Pod Insights The $100 MBA Show MBA2637 Did You Start The Wrong Business? How To Know & What To Do About this episode Ever find yourself second-guessing your business idea? Dreading your daily grind? Wondering if all the effort you’re putting in is actually moving the needle? If those thoughts have been swirling in your head, it might be time for a reality check—and this episode is here to help. Omar is breaking down five big red flags that signal your business might not be the right fit. He’s walking you through practical ways to figure out whether it’s time for a pivot, a reposition, or just some smart tweaks. Plus, you’ll hear his straight-shooting take on what to do next—whether that means making bold changes or sticking it out and course correcting. Wherever you are in your journey, this episode gives you real, actionable advice to help you build a business that truly fits you. Hit that play button at the top of the page and dive in—it’s time to get some clarity! Watch the episodes on YouTube: https://lm.fm/GgRPPHiSUBSCRIBEYouTube | Apple Podcast | Spotify | Podcast Feed
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Small business owners, listen up. You started your business, but you can't do it alone. And that means you have to hire people to help. That's where Justworks comes in. Justworks is the payroll, benefits, and global hiring platform to unburden your brain from all the complicated small business stuff. They handle the things you can't afford to get wrong, so you don't have to worry. So you can focus on the parts of running a business that you enjoy, knowing everything else is running smoothly. You don't have to worry when it just works. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first, but didn't live up to the hype? For example, I really wanted to love the show Mad Men. I really tried to watch it and love it, but it just didn't do anything for me. As a marketer and business person, the show was a little bit of a disappointment.
0:45 Speaker 00 Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, like impressions. But then we don't see revenue. LinkedIn has a word for that: bullspend. Instead, you can get the highest ROAS of major ad networks with LinkedIn Ads. Cut the bullspend, advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com/MBAShow. Terms apply. Here's a gut punch question you may be afraid to ask yourself. Did I start the wrong business? It's a scary thought. You've put in the time, you've put in the energy, you've put in hard-earned money, but something feels off. Today, I'm going to help you figure it out. And we're going to get honest, and we're going to find out what to do next.
1:30 Speaker 00 Whether that's to pivot, whether that's reposition, or power through where you are right now. There is a way forward. We've just got to figure it out together. Let's get into it.
1:44 Speaker 00 Welcome back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host, Omar Zenhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to help you start, grow, and scale your business.
1:57 Speaker 00 Let's take a time out and get really real for a moment. Okay, there are some red flags that some things not quite right in your business. I want to go through them. There's five red flags we need to discuss. Number one, you dread the work. Listen, you don't have to love every second of your business, but if everything feels like a chore, if you're constantly forcing yourself just to show up every day, that's a signal. You need to pay attention to that. Number two, you're not solving a real problem. If your product or service isn't a must have for someone, it'll never scale. It will never take off. I know this from experience. You might've started something interesting, but it's not a must have. It's not something incredibly valuable to somebody that they're willing to do anything to get your product or service in their hands.
2:42 Speaker 00 Business is as hard as it is. So having a product that's not really something that people crave is making things harder on you. The third red flag is that you can't sell it even after trying everything. Listen, great marketing can't fix a bad offer. If you genuinely tested the pricing, the copy, the channels, and nothing sticks, nothing makes a difference, it might be the business model. It's not the marketing, right? You can't market something that people don't want. That's the bottom line. And I'm going to stress this a little bit. I'm going to spend a little bit of time explaining something that gets looked over a lot in business, which is the fact that you can't have a bad product. That's just the bottom line.
3:26 Speaker 00 Your product has to be exceptional. We often take this for granted. We often think this is a given, but it's not a given. A lot of people try to have a successful business, have a successful offer with something that people don't actually genuinely want or need. And there's degrees to this, meaning that if something is really something that people want, people really crave it or dying for it or willing to do anything for it, this makes your life so much easier. It makes your business so much easier. It makes everything so much easier. Now, if you're on the other side of the spectrum where people kind of like, okay, this is cool and everything, but I don't really need it. It's not a must have or it's not something that I really want or crave. Then it makes your business a whole lot harder.
4:10 Speaker 00 And a lot of businesses are just like trucking along and not really making any kind of real progress because they just don't have a good enough offer, enough product. Now, there's a difference between a good offer and a good product. Okay, so you can have a great product, but a bad offer, right? Meaning that you can have something that is unique, interesting, something that people need, but it's not worth the money they have to spend. Now, a great offer is something that's a no brainer that like, wow, this is such a great product and it fulfills everything I need and everything I need to get the actual result is included and therefore I think the price is well worth it. This is good value. This is a good offer.
4:53 Speaker 00 Think about it when you went to a really good restaurant and maybe it was an expensive bill, right? You got a big bill and but you paid it gladly because you're like, actually the service is amazing and the food was excellent and that dessert, I'm going to be talking about it for years. So that's a good example of a great offer, meaning that it was expensive, it was a great product, but it was well worth it. So if you have a bad product or offer, that means you need to change those things because you can't out-market a bad product or offer. That means fundamentally being honest about what you are giving the world in exchange for their hard-earned dollars. So you have to really think about, hey, is this really compelling enough? Is this something that really is going to move the needle and make my life a whole
5:37 Speaker 00 lot easier because everybody just is clamoring to get it? This might mean going back to the drawing board. This might mean tweaking, improving, changing, you know, leveling up as a person so that you can create something great. And that's sometimes hard to hear, but the truth is that most businesses fail because they don't have a compelling enough offer or product in the marketplace. Number four, the margins just don't work. If you're selling, but you're still not profitable, that's a math problem. And if you can't raise prices and you can't really cut the cost that much, that might be just your signal that you're in a dead end, right? That this business model, this product or service. Or this whole concept is just not viable.
6:20 Speaker 00 And number five, you can't see a future you want. Even if you grew 10x, would you want the business it becomes? Think about that. What would your business look like if it grew 10 times tomorrow? Do you like the way that looks? Managing all those people or dealing with all those customers? If not, that's your intuition trying to save you. And often, business owners, because they know the future looks like that, they will sabotage their own businesses so it won't grow. These days, you can get an answer from the internet, an influencer, or AI in seconds. But when it comes to legal matters for your business or your family, a quick answer is not the same as the right answer. With 25 years of experience, LegalZoom knows how to start you off right.
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8:21 Speaker 00 So what do you do if you recognize these signs in your current business? Well, here's what most people do. They panic. They quit. They beat themselves up. Does this sound familiar? Alright, here's what you should do instead. Step one, you want to just pause and zoom out. Ask yourself, "Why did I start this business? What parts do I actually enjoy? What have I learned about the market that I've been serving?" Sometimes the business isn't totally wrong. It's just slightly misaligned. It needs a few small tweaks that will change everything. Step two, reposition or pivot. You don't have to blow it all up, okay? Maybe you can keep the same audience, but offer a different product. Maybe you can keep the product, but target a different audience.
9:05 Speaker 00 Maybe you could narrow the niche a little bit more. Maybe you could change the business model from services to products, or from one-on-one coaching to group coaching. Small shifts can lead to big results and give you the type of business you want. Step three, this one's tough, but it's essential. Don't let your ego keep you stuck. Sometimes we stay in the wrong business because we're afraid to admit we made a wrong turn. You didn't fail. You're just gathering data, right? You've gathered data about what you don't like. And now you're smarter. Even if you scrapped your entire business. Listen, I've scrapped entire businesses and started all over. Those experiences that I had where I created businesses that didn't work out and failed
9:48 Speaker 00 were the foundation for my trajectory for the Hunter MBA, for my software company, Webinar Ninja, and everything I do today. Listen, I'm not afraid to be a little bit vulnerable and share from my own experiences of when I went through this. In 2009, I started an e-commerce business called Zenom Design. It was a custom tailored men's clothing line. We had sales. We had warehouses. We had one of the most visited websites in our niche. But we had nearly no profit. Very low margins. Massive overhead. Constant headaches. It took me a while to admit the fact that I started the wrong business for me. I realized that my customers, the people that were consuming my products, were more passionate about my business than I was. That was a sign for me. That I had to close up shop.
10:32 Speaker 00 I'm so glad that I walked away because that created the space and the time and the freedom for what to come next, which was my service-based business. I had a business consulting firm. I built websites for people. It really built the foundation for what I knew was a successful business. And the rest is history. What I learned from that business allowed me to build a stronger business with the $100 MBA. What I learned from that also allowed me to build a stronger software company with Webinar Ninja. I really believe that there is no failure in business. There's only feedback. The only way you could fail is when you give up. Don't give up. Before you go, I want to leave you with this. If you feel like you started the wrong business, you're not alone and you're not doomed and you're not a failure. You're just early. Use what you learned. Make adjustments if needed.
11:15 Speaker 00 Move forward with intention, not ego, and use what you learned today in today's lesson. Sometimes the best decision is to quit, but sometimes it's just course correction. Right? Shifting a little bit, and I've done that as well. Thanks so much for tuning into the $100 MBA show. If you want me to keep helping you build a business that is actually right for you, you want to join my three things newsletter. It's absolutely free and it's my way to coach you from afar. Every week I send you a email with three things. Number one, something to think about, something to grow your mindset. Number two, something to do so you're getting wins week after week. And number three, something to learn. So you're scaling up as each week goes by. It's absolutely free. Just go to 100mba.net and sign up for any of our guides and you'll get added to our newsletter automatically.
12:00 Speaker 00 If you're still listening to this episode, towards the end of the episode, thank you. Thank you for being a listener and a subscriber and part of this community. I think of you every time I step up to the mic and record a new episode. I think of you as a completionist, somebody who's a hard worker, somebody that wants to keep growing and learning and keep building their dream business. So I appreciate you being a listener as well as the fact that you're my kind of person. Love it. And I'll check you in the next one. Take care.
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