask them questions, you can invite them to your next webinar, you can give them your latest newsletter, you can share your best blog posts. The point here is you can build upon that relationship if you have their email. And it's a very, very, no pressure. If it's just regular email of great content, you're not pushing them into a sale or anything like that. But you can't do any of this. You can't market to any of these potential leads that have come to your website. If you don't have a way to capture email, if you don't have an opt in, if you don't have this prominently on your website, on your pages. Now if you're wondering how do I do this, how do I put an email capture, there are plenty of tools out there. If you're looking for a simple, easy tool, I recommend Sumo, Sumo.com, great software. You can use it on any website and you can, you know, embed these opt in forms and pop ups and things like that on any website. Number four, and this is very interesting and deadly. There's no demo. There's no demo on your website. Now hold up for a second because you might be thinking demo. Omar, I don't have a software like you. I don't need a demo. No, you do, okay? If you don't have any kind of visual, any kind of explanation of what the experience is like to be a customer of yours, then you are asking for trouble. You're asking for no sales. There's no way for me to be interested in your product or service or course or book or whatever it is. If I can't imagine me having it, if I can't imagine me being a customer, if I can't even imagine it, there's no way I'm gonna actually do it. This is very similar to going to buy a car. You have to go and see the car, at least sit in it in the showroom and go for a test drive if you can. You're not gonna just buy a car because you saw a photo of it in a magazine. Okay. This is especially important if you have a price point that's higher than $100. This is especially important if you're in the services. Many people think that services are just like, hey, I'm going to show them what I do. I'm going to show them my portfolio, I'm going to show them the end result. That's great and all, but people want to know, how do you get to that result? What is this experience like? Is it painful? Is it hard? What do I have to do to make sure I get that result? And the best services will give a demo. Whether it's a video, whether it's a infographic, whether it's a visual saying, hey, when you sign up with us, if you're a client with us, this is the process. First we get on a call, then we map out the project, Then we agree on a few things. Then you give us access to xyz, then you give us our second payment and then the whole process until we get to the end result. This makes the customer feel like, wow, this is transparent. This is clear. I know what I'm getting into. Much easier to say yes if you're selling a course. If you're selling any kind of informational product, shoot a video showing the members there. Show them what you actually teach. Show them the curriculum. Give them an example so they know what they're buying. You have to have a demo of the product. Show them what you could do. Every successful product does this. Okay, look at all your heroes in the product world. Forget products, look at movies. There's a trailer for a movie. They're showing you what you're going to get, what the experience is like, what emotions you're going to experience. The highs, the lows, the dramatic music. They're giving you a taste of what happens when you buy a ticket. You got to do the same or you're selling yourself short. You're not convincing them. You're not showing them what is expected when they become a customer.

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All right, the fifth and final big mistake, most common mistake online businesses are doing in 2020 is going cheap on your website. Many people do not spend the time, attention, and frankly the money to have a professional website. Your website is, is where business gets done. Your website is how people understand what you offer. Your website is where you convince people that you're worth their money. Your website, it represents your brand, your product, your reputation. So much. Would you open a pizzeria with broken tiles in the floor, cracked walls, a ceiling that's collapsing with, you know, rats running in the back? No, of course not. That's not an inviting place to go and eat some pizza. You would invest in making sure it's a great dining experience. Right? It's a great environment, it's a great store. Right? So your website is just the same. Listen, if you are not confident in terms of your design skills, if you feel like you can't make it look great with a template, I recommend just go minimalist. Use the most minimal template that you have with a website builder. If you don't, if you're not using a website builder like Squarespace or Weebly, then go with one of these. Go with something simple, okay? If you're using WordPress, use a template that's minimalist, okay? That you can't play around with too much. Now, if you have the budget, and I say budget, we're talking about maybe $2,000. A thousand. You can even get a good designer that can go ahead and clean up your website and make it look brilliant and professional. If Your website's on WordPress, there are tons of people that'd be happy to do a full, full design and implementation for 2 to $3,000. Go on Upwork, Go on freelancer. Put up a project, done deal. This is minimal cost for your store. You would spend $2,000 just painting and retiling a pizzeria that you're opening up. Okay? This is nothing. And this is something that you don't have to do that often. Don't go cheap on your website. It's easy to go cheap. There's a lot of cheap options out there. Invest the time, the effort, the money. If you want to learn yourself, you want to code, go ahead, but make sure it looks brilliant. Make sure, it looks great. This represents who you are. Perceived value is real. Okay? People, when they walk into your website, they are perceiving, is this worth my money? Is this legit or is this scammy? If your design is not pleasing, you're going to turn people away. That's just the reality of online business now. You have to have good design. It's not even negotiable anymore. If you don't have good design, it's a red flag. People leave. So invest in your website. It's worth it. All right, guys, that's the five most common mistakes people are making in online businesses in 2020. Not publishing consistently, not having a mobile friendly website, no email capture in a prominent place or places, no demo, and not investing in their website. Thanks so much for listening to the 100 RMBA Show. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe right now on whatever you use to listen to. Podcasts. Whether you like Stitcher Radio, Spotify or Apple, Podcast or overcast, we're on them all. By hitting subscribe, you also get access to over 1500 business lessons in our archives. It's the only way to get access to our archives. So go ahead and hit subscribe right now. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. When you start a new business, especially an online business, it can be very exciting because things move quickly. You can actually make a lot of things quickly. You can make a lot of improvements and a lot of progress. But certain things are worth investing in, certain things are worth doing right because they make such an impact on your business and the impression you make on your customers. Thank you so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. Free ride Friday. I'll see you then. Take care. Of.

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