MBA2156 Signs It’s Time to Go All in on Your Business Idea

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Hey oh. Welcome to the 100 RMBA Show. Business truths to deliver daily every single 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 Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started by co founder back in 2014. In today's lesson you will learn what are the signs. It's time to go all in on your business idea. Many of us start businesses whether full time or part time. On the side we put in time, we put in effort. Not sure if we should dedicate all our time, energy and money. Well in today's lesson I'm going to give you the signs that it is time to go all in the things to look out for the things. That should be a huge flag to you that hey, this is the thing. You have to go all in. Put all your chips in the middle of the table because this thing has real potential. Many people I've seen in my career as an entrepreneur for over 20 years let these opportunities go by. They slip between their fingers because they just don't know when they have a gold mine on their hands. I'm here to tell you what to look out for so you don't miss it. Let's get into it.

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I've started a lot of businesses. I've had a lot of products, a lot of services. I've offered a lot of different things in the last 20 years as an entrepreneur. Some flopped, most were mediocre. Many of them were a struggle, was like pushing a boulder uphill. But a few were absolute gems, were winners, were bangers, were ones that I am so glad I doubled and tripled down on. And I'm here today to share with you what were the signs that allowed me know this is something worth my time. This is something I need to really just say no to everything else and go all in on this project. Because when you have a business like this, when you have a business idea or product or service that is like this, it makes your life a whole lot easier. It's like pushing a boulder down a hill where it just does the work for you. Okay, it's less of a struggle, it's less of a slog, it's more enjoyable. Success is a lot of fun. And when it's easier than the struggle, than going uphill, than trying to convince and cajole people to buy your products and services, this is a winning business. So here is the number one sign, and we're going to start with this one because it's the biggest one, that your business idea, your venture, is something that you need to go all in on and that's it's easy to sell. What do I mean by that? I mean that your customers are more than happy to give up their hard earned cash. They're throwing money at you. They're like, hey, where do I sign? Where do I sign up? How do I get this? How fast can I get you my money? Every time I had a business idea that took off or was easy to build, was easy to kind of have traction. When I say easy, of course there are efforts in there, right? There's work, there's determination and long nights. But selling it was easy. I didn't have to sell it, really. People just wanted it. Let me give you a few examples. When I launched webinar Ninja 2014, we sold beta access for 150 people. We only had 150 spots. And why only 150 spots? Because that's exactly how much money I needed to be able to launch this project, the product or the spots sold out in 24 hours. People were dying to get access. They were willing to give up $250 to hold their spot. I knew I had a great product idea in that moment. And in that moment I realized, wow, this is like nothing else. This is like the easiest thing I've ever sold. And in that moment I realized I need to stop everything and focus on this. Or at least take. Spend most of my time on this because it requires all my energy and effort. Because I need to ride this train, right? I need to get on this gravy train. I need to ride this wave. Because it's a moment in time where people really want something in the market. You have to capitalize. Another example of this is recently, last year I ran a conference here. It's more of a retreat for founders in Australia called OSCON. This is a high ticket type of conference. It's $4,500 to get a ticket, but it's very, very exclusive, meaning that there's only a certain number of spots, less than 20 people can attend. As soon as I opened up spots to this conference, to this retreat, as soon as I sent an email out and started sending invites to people that I wanted to invite to this event, I didn't get yeses. I got, hell yeah. I got people sending me money faster than I can ask for it. Which is great because a lot of these projects that are high value are expensive to run. So you need that cash upfront to make sure it happens. But the idea here, or the lesson here is as soon as you have something like this on your hands, you need to realize this is a good idea. I need to take this to the max. So when it's easy to sell and people are happy to give you money, that's the number one sign. Because cash solves a lot of problems when you have sales, when you have customers, it solves a lot of your company problems. Because in a lot of ways, you can throw money at a lot of problems and solve them. So if your business and your idea and your product or service is demanding that kind of pull is demanding that kind of cash and cash flow, this is a great business to be in. A second sign is you absolutely love working on this project. You can't wait to work on it. You are using your weekends and your free time, and even when you're on holiday, you can't help but think and start journaling about this project and this business. You might have been running this business for Some time. If it's that type of thing, you should go all in. Why? Because you have passion for it, you have a love for it, and you're going to need that love and passion because things are going to get harder and they're going to get tough and it's a long road. And if you're willing to put in the work and you love the work it takes to build this business and to grow and to scale it, then you're going to have the work ethic and you're going to do the stuff you need to do to make it happen. The first one is external, meaning that there is external signs people are throwing money at you. The second one is internal, is how you feel and the way you act about this business. Are you finding yourself? Hey, I keep going back to this idea. I keep working on this idea, and I'm not talking about something new. I'm not talking about something that maybe is a shiny new object. I'm talking about something that you've been working on for months and years, happily, and it's not a grind. This is a great sign. If I go back to my conference, OSCON. As soon as OSCON was over in August of 2022, we started work on the next years. Because things book out very early, it's very important to organize an event well in advance so people can know they can attend those dates and you can make sure that everything's in order well in advance so you're not scrambling. Months before, and I couldn't wait to get back. I just finished the event, but I couldn't wait to start planning the next event. In fact, Nicole and I met the next day after the event was over and brainstormed how we're going to make it better next year. The third big sign you should go all in on your business is word of mouth. What does that mean? That means that you almost, I say almost, don't have to do any marketing, meaning your customers, your users, your listeners, your consumers are talking about your product so much. On social media, in their friends, in videos, in recommendations, in interviews. They're referencing you all the time that they're marketing for you. They can't help but talk about it because your product is so impactful. The example that comes to mind for me is this podcast, the $100 MBA Show. This show has grown at an incredible rate over the last eight years because of this, because of what I'm talking about right now, because I dedicate a lot of time and effort and really my blood, sweat and tears into this podcast with the hopes that it's helpful to those who are listening. And when it is helpful, they share it with other people. People share this podcast with other people, on social media, with their friends, over a drink, over dinner. And this viral marketing loop helps propel your business and makes things easier. Because if your product is not noteworthy enough to talk about, it's going to be very hard for you to acquire customers on the regular, right? Consistently. Yes, you can dump tons of money into marketing, which can get really expensive. Yes, you can acquire customers through partnerships and other ways. But it's an uphill battle if every time you acquire a customer, you have to do it manually yourself. Like you have to get that customer through some sort of channel or some sort of paid acquisition. Ideally, every time you get one customer, you put in that effort. That customer helps you get two or three other customers themselves through their word of mouth. This makes all your efforts exponential. It allows you to have a whole lot more momentum and that really starts to snowball and help you grow fast. So is your product or service being talked about? Do a search on Twitter. Do a search on Facebook. Are people mentioning you? Are people giving you ratings and reviews? Are people talking about you or backlinking you on websites and blog posts? One of the things I do is I do Google alerts anytime Webinar Ninja or the $100 MBA or my name is mentioned, I get an alert in Google so I know where was it mentioned so I can know if something is gaining momentum.

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To wrap up today's lesson, if you have a business on your hands that is showing you these signs, these three signs I talked about, people are throwing money at you. You have a love and passion that has lasted the test of time and is pushing you through. And people are talking about it. You're being mentioned. People are referring you to other people. Even one of these things will help you have a successful business a whole lot easier. But if you have all three, the trifecta, you have the potential of having a very special business on your hands. One that's enjoyable, one that grows, one that makes a huge impact on others and yourself. Now, having said that, you may not have this right now. You may not have experienced any of this. And that's okay. Keep trying, keep working. Pivot your ideas. Be open to new ideas. Collaborate. Network. It took me a long time to even have one of these signs appear in one of my businesses I'm talking about. It took me about maybe 12, 13 years. And in that process I was learning about entrepreneurship. I was learning what kind of products resonate with who I am and what my special gifts are, what are my talents or what are my differentiators and how I can use those things to create a better product or service so it's not time wasted. And even if in the process of building the business you are right now and you have none of these signs, and even if in the process of building the business you have right now that may not have any of these signs, you're having some slow growth. That's okay. Keep grinding, keep working. Your business might change more. You might just talk to a new kind of customer or a new target audience and that changes everything and the signs start to appear. Keep at it. Don't give up. I always say you never fail as an entrepreneur if you don't quit trying. And when I say quit trying, I'm not saying you can't quit a business idea or quit a project. Of course you can. But don't stop trying to be successful at business. Believe that you can do it and put in the time and effort. Thanks so much for listening. I hope today's episode was helpful. If it was, let us know in a rating and review. If you're on Apple podcasts, leave us a rating and review. It's a star rating and a comment. If you're on Spotify or any other app, just give us a star rating. Thank you in advance for doing that. If you want to learn more about the show, subscribe, check out our back catalog. Go to100mba.net show before I go, I want to leave you with this. Once I started to realize what these signs are and I started to make note of them and journal about them in my daily journal, I started to realize I got to be super urgent about putting fuel to the fire. Who When I see these signs, I can't slack off. I can't wait. As soon as there's a moment in time, there's these signs that appear about your business, about your idea. Don't be lackadaisical. Don't give it a week, a month, because the window might close. You need to double and triple down when you have momentum. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode for air Friday. I'll see you then take care of.

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