MBA984 How to Have More Patience with Your Business

Hey O. Welcome to the $100 MBA show, breaking down business and its challenges 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 the Hundred Dollar MBA, a complete business training and community online over at 100mba.net and in today's episode, you will learn how to have more patience with your business. We often want success right now. We want everything to be perfect today. And that often leaves us with a feeling of disappointment, a feeling that really doesn't have any merit because it takes time to build a great business. Your business is profitable, but you're just taking a bit of time to grow, to expand. Most of our frustration is probably coming from the fact that we're impatient. This is completely normal, very common. We work hard on our business and we want results as soon as possible. But that's just not how great businesses are built. They take time and long lasting growth is steady growth. So in today's episode, I'm going to break down some strategies to help you have more patience with your business. Some exercises I do to realign myself, to remind myself that being patient is a part of what I do as an entrepreneur. Understanding the work that I do today will impact the future of my business forever. A lot of these exercises are going to make you feel a whole lot better about your business and kill a lot of the anxiety and disappointment that you may have right now. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Today's episode of the $100 MBA show is supported by Earth ClassMail. No need to pay rent for a business office just to get a business address. Earth ClassMail hooks you up with a swanky business address and scans all your mail and uploads it to your account in the cloud. So you can check all your physical mail from anywhere, anytime, from your laptop, from your smartphone, whatever. You never have to deal with physical mail again. Earth Classmail wants to get you started with a free month. Just go to earthclassmail.com mbamonth Coupon code mbamonth so let's get you some more patience when it comes to your business. Let's jump right in with exercise number one. The first thing you have to do, and you should do this as early as possible when you start your business. And that's you have to define what does this business look like, what does it look like when it's successful? Whatever success means to you, what does that look like? Does that mean you have a thousand users. Does that mean you're making X amount of dollars every year? Does it simply mean that you have enough money to pay yourself to have the lifestyle you had when you had a job? The beauty about being an entrepreneur is that you get to define that meaning you get to define the mean of success. But often many of us do not take the time to do that, to define it for ourselves. So the goal post is always moving. We're never satisfied because we never actually set out to say, this is the finish line or this is what success means. Obviously, anything beyond that is great. So that's exercise number one. You gotta define what success means. For me, when I started the $100 MBA, Nicole and I sat down and said, success means being able to run the business, earn enough money to pay for our livelihood, for our expenses, and have the flexibility to be able to travel and move around and run our business from anywhere. Now, when it comes to that livelihood part, making sure it pays for our expenses and we can live our life off our business, that's a moving scale. You have to actually define what does that mean? How much money does that mean? Because you can cut out a lot of your expenses and live very, you know, modestly. Or that could mean, no, I want to live it up. I need 10 grand a month so I can live the lifestyle I want. Again, you got to define that. Now, why is this important when it comes to patience? Well, this is where part two of this exercise comes in. If you're not there yet, if you haven't gotten to the point where you defined as success, you have to look at other businesses that are there and take a look at how long it took to get there. So let me give you an example. Let's say you're running a blog and you do a lot of affiliate marketing, and for you, you want to make $30,000 a month. That's your goal. That's success to you. Well, you got to look at another business that has a similar model to what your business is and ask yourself or find out how long did it take for them to get to that point. So you might want to look at, like, Pat Flynn's website, Smart Passive Income. He publishes his income reports. So you could take a look back in the archives to see how long did it take for him to get to that $30,000 a month mark. And let's say, for example, it took him two years. You have to also consider everything it took to get to that point. Was he doing this full time? Are you doing it full time. Did he invest any capital when he started? Did you invest any capital? So make sure that it's a fair comparison, but it gives you an idea. Hey, this takes some time for me to get to this point. I shouldn't expect to make this much money in, in two days or in two months. It's more like two years. So you just got to have some perspective. Now, let's say, for example, you made the comparison and you're behind on that goal. Like, you know, Pat made it in two years and you've been doing this for three years. Well, this gives you a chance to kind of re evaluate things. Are you putting enough time into this business? Is there a way that you can be more efficient? Or maybe you can give Pat a call or email him and say, hey, do you mind if I hire you for a couple hours of coaching? Maybe he can show you how he did it. So that way you can correct or course correct where you're at. But most of the time we find out, wow, this takes time. I need more time to get to the point where I feel I'm successful or to whatever goal that is. Another great tip to cultivate patience within your business is to read biographies. I love reading biographies of great entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial stories because again, it gives me perspective, it gives me an understanding that, hey, this takes time. To build a great business, to build a legacy, to build something that will last a lifetime takes years, decades, and sometimes even longer. I'm currently reading the Everything Store, which is Brad Stone's book on Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. And it literally took almost a decade for Amazon to be taken seriously. So you gotta ask yourself, do you have a decade of patience in you to get to where you want to go? That's what biographies do. They give you perspective. They make you feel like, okay, you know, I have a long road ahead of me. The other thing I want to remind you of, and something I like to remind myself of, is entrepreneurship is a lifelong journey. I like to take a look at my business life as a collective life and not just a one project or one off thing. You know, you can launch a book, you can launch a business, you can launch a product, and it may flop, it may do well. But the point is, is that you want to take a look at your whole life as an entrepreneur, your body of work, and that's a long time. You got lots of years ahead of you. So hopefully you got lots of years ahead of you. Stay healthy, you know, stay vibrant. You got to have a long Term point of view, you got lots of time ahead of you to build your legacy. For some of us that had careers before entrepreneurship, where we worked at a job, had a different career altogether. It's good to reflect back on your old career. For me, I was a teacher at the high school and university level for over 13 years. I was an administrator, I was a teacher trainer, I was in the world of education. And to be quite honest, it took me about five solid years of being a teacher until I started to feel like I'm pretty good at this, I'm alright at this, I could do this. The first five years, you're still doubting yourself. You're not really sure that you can do this. It just takes that much time and so much repetition. I mean, we're talking about three or four classes a day, maybe even sometimes five, for five days a week for five years. That's a lot of classes, a lot of reps. And you gotta have some threshold for pain, especially those first few years, because it's tough those first few years when you're inexperienced. And I'm sure it's like that in every kind of field of work. So it took me about five years to feel confident, to feel like I'm good at what I do, but then it took me another five or six years to feel confident that I'm one of the best at what I do. So it took well over a decade to feel like I was a success at my job. Just in time for me to make a change in my life and start all over, right? But the point here is, when I reflect back on my old career, I remind myself, wow, it does take time. It takes a lot of repetition. It does take time to feel good about what you do, to feel confident and to be successful. Too many of us want to start a business today and be successful tomorrow. That's just not reality. Great entrepreneurs are built throughout the years, not just off one project or one business. That's another thing you learn when you read biographies. Like when I read Elon Musk's book by Ashley Vance, you see how many different projects, ventures he had before he even got to the point where he has Tesla. Some things work, some things failed, some things were great. But he was earning his stripes, right? He was earning his, you know, reputation as well as his credibility and his experience. He's got to get some experience under his belt. Too many of us, we just discover these entrepreneurs when they are actually really successful and mainstream, but they've been working at it for decades now. Another thing I like to think about that helps me have more patience, is, hey, this is something I enjoy. Why am I in such a rush? Right? For the most part, everything I do in my job, like recording this podcast, I really love doing. So if I get to do what I love pretty much every day and I'm able to survive, you know, have an income to be able to pay my bills, what else could somebody ask for? Most people are barely paying their bills in a job they hate. So sometimes having a little gratitude gives you a little patience, saying, hey, you know, it's not that bad. I can, you know, keep doing this and enjoy the process and not be such in a rush to constantly get to the next level. And that leads me to my next tip is to look back, look back at how far you've gone to since you started on this journey. You know, the other day I was on a webinar of a friend of mine who was using webinar Ninja, our software. And, you know, Nicole reminded me, hey, how does it feel to be watching a webinar on a platform that you've built with your team over the years? Doesn't that feel great? And I'm like, wow, I never had the chance to stop and look back and think about the work that I've done. And sometimes when you look back, you realize, wow, it does take time, it does take a lot of work, and I've had progress, so I should be somewhat satisfied or partially satisfied and gracious for the successes we've had up to this point. Yes, keep pushing for more, but don't forget to look back sometimes and see how far you've gone. I got more on today's episode. How to have more patience with your business. But before that, let me give love to today's sponsor. Today's episode of the $100 NBA show is supported by the Running Remote Conference. When we started our business, we chose to make our team a remote team. We wanted access to the best talent around the world. So if you're thinking about building a team without borders, without walls, then you need to attend the running Remote conference. You're going to hear from experts from big companies that run their teams remotely. And I'll be there to speak about how to motivate your remote team beyond compensation. Head on over to runningremote.com to buy a ticket today. It's going to be in beautiful Bali, and you can save 15% off by using my coupon code 100 MBA15. To wrap up today's episode, I want to give you one Huge piece of advice. When it comes to having more patience with your business, one of the best things you could do is to create a timeline. Sometimes the best way to understand that things take time is to know how long things took. Let me explain. If I want to take a look at my own business, let's say the $100 MBA I gotta look at when I started. So I started in December 2013. So I'd write that on a piece of paper all the way to the left at the beginning. Then I just write down some milestones, like zero members, zero income, zero dollars, right. Zero subscribers to the podcast because the podcast didn't exist. And then I move on to the next milestone, let's say August of 2014. How many members did I have, how many email subscribers, how many downloads to the podcast? And then moving on and on every six months or so to the present day. So it gives you an understanding. Oh, okay. It does take a bit of time for me to get to that point. Each milestone took, you know, a whole bunch of months or a year. And as you get better, sometimes it gets harder to grow because you get that initial push in the beginning, but then you got to maintain that growth. So having that timeline really helps you reflect on how long things actually take. Now if you don't have much to write in your timeline, then you should not be worried about this at all. You need to have some patience, right? Just relax, build something, get it out in the world and iterate keep improving. You got to have at least 18 months in your timeline so you can reflect. This timeline idea really allows me to reflect on how long it actually takes to make these increases to make this progress in your business, whether it's, you know, subscribers, whether it's customers, whether it's revenue numbers and yes, every business will be different. But you just got to worry about yourself at the start. You just can't compare yourself to other businesses. You got to have some momentum first and you got to make some revenue and then you can start looking at other businesses and say, okay, hey, what are they doing differently? How can I improve upon that? But you got to get some momentum first. Alright, that wraps up today's lesson. I hope you loved it. If you did, let us know in an iTunes rating and review. We love reading every single review to know what you love about the show. And by leaving us a rating and review. Enter our weekly random draw to win a free ride to one of our programs. This week we're giving away easy course, our 30 day course on how to build and launch an online course in 30 days. It's a $500 course over at EasyCourse Co, but we give it away for free every Friday with our weekly random draw. Just leave us an iTunes rating and review and you can win. Alright, before I go, I want to leave you with this. Patience is a skill that also takes time. You just have to cultivate it and remind yourself that this takes time. So it's very helpful to have staggered goals or multiple goals. So goal number one when you're an entrepreneur should be to just replace your regular income that you would get from a job so you can pay your expenses and live your standard of living with your business. You got to hit that milestone. Once you hit that milestone, you can start to breathe a little bit and say, okay, what's the next milestone? You gotta get some winds under your belt so you can feel what it feels like to accomplish certain things. So you can see how long it actually takes so you can have that timeline. Alright, thank you so much for listening. In tomorrow's episode, I answer a question from a listener, a very interesting question. What I would do differently if I started my software company all over again. A tough one, but I'll be answering it in tomorrow's episode. So make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss it. All right, I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. Take care.