Overview
On this episode of Build Your Network, Host Travis Chappell interviews Omar Zenhom, co-founder of The Hundred Dollar MBA, the largest alternative education business online. He’s also the co-founder of Webinar Ninja.
Topics Discussed:
- About Omar Zenhom
- He’s the co-founder of the $100 MBA podcast – daily ten minute video lessons.
- Their goal is that you go away after every episode to take action and get better.
- He runs the Webinar Ninja software – one of the biggest challenges of his life.
- Has grown the user base from only 150 to over 2,000.
- What made you switch into the world of online entrepreneurship?
- In high school and college he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do as a career.
- His father was in sales, a very up and down career.
- He didn’t know if he wanted to get into business or sales.
- He felt that he was good at teaching and graduated with a Master’s in Education.
- Started teaching English as a second language.
- Worked in Dubai for over a decade teaching English as a second language.
- Taught at a high school and university level.
- While he was teaching, he was dabbling in the internet.
- Was trying to figure out if he could make money online.
- Had an eBay store where he did arbitrage.
- He started making money outside of his paycheck.
- His uncle way always in business, and he started to listen to him.
- His uncle gave him books to read.
- He gave him the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
- He started building small businesses online and discovering what kind of business person he wanted to be.
- His uncle gave him books to read.
- Why make the switch into making money online if your desire was teaching?
- He was a great teacher and getting promoted every year, he was the youngest head of department at the university he was working at.
- There’s a lot of red tape in education, not a lot of autonomy or freedom.
- He got that feeling in business.
- He liked to build something for himself instead of for an institution.
- Teaching is like the military where everyone is working toward the same goal.
- He felt like a cog in the wheel.
- He didn’t see the freedom piece of the puzzle until he felt he could replace his income.
- He read the Four-Hour Work Week and realized he’d never thought about that.
- He got a High out of creating something and having someone buy it.
- He created a podcast before the $100 MBA Show
- He and his wife went to the New Media Conference in Vegas.
- People told them to start a podcast.
- They interviewed people on Skype and were told to turn that into a podcast.
- This didn’t work or get them the traction they wanted.
- After 46 episodes they needed to regroup.
- They drove cross-country and had a long discussion about their podcast.
- Realized they weren’t really using their strengths.
- They decided they should be teaching on the podcast.
- People asked them a lot of questions about how to live off of their business.
- Why is it called the $100 MBA Show?
- He thought he needed to get him MBA to be a great entrepreneur.
- A professor told him he didn’t need his MBA to be an entrepreneur, you can learn all of that information outside of school.
- He and his wife spent two solid months producing the podcast.
- They had 30 episodes before they even launched.
- They knew it was going to be a success.
- Nobody knew who they were in podcasting and it was a very competitive year.
- What was the line between giving up on your first podcast and being able to stop and move on?
- You don’t want to give up too soon, but you don’t want to hold on too long.
- You have to give anything at least six months and enough time every day to work on it.
- You need to put in 10, 15, 20 hours per week at least.
- You need to understand the trends.
- If your listenership is decreasing week after week, that’s not going to work.
- Do you believe that what you know or who you know is more important, and why?
- Who you know, because if you have a solid network and know the right people, they’ll help you out.
- One of the things that helped Omar was just seeing networking as trying to make friends.
- He wanted to find people similar to him who were maybe a few steps ahead of them.
- He just wanted to make friends because it’s nice to make friends.
- He lost a lot of friends when he started working online because they didn’t have anything in common anymore.
- People are more eager to help a friend out, than to help a stranger.
- A lot of people separate their friendships from their business friendships, and it’s not about that.
- At one conference he saw Chris Brogan and noticed how kind and interested he was with people.
- He realized how smart Chris was, because he knew that the people he was meeting were the ones who made his brand.
- Looking back over the last 4-5 years, is there a story you could tell about a time when a connection you made led to some sort of success down the road?
- When he started the $100 MBA, one of the communities he was on helped him meet John Corcoran.
- They became friends and talked, John has a huge network.
- One time he got an email from John offering a 2-day public speaking workshop.
- He got a chance to know Michael Port, public speaker trainer.
- He then started to learn how to be a public speaker and got to know Michael Port better.
- Omar felt that Michael was way ahead in business, but Michael doesn’t treat him that way.
- Now Michael is one of his closest friends and he’s a part of his mastermind.
- You have to be open and say yes to certain opportunities when they present themselves.
- Why do you think so many people don’t prioritize building relationships with people?
- It’s not comfortable for some people.
- Omar is a natural conversationalist, but some people don’t have that.
- Some people will rationalize not wanting to build relationships.
- With the ability to connect online, there’s no excuse not to connect.
- Build a relationship online and them meet in person.
- Networking encourages you to be a better communicator and gives you practice talking about your business.
- Give us one tip on networking.
- If you know one person, ask them if they want to go to a conference together.
- If you go together, you get a chance to experience and meet people together.
- You can introduce one another to people so you don’t have to talk about yourself.
- You can run a forum or live event online together.
- If you don’t feel comfortable talking about yourself, get really good at introducing others.
- Throughout your career, how important have mentorships and masterminds been?
- Even if a group didn’t sustain, it was still helpful. Sometimes you just grow out of a group.
- The best groups are the ones that commit to help each other.
- Five people max is really good because it gives you enough time to discuss everyone’s problems.
- If you say that the purpose of the mastermind is to help each other achieve their goals, that sets a great tone.
- You need to go and feel like everyone in the group has your back.
- If you can’t be honest about your problems, you can’t get real help.
- The Challenge: In 2018, join some kind of a mastermind.
- You don’t have to wait for it, you can start one!
- He’s the co-founder of the $100 MBA podcast – daily ten minute video lessons.
The Random Round:
- What profession other than your own do you think it would be fun to attempt?
- Stand Up Comedy
- If you could sit on a park bench for any hour with anyone past or present, who would it be?
- Thomas Jefferson, a revolutionary thinker, ahead of his time.
- How do you like to learn best, books, blogs, podcasts or video?
- Books
- One of your favorite books.
- Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
- Give us a glimpse of your morning routine:
- Wake up and see if the cat did something in the litter
- Get ready
- Make breakfast
- Spend 30 minutes eating and watching basketball highlights
- Clean up and get to work
- Starts day with creative stuff (content, blogs, podcasts, etc.)
- Take lunch and then focus on the other stuff
- What is your go-to pump up song:
- Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springsteen
- What are you not very good at?
- Social life, his wife keeps them busy socially
- Find him via email, use the contact form on 100 Dollar MBA or Webinar Ninja.
Tweetable Quotes:
- With the ability to connect online, there’s no excuse not to connect.
- A lot of people separate their friendships from their business friendships, and it’s not about that.
Resources Mentioned:
Buildyournetwork.com – Podcast website
Rich Dad, Poor Dad – Book by Robert T. Kiyosaki
Shoe Dog – Book by Phil Knight
Dancing in the Dark – Song by Bruce Springsteen
0 Comments