MBA912 What I Learned From My Biggest Challenges in 2017 + Free Ride Friday!

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Welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA show, the business podcast that gets to the point because we know time is money 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. If you're working on your business website or trying to refresh it, you probably want to know what are the must haves on a business website? Well we have a free guide for you to Download over at 100 MBA Net Guides. You can check out that guide along with others completely for free. Our gift to you to make sure you rock it with business. In today's episode you will learn what I learned from my biggest challenges in 2017. The these are five things I wish I knew coming into last year. These are things I learned the hard way. These are often the hardest and the most important lessons of all. So I just want to give them to you so you don't have to learn them the hard way. Some of these have really changed the way I think about my business and how to do business as an entrepreneur. As I was preparing for this lesson, this was a bit of a painful process preparing for this lesson because I had to really think about these things in a deep way. It was sort of a painful process preparing for this lesson because I had to revisit and relive some of the painful moments of last year. But that's okay because I learned and I evolved and I was able to improve my business because of those things. I can't wait to jump in and share with you my five biggest insights from 2017. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. I gotta be honest with you, 2017 was not an easy year for me. It was probably the most challenging year of my life, definitely the most stressful. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. That means I'm trying to stretch myself as an entrepreneur. I'm really trying to push the envelope and do big things. As I look back at the challenges I experience and what I learned through those challenges, one of the silver linings of the struggle was I was able to learn quickly and not make the same mistakes over and over. But there's one insight I want to give you before I begin, is that you have to take time to reflect. You have to take time to think about how things are going, the decisions you've made, and how they are affecting your business. Because if you don't do that, you can't course correct quickly. And you want to do that as quickly as possible. If your things are not going right, you need to make a change as quickly as possible so you don't go down the wrong path for too long. So let me begin with my first insight that I gained in 2017, and that's planning makes perfect. They say practice makes perfect, but planning really helps you nail your outcomes a lot better. Let me explain. One of the biggest things I've been working on the last few years, and especially 2017, is, is our webinar software, Webinar Ninja. And we were working on a whole new update that we released in September called webinar ninja 5.0. And there was a lot of planning because this was a huge revamp. It's really a recode of the software and we rethought about every aspect, every feature of the software. And before we actually got started and start, you know, writing code with the developers and start designing some interface, we spent months writing down documentation how this thing would work in the real world, how it would function. And we're talking about hundreds of pages of documentation on just explaining what each feature will do. Now why is this important? Because you want to make sure that you plan for any kind of exceptions or any kind of roadblocks that might come ahead of you. It's going to save you a whole lot of time. Why? Especially in building something from scratch, you don't want to build and then realize, oh no, I can't do it this way because this thing can happen, I need to start again. And you just wasted three weeks of building, or worse, months of building. So planning really helps. And this was a real challenge for me. But I took the lead from my lead developer, Shane, because he really believes in planning and documentation and doing it properly. And he really is a good influence on me because I said, okay, you're the lead dev, let's do this. I normally want to jump into things and start building and start creating and start testing and iterating and that works especially when you're getting started. But Webinar Ninja is not getting started. We've been around for years now. There's. This is our fifth iteration of it that worked in the beginning just to get the idea validated and get things out there and get people buying, get people trying the software. But we had a user base of over 11,000 users at the time we were working on this. So it was time to refine the process and not just jump in head first when you don't have to. You can actually plan things properly and you'll save a whole lot of time when it's time to build out that product. I highly advise you do this with any kind of project, whether you're creating an online course or, or writing an ebook or creating T shirts for your E commerce store. Planning things out in detail on paper or on your screen really allows you to see what it looks like from start to finish and anticipate any challenges along the way so you can solve them before you start investing and start throwing money at the development. Again, this is so important, especially if you're past the MVP stage, you're past the minimal viable product stage. You know this thing has legs, you know you have customers now. It's time to do things properly. Insight number two, this one is huge and it's don't let external pressure influence your decisions. We had an expected launch day for webinar 5.0 that got pushed and pushed and pushed because it simply wasn't ready yet. It still needed testing. It still needed work. It wasn't really where it needed to be. Plus, we had weather 4.0 that was working fine. People loved it. It was a great software. But there was a lot of pressure from our users, from non users, from people that have been waiting for 5.0 to come out so they can start doing webinars, posts, social media, emails. I was getting, hey, when is 5.0 coming out? Oh, I would love to see it. And it really put some pressure on me to be like, hey, I got to get this thing out as soon as possible. And looking back at it, I was like, why did I let that affect me? We had a great software they could use at 4.0. That's fine. It takes the time it takes. Do not rush something because other people are demanding it. You need to run your business. You need to really focus on what's best for you and your customers. And sometimes your customers don't know what's best for them. They don't know that this takes time. They don't know what's going on in your business before you release a product. And the anticipation is not a bad thing. So I was really hard on myself and I was like, oh, man, I gotta delay the launch because, you know, it's not exactly where it needs to be. And I was really upset about it. And in fact, it ruined part of my holiday or my trip in Europe. So it really let it affect me when I delayed the launch. And I was really kind of disappointed in myself because the software wasn't where it needed to be yet. And it affected even my trip to Europe that I can't take back anymore. That's over. When really the attitude should have been, hey, this is what's best for the company. This is what's good for the business. Don't worry about what everybody else is putting pressure on you and telling you, I want this now, we all want things now. And by letting it affect me, it affected my work. It affected the way I was treating the team. I was putting extra pressure on them to finish things when really I should have let it take the time it took. And that's really eventually what happened where I just got to the point where I was like, hey, this just takes as long as it needs to take. And when we're ready to launch, we'll launch It. So you're going to get pressure from other people, friends, family, customers, non customers, people saying, hey, when is this coming out? Of course you shouldn't, you know, procrastinate and, you know, not work on it. Of course, if you're working on it and you're doing everything you can, that's exactly what you need to do. That's all you can do. Sometimes you have to isolate yourself from external voices. And if that means taking a break from social media, if that means making an announcement to people, hey, we're working on it. We'll let you know as soon as it's going to be ready. But for now, enjoy the current product or enjoy another product, whatever it is. You have enough pressure on yourself. Do not let other pressure influence your work. All right, insight number three. Don't be afraid to ask for help. I had a situation where one of my developers fell ill. It was a really difficult situation because this developer was responsible for a lot of. A lot of the technical parts of the software, and he played a key role. And I was in a bind because a big part of the project just stopped and I needed somebody to take over. And, you know, this person was going to be out of commission for a while. So finding somebody really quick is hard, especially when you need them. So I share this dilemma with my mastermind group. This is just a small group of four people that we meet every month. And we, you know, try to help each other through our problems as well as, you know, encourage each other through our wins. And by sharing it, I got some help. One of my friends in the mastermind group who runs a software company is like, hey, I know a whole bunch of developers I use, you know, sometimes are freelancers for these types of situations. I can make some introductions. I can help you out. I was like, thank you. And I was so grateful that I shared, you know, this dilemma. And sometimes we don't share these things with other people because we feel like, oh, like I'm a loser, or I don't want to share my faults or issues with other people. But when I shared it, I immediately got help and I was able to find somebody to step in and help out. So when you're in a bind, don't be afraid to ask for help in your network, in your circle of friends, you never know who knows who. All right, insight number four, haters versus upset customers. Now, this doesn't relate to anything specific, but I learned this year that there's a big difference between somebody who's just hating on you or your product or your services and really not being constructive. And somebody who is a actual customer that's giving you feedback and they're genuinely upset. You need to be able to see the difference between the two. And sometimes it's not easy, but at least you have to recognize there is a difference. It's not everybody who says something negative or is perceived as negative is a hater. Sometimes people are just upset. You know, they're upset at something and they're just voicing it and their interface is not so great. And you might be like, oh, this person's a hater. No, sometimes you're just somebody who really wants to see you succeed, but they're not saying that. They're just upset at the moment because something is not to their liking. And sometimes there are haters. There's people who just want to see you go down. Some people are just malicious, and I've seen my share of malicious people with my years of experience in business. Some people just do not like seeing other people succeed. That's just the truth of the matter. But I would probably say that's not the majority of the people that are voicing things in maybe in an irate way or an upset way. Most people are not trying to hate on you. They're maybe genuinely upset. So it's important to listen and to filter. Are they giving feedback about what they don't like and how you can change it? If they do give those details, that's somebody that you can actually listen to and take what they're saying, you know, with some value and take it on board and see if you can improve your product, your service, your whatever you're doing. If somebody's just blasting you and not really being specific, especially if they are not a customer of yours, they won't even have an experience with your product or service. You know, that's not really something you should take to heart or even spend time thinking about. So know that anytime somebody says something that's perceived as negative to you doesn't mean that they're automatically a hater. You can learn from some of this stuff and you can really improve your business by some of the most obnoxious people. Really, people that have no filter, they don't know how to speak eloquently, they're extremely emotional. And yes, they could say things in a better way, but they obviously didn't, or they can't, or they don't choose to. It doesn't mean you can't take that feedback and benefit from it. We heard you nine years of bring back the snack wrap and you've won. But maybe you should have asked for more. Say hello to the Hot Honey Snack Wrap. Now you've really won. Go to McDonald's and get it while you can.

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Alright, my last insight that I've gained through my experiences and challenges in 2017 is innovate in stages. When you're going to change things in your business, in your product, in your service, it's very important that you innovate in a staggered fashion. A major change is very hard for your users to get used to. I learned that the hard way. I really changed, you know, webinar news from 4.0, 5.0 to the interface, everything dramatically because I really wanted to innovate and make a great software and really build the software I always wanted. And I loved it to death, right? But a lot of the users got used to the interface in 4.0, even if I felt it wasn't as attractive. So it took them a while to move over to 5.0 because it was such a drastic change. It's like going from an Android phone to an iPhone. You know, you have to learn where to get your messages, where to get your notifications, all that stuff. So there was a bit of a learning curve and looking back at it, even though it was fine and people really loved 5.0 and they really started to transition over, I could have done it in a bit of a staggered fashion and that takes some time and planning. And sometimes when you're running a business with a small team, you don't have that luxury of time and being able to have a timeline of three years of releasing a new UI or user interface, right? But there are certain things I could have done and I didn't really understand the impact of that until I experienced it. Now, it wasn't something horrible or super major that really affected the business, but I could have made it a bit easier for our users to transition over. Now, obviously somebody who joined Webinar Ninja after we launched 5.0, they're none the wiser. You know, all they know is 5.0. It's a great software. That's what they're used to. They like it. It's those who exist in a different it's those who have experienced something else before who transition over to something new. Now this is applicable even if you're not in software. If you're changing the memberships area in your course, you can you're changing the way you teach the course or deliver it. Even if you do live one on one coaching or group coaching, if you change the format or even the date and time of your sessions, you need to make sure you give enough time, warning and ease people into those changes. So when you're making a change, a major change in the way you present and offer your products or services, think about how you can stagger it over time. Thank you so much for listening to the 100 MBA show that wraps up today's lesson. But today's episode is not over because today is Free Ride Friday where we give away a free ride to the $100 MBA training and community. Let's see who won this week's free ride, which is a $500 course easy course which helps you build your online course in 30 days. Let's see who won this week's free ride and the winner is Richard Leibz. Patch. Richard says there's a lot of five star reviews and this show is worth all of them. I've been listening to about 20 episodes right now. They're definitely worth your time. Omar delivers a treasure in each one of them. Thank you so much Richard for that awesome review and listening to the $100 NBA show. You are a Free Ride Friday winner. All you got to do is email me at omar100nba.net to claim your free ride. We do this every single week. We give away a free ride on Friday to one of our awesome courses. Next week we'll be giving away a free ride to Ezcourse again. So if you want to grab it, leave us an itunes rating and review and you can win. All right, that's it for me today. But make sure you hit subscribe because you don't want to miss Monday's episode with the Amazing Brian Dean. Brian's going to teach you how to rank high and dominate YouTube. I'm going to show you how to optimize your videos for higher rankings. I haven't seen anybody as good as Brian when it comes to SEO for Google or for YouTube the guy's a master and his lesson is dynamite. Tune in on Monday to catch Brian's lesson. Until then, take care.

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