MBA1927 5 Low-Cost Ways To Increase Revenue + Free Ride Friday
2 Feb 2026 · 12 min
A short (≈10-minute) episode of the $100 MBA Show hosted by Omar Zenhom presenting five low-cost strategies to increase revenue: (1) sponsor a local event; (2) offer swag bonuses; (3) host live experiences packaged with products; (4) run contests; (5) raise prices. The episode includes sponsor ad reads (Geico, Dell, CarMax, TommyJohn), a Free Ride Friday giveaway (winner J. Arnold 84) and CTAs referencing Webinar Ninja and an automated webinar course (retail $99).
Chapters
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Hey oh. Welcome to the $100 MBA Show. Because every day is a chance to make it. 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 Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014. And today's episode is Free Ride Friday. On Fridays we give away a lifetime membership to one of our programs. If you want to win a free ride, just leave us an Apple podcast rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw. Listen in on Friday, like today, to see if you won. We'll announce this week's winner a little bit later in the episode. In today's episode you will learn five low cost ways to increase revenue. Sometimes you just need more money coming through the door. You need to boost your sales and you need to do it without breaking the bank. Today I want to share with you five strategies that I've personally used that has really helped move the needle. It's allowed my businesses to get almost instant sales and it's allowed me to hit my targets, my goals for the quarter or even for that month. Many of us are looking at our numbers as we round off the year, as we're looking at the last quarter and sometimes we feel like, ugh, I don't know if I'm gonna hit my sales goals. We'll implement one, two or all of these strategies today to see yourself run through that finish line and hit those numbers. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business.
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So I'm going to jump right into it and share with you my five strategies to increasing revenue into getting sales into your business as soon as possible. These are really low cost ways that really give you a return on investment. Number one with a bullet is sponsor a local event. I can't tell you how amazing this strategy is. Find a group, an organization, a business that will have people that are interested in what you offer. For example, I sell webinar software. A good demographic or audience for me would be a co working space like a WeWork or a startup space. These guys, these spaces are fantastic because they give you the space to do an event. And many of these people are doing events anyway. Like they have pitch nights, they have holiday parties, they have guest speakers, all that kind of stuff. You don't even need to organize the event. But you can be the headline sponsor. And often these organizations, these groups are not really looking for a lot. Often you can be the headline sponsor by just buying some pizzas for the event, being the food sponsor. And what I love about this is that it's very non traditional so there's a lot of room for negotiation. You can ask for a lot. Like in a lot of these events I say, hey, I want a table, I want to put up my banner. I would love to address the audience for maybe a few minutes, maybe give a mini workshop, maybe even run a contest so I can give away some of my product and give people some awareness. You can even be the sponsor of some sort of award like you know, Startup of the Year presented by Webinar Ninja. So you get the point here. You can supply the awards and the plaques and part of the award could be, you know, a sample of your business or your services or a discount or a voucher or something like that. The point here is that you're getting front of an audience in person. So your ability to build trust quickly is incredible. You're getting exposure, you're finding your people. You're becoming a household name to many people that would like to use your services. Now I like to take a step further because I like a return on my investment and I like to have a table at these local events. I'll give out swag. I'll talk to people. I will encourage people to sign up for a free account or free trial or whatever. I highly recommend this. And you can make it a contest. So if you sign up, you enter the contest, and the winner gets. Gets xyz, you know, a massage package or something. What I found is that a lot of times I spend 300, 400, $500 sponsoring an event, and I get that tenfold. In business, there are a ton of organizations. Sports teams, reading clubs, you name it. Find an organization that has the audience that you're looking for and sponsor an event they're already doing all right. That's strategy number one in the books. Strategy number two, swag bonuses. People love bonuses. They love getting more than what they bargained for. Right? And one of the ways to get more sales is to tap into your existing customer base is to offer your current customers some swag. A T shirt, a hoodie, a cap, something with your brand on it to make them proud. Something that looks great, by the way. We love to use Printful, which is a great, great place to create your own swag and sell it. In fact, we are launching our own swag star called so Ninja to facilitate this. So bas, what you can do is you give away swag that you order to anybody that upgrades their account, that buys another product that takes you up on an offer. You want to get fancy, make it limited edition. Have only 100 pieces of each item. People love something that's special, and make it special. Okay? Don't just put your logo on the T shirt. Go to Fiverr. Go to Freelancer. Get a graphic designer to create the design of the T shirt and make it look really, really cool. Something that you would wear to dinner, right? Something that you would wear that, you know, on a night out. Wow, that looks cool. What is that? Have fun with your brand. Put it on a piece of clothing, on a piece of swag and show it to your audience. Hey, you can get this if you upgrade, if you take on the offer. By the way, it costs you nearly nothing to do this. You know, you can get somebody on Fiverr for, you know, $20 or something to, you know, design a beautiful, beautiful T shirt. And you can mock it up on an actual T shirt, digitally on Printful, for example, or custom ink. And you can go ahead and show your audience, hey, here's an image of what this T shirt looks like, of this hoodie, of this cap. And you only fulfill that order when they buy. And if you're wondering the Logistics don't over complicate it. You don't have to have a digital store or shopify store to try this out. You could literally just manually do it. When they take on the offer, you take their name and email address, you get their mailing address, you can just simply email them, hey, can you give me your mailing address so that I can send you your bonus? Order the bonus, send it out. You can even, you know, hire a VA or something to handle this process for you. Or you can just do yourself. I did it myself in the beginning. Swag bonuses. Huge, huge winner. All right, number three, we talked about sponsoring an event, but you can host your own live event. And here's the kicker. Don't just make a conference, don't just make some sort of lunch and learn. You can and you probably would do pretty well, but instead make it an experience. And this is how you package this live event. You might be saying, if I run a live event, how do I make money? Well, package your event ticket with a purchase. So like if they buy your coaching, if they buy your course, if they buy your product, if they buy your service, you can create a package which is called the experience package. When you buy my product, you also get this experience and it's a little bit more expensive because it includes the product and the experience. For example, if I was offering an online course and I normally charge for this course $300, I have another tier of $500, but then I have a thousand dollar tier which has the course and all the materials, but also includes this live experience, this live event and it's exclusive. Number one, you're gathering like minded people and you're becoming a connector, which is huge. Number two, they're going to have fun, do something that's interesting that they normally wouldn't do alone. Whether it's like ATVing or camel riding on the beach, or going jet skiing or a group barbecue and hike. The point here is that you are giving people a reason to network, to meet, to have fun in a group setting in an event. And they're buying this event, but really they're buying your product. So the event actually pushes the purchase because this is like an exclusive opportunity. And people that love to meet new people but need the setting for it will love this package. And because you're charging for it, all you need to do is plan the event, market it on a page of your website, you're going to secure the funds when they buy the actual purchase. So therefore you can organize this event. So make sure you're charging more than what it costs. So you're going to do a little bit of homework, figure out how much it's going to cost for you to run this event per person and make sure you're making a bit of a profit to give yourself a little bit of leeway. And there you go. You're really securing the funds through the purchase before you actually run the event. Number four. I alluded to it previously, but run a contest. You could do this from the comfort of your office. You can do this online, email your list, tell everybody on social media and you don't have to over complicate the contest. You can literally say for everybody who signs up or buys a product or spends, you know, $50 or more, they enter to win XYZ. It could be an iPad, it could be an experience, it could be a trip. But in my opinion, go with something small at the start. You don't have to go super, super extravagant. People just love a good contest. They love to win something. And you can even do more than one winner. Like, you know, we're going to do a raffle for five people and it could be something simple like a pair of AirPods. If you're looking for an easy software to run a contest, Kingsumo by the Sumo Group has a great contest software. It's a opt in landing page kind of software where it allows you to easily run contests. Check it out@kingsumo.com this is really pushing sales and you work out a budget for prizes that really you feel comfortable with. Like say for example, your budget is $500. You want to give away five prizes, so keep it $100 each prize. It could be a Kindle, it could be a pair of sunglasses. Whatever works for your audience, guys, it's.
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Let's do it. And this is actually quite simple and it won't cost you anything. Raise prices. Now hear me out. I know a lot of you might be thinking, Omar, I can't raise prices, I'm going to turn away customers. This is scary. I understand. I've been there. I've done this several times. But if you're not increasing your prices on a regular basis, at least evaluating Your prices every 24 months, you are losing a lot of money as a business because, of course, inflation, your expenses are getting higher. You need to make sure that you are making more. Now, the thing that a lot of people don't realize is that when you raise prices, you actually increase sales before you raise prices. So what you want to do is set a date when you're going to increase prices, even if that increases 5% across the board or 10% or even more, but you set a date and then you give your customers or your audience, the people that are interested in buying from you a heads up, say, hey, we're going to be raising prices. This is when we're going to raise it. So now's the time to buy. This is going to create a sense of urgency from your audience, real urgency, because you are raising prices, right? This is not some sort of manipulation. You're really going to do it. So it's in their interest to buy now. This will result in you increasing your sales, getting revenue before the raise. Now, when the raise happens, most people express that they don't see a dip in sales because most increasing prices don't really make a big difference in the buying decision. People don't realize that for you, 10% increase makes a big difference. But for the customer, the difference between spending less, say $90 and $100 a month doesn't really change their decision to stay with you or not. If they like the service, if they like your product, they like your, you know, community, they're going to stick with you. And the $10 difference is not going to make a difference or it's not going to deter them from continuing. It's going to be something else. How many times has Netflix raised prices on you? And you're still on Netflix because the value is great and that you don't really see the difference between $12 and 15 doll kind of lives in the same place in your head, but for the business, it makes a tremendous difference on scale. So raising prices is actually one of the most effective ways for you to get a boost. Now, you can't do this every day, but you could definitely do this every 24 months, every two years or so. Definitely every three years. Guys, that wraps up today's lesson. Let's quickly recap the five strategies to increase revenue, increase sales without breaking the bank. Number one, Sponsor a local event. Number two Swag bonuses. Number three, Host your own live event or experience and package it with one of your higher tier products or services. Number four Run a contest. Number five, Raise your prices. That's it for today's lesson. But today's episode's not over. It's Free Ride Friday. Let's see who won this week's Free Ride. And the winner is. J. Arnold 84. J. Arnold 84 says, Are you done being scared of business? 5 stars I'm a musician and a teacher and I've been scared of business for a long time. I just wanted to make music. However, I got tired of just scrapping by and I discovered the hundred dollar mba. This podcast showed me that I could be a business person without sacrificing my integrity. Five stars well, thanks Jay Arnold. Really appreciate the review. So glad that we were able to help you change your mindset a little bit about business and get you over that Humphrey. I'm sure you're rocking it and making it happen in your business today. Your mission is to email me over at omar00mba net so I can hook you up with our lifetime membership to our automated webinar course over at webinar ninja.com AWC retails for $99, but it's yours for free. You'll be able to learn how to automate your leads and sales via an automated webinar. It's broken up into 30 days and 30 assignments so that you can easily set it up. And in the next month, if you want to earn a free ride, just leave us an Apple Podcast rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw. Listen in on Friday just like today to see if you won. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Most of the strategies I shared with you today don't cost much money, but it does cost you a bit of effort, a bit of energy and a bit of courage to go out there, put yourself out there and approach people and ask, hey, would you like to attend this event? Would you like me to sponsor your event? You got to get out of your comfort zone sometimes. One of the things I learned in life and in business is that if I want a different result, I gotta take different action. I gotta take different steps, I gotta do different things so I can get new outcomes. So get out of your comfort zone bit by bit and reap the benefits. Trust me, you'll feel better about yourself. You'll feel proud of yourself that you stretched yourself. Thanks so much for listening. I will check you on Monday's episode. Until then, take care.
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