Omar Zenhom and Nicole Baldinu both have a decade of education experience. As university educators they learned how to not only teach, but how create and deliver lessons that actually foster learning and ensure comprehension and retention. They are the team behind The $100 MBA podcast and community, and co-founders of WebinarNinja.
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Ready to prove THE CONCEPT AND CRAFT THE SOLUTION? The Common Path to Uncommon Success is available NOW! Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com to order your copy today!
3 Value Bombs
1) One way to find creativity is to change careers.
2) It is easy to run a business when you have the product-market fit. It makes it easy for you to focus on improving and serving your customers rather than trying to convince them.
3) Having a great team means everything – and being a user of your own product makes you an advocate.
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Show Notes
**Click the time stamp to jump directly to that point in the episode.
Today’s Audio MASTERCLASS: OMAR ZENHOM AND NICOLE BALDINU ON PROVING THE CONCEPT AND CRAFTING THE SOLUTION
[2:25] – Omar shares his journey and transition from Frankenstein-ing webinars for The $100 MBA, to launching The DIY Webinar Guide, to creating WebinarNinja.
- For Omar, the one significant thing that happened throughout his journey was how much change him and Nicole experienced along the way.
- The actions that you take today get you the results that you see. To get different results, you have to do different things.
- They’ve been through a meaningful journey thus far, and they continue to learn, grow, improve and adapt.
[4:49] – Nicole shares her experience with the journey and transition.
- She was looking for something creative when she decided to quit teaching.
- One way to find creativity is to change careers.
- Her growth has been fun and an adventure.
[6:48] – What has been the significance of proving the concept – and then crafting the solution on your journey – both from a personal and business perspective?
- They wanted to get more customers and members when they started The $100 MBA podcast.
- Omar’s natural passion for teaching made him gravitate towards webinars.
- It is easy to run a business when you have the product-market fit. It makes it easy for you to focus on improving and serving your customers rather than trying to convince them.
[10:20] – A timeout to thank our sponsors, Qwantify and Athletic Greens!
[12:58] – Omar talks about the most significant focus for him: hosting every single sales webinar and demo himself for WebinarNinja; and for Nicole: making sure the team is providing the best support in the industry and keeping WebinarNinja simple.
- Their focus has shaped their company in various ways.
- It helped them understand what kind of company they wanted to run.
[16:50] – The Common Path to Uncommon Success: “Your product solution is only as good as your team, and one of the best things we’ve done is really understand the customer we are serving and being a part of the community by being a user as well. Be an ambassador for your community.”
- Having a great team means everything ,and being a user of your own product makes you an advocate. It brings the voice of the customer to the team.
- Most people buy a product because of the people behind that product.
- Work with your audience and continuously improve.
[20:15]– Call to action for Fire Nation!
- The Common Path to Uncommon Success is available NOW! Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com to order your copy today!
Transcript
0 (2s):
Lights that sparked fire nation, JLD here with an audio masterclass on proving the concept and crafting the solution to drop these value bombs. I brought Omar Zenhom and Nicole Baldinu on the mic. They both have a decorative education experience as university educators. They learned how to teach and how to create and deliver lessons that actually foster learning and ensure comprehension and retention. They are the team behind the a hundred dollar MBA podcast and community and co-founders of Webinar Ninja. And today we talking about the significance of proving the concept, then crashing the solution. We're going to talk about the power of early bird members, and they're want to talk about understanding the customer and serving them to the highest level.
0 (46s):
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0 (1m 26s):
These packages include insane perks like a one-on-one weekend in Puerto Rico with myself and Kate visit UncommonSuccessBook.com for all the details. The best packages have very limited quantities. So head over there today, UncommonSuccessBook.com. Omar, Nicole, you guys are halfway around the world, but I feel like it was just yesterday. We were walking the streets of Sydney, visiting your favorite restaurants, hanging out at your favorite places, getting to hang out with some of our favorite people. And we miss you guys. We love you guys. We can't wait till the next time you get to hang out. And we also admire you guys like for what you've built over the years, and you've built something real.
0 (2m 7s):
And you know, I look back at like what we've done with like Frankensteining different things together with entrepreneurs on fire. And you did the same thing. I mean, you went from Frankensteining webinars for the a hundred dollar MBA to launching this DIY webinar guy that you did that either by the way, purchased and used. And then you decided to create webinar Ninja, which you know, is now doing amazing things and has been for years and years and years. So talk to us about this journey in the transition that you made.
1 (2m 36s):
It's been a journey. I think one of the things that stands out the most for me at least is how much both Nicole and I have had to change along the way, change, who we are changed, what we do every day, change our habits, change the way we run our businesses. As you know, the actions we take today, get that, get us the results that we see. So if we want to get different results, we had to do different things, which is it's hard. It's hard to change. It's hard to also recognize I don't, I'm not good enough right now to be what I want to be in the future. And yeah, that journey is, has been an interesting journey. It's still going, we're still learning.
1 (3m 17s):
We're still improving and adapting and it's been great. Cause I always say building a software company is very much like climbing a mountain as a metaphor because as you go up the mountain, the things that you did before, you still can't, you know, you can't do them anymore. If you're new, do new things. So like in the beginning, you're hiking up the mountain. You don't need much, you know, special equipment. You feel okay, you're not winded as you move closer, you start to climb vertical. Oh no. Now I need like some grappling tools, you know, I'm huffing and puffing. Now I'm out of shape compared to what I was before, you know? And then as you move up, you're like, okay, I'm going to need a Sherpa. Maybe man, I need a coach.
1 (3m 57s):
Maybe I need to some guidance here. Maybe somebody has been there before, up this down before to help them along the way or that could even be hires. So it's just an interesting thing because you don't really realize that as you're moving along and it's kind of a blessing because if you didn't know that maybe you wouldn't have taken those to take the chance to take that leap of starting up a software company. But it's definitely been fun.
0 (4m 19s):
One thing that I mentioned in the introduction, Nicole, is that, you know, you were a university educator, which of course, you know, Omar was as well. And you know, you went from like that kind of environment, you know, it, which is it's a confined environment, you know, there's rules, there's regulations to just kind of saying, you know what, you know, here we are in New York city and we're going to do our thing. We're going to drive across the country. We're gonna move to San Diego. And we're just going to kind of figure things out along the way with this a hundred dollar MBA thing and this DIY webinar thing. And then, you know, Hey, let's just launch an entire SAS company. Let's just launch webinar Ninja. And you know, that must have been a little bit of a transition. So just like Omar kind of did, like, what was your transition like?
2 (4m 60s):
Yeah, it's crazy to think about it. I suppose. I, I distinctly remember when I decided to quit teaching that I was looking for something creative teachers, you know, they have a lot of creativity in the confines of that classroom, of the curriculum that they're teaching. But like you said, there's so many restrictions. There's timetables, there's schedules, there's a yearly calendar. So I was really searching for something creative. And I think what, you know, what better way to find creativity than just changing careers. I started, you know, in film joined up, teamed up with Omar. We started a podcast, started the a Hundred Dollar MBA. And then, you know, here we are years later with a software as well. So I mean, in a nutshell, it's really hard to describe, you know, what that transition has been.
2 (5m 46s):
It's been, it's been fun. It's been, it's been an adventure. I think, you know, I've always looked back at, you know, Oh gosh, I was thinking there's just so there's just so many things, you know, I wanted to kind of, you know, discount that, that career in teaching, but it's no wonder that OMA and I find ourselves right now, you know, producing a podcast that teaches business lessons. And so in love with the idea of webinars, because you know, they really are a form of teaching, teaching people about your products and services. So in a way it's been a very, almost, you know, crazy transition, but in a way it almost feels really quite natural as well.
0 (6m 30s):
Well, Nicole stick with you for this one, because one thing that I admire that you've done, you know, over the course of your career, but you know, specifically with webinar Ninja is you prove the concepts and then you crafted the solution. You prove the concept, then you crafted the solution and most people do that backwards. So talk to us about the significance of first proving the concept before you go ahead and craft this massive solution.
2 (6m 57s):
Yeah, for sure. I think the way it all started was, you know, we had the a hundred dollars MBA and we wanted to get more customers, more members into the community and almost like, you know, his natural passion, his love for teaching trying to get, you know, build that audience, you know, he gravitated to webinars. So we would just doing that ourselves. It was something that we just felt like, okay, we need to find new audience members. We need to reach more people. We want to reach more people because we, we have something that we want to share. How are we going to do this? Right. Let's let's, you know, let's do a webinar. And so it just felt like, okay, this is clearly something that we were doing ourselves. It's working, people are attending.
2 (7m 39s):
People are enjoying the interaction. You know what it's like, you know, when you're in on a webinar and you've got that interactive with you with an audience, and this is working and you know, you're just doing your thing because you're trying to solve that problem for yourself. And then when, as soon as you realize, Oh, actually, you know, this, this, this could actually help other people. And that's when, you know, when obviously people started asking like, Oh, what, what software are you using? Can, can we buy it? Then we realized, okay, there is actually a need for this tool, this piece of software for other people. So I think in that experience, we learned that, okay, we are solving something for ourselves, clearly this validation there, we're listening. We've got out used to the ground as to what people are telling us, the feedback they're giving us.
2 (8m 22s):
And I think that's constantly, you know, inspired and fed the journey of WebinarNinja to continuously listen to out, excuse me, to continuously listen to our customers and our members so that we can continue to improve and solve that, that pain point, that problem that they have.
1 (8m 41s):
Yeah. It's a whole lot easier to, to run a business where you have like a pull product rather than a push product where like, people are, they want this, they they're asking for it. You don't have to convince or cajole anybody into it. You don't have to like really push it. And
2 (8m 56s):
I feel like when you have that product market fit, it makes the whole business so much easier. It makes it a lot easier for you to focus on just improving it and serving your customers rather than, you know, how can I just convince every single person, including like all my friends and family that they need this, like, if you need to convince people, they need it, then maybe you don't have that product market fit. Yeah. And then it becomes a part of a matter of refining, actually all the feedback that you are getting, you know, because you want to serve it. You know, you're so passionate about serving everyone and giving everybody what they want. Cause everyone's got their needs and their, you know, Oh, it would be great if it did this because my business does this and you do want to serve everyone to those particular needs. But it's then a matter of like filtering out and going, okay, this is really going to solve a problem for the majority of customers.
2 (9m 41s):
This is really gonna enhance the experience for a majority of customers and making those choices are really hard, but you know, you have to do that to be sustainable.
0 (9m 48s):
I love that mentality of the pull, not push. And sometimes Fire Nation its' okay. Like it's okay to go on that path of least resistance because to the point that you made Omar, I mean, it's kinda like a reality that if people really have a pain points, they're going to actually want that solution. If it, if they're not asking for it, they're not screaming for the top of their lungs. Like that just may not be a path to go down. Because if you are going to spend your time to craft a solution, they're really better be not just a pain point, but like a pain point that people are willing to pay for people are willing to vote with their wallets. And speaking of that, when we get back from taking our sponsors, we didn't do a deep dive into early birds, stay with us.
0 (10m 30s):
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0 (12m 50s):
You know, for me, looking back a podcast is paradise, man. The best thing we did was bringing those early birds for a lot of reasons. I mean, you know, they, they helped craft the direction. Their feedback was critical, all this different stuff. You guys had a very similar experience with the early birds and webinar Ninja. So Omar, why don't you maybe start with this and kind of talk about the importance of your early bird and how you implemented in utilize them to make WebinarNinja as good as it could be.
1 (13m 18s):
They're incredibly important. They, they have shaped the company in so many ways, even till today, those first 250 members we had are vital to who has become. And a lot of people ask us, like, how did you get those first 250 members? They're, they're literally people we know by name people. We met in conferences, people like you, John, people like that. We became friends with people that literally just bought it to support us and give us feedback and to be part of that journey with us. Now, that is great and all, but with that responsibility is maintaining that relationship, asking them questions, making sure that they didn't make a mistake by betting on you, that, that they made the right investment, that they made the right call.
1 (14m 1s):
So that, that was a great kind of ex experience those first six months to a year to learn what we can do better, what we can do, what we can do differently, how we can improve the software and just get feedback from real people that I can just get on the phone and talk to, or, you know, shoot a quick email to all that kind of stuff. It also, it, you know, it gave us a chance to understand what kind of company we want to become. Sometimes we get so busy as entrepreneurs of creating a awesome business that makes money and fame and glory and all that kind of stuff that you forget that, Hey, you're gonna inherit whatever you build, like whatever you build, the type of customers, you attract, the kind of things you're going to have to do every day, depending on the product you build, all that kind of stuff.
1 (14m 44s):
It remix you reevaluate. When you talking to these people on a daily basis and a small group is, wait a minute, like, do I want to do this for the rest of my life or for the next foreseeable future? If not, I need to change pivot my product to suit the way I want to run my business. So I think that kind of small incubator of, of customers before you blow up is a, is a blessing in disguise. So you can kind of craft it before it grows, kind of raised that child before it goes out.
0 (15m 10s):
Real-world Nicole, anything you want to add to your experience with the early bird members that Omar didn't get. So
2 (15m 17s):
A special connection with those people. I feel in the early days, you've you almost feel like there's less to lose. So there's this honesty there's these there's conversations is. And I'm saying that that, that, that changes necessarily, but there's a different kind of connection that you have with the, with the people that, you know, in the beginning really want to support you and you feel like you have their trust just because they know you or they, you know, they've come to you, you know, showing their support. So I think those conversations are really special. I think the, you know, you need to be super grateful for those people that have entered that stage of your life at that stage of your business.
2 (15m 59s):
Yeah. I think great people, for sure.
0 (16m 3s):
Once again, thank you both for your amazing contribution to the chapter in the book, the step in the roadmap of proving the concepts and implementing the solution. As you can tell Fire Nation, I found the right people for this contribution. I mean, they've been doing this for years and years and years now, you know, running a great business, serving a lot of people, you know, running a great company, making things happen and how I want to end our conversation here today is I pulled a quote from your contribution. I'm going to read that quotes, and then I'm going to hand it over to you and Nicole, we'll start with you this time to really bring this home for us.
0 (16m 44s):
So your quote in the book is your product solution is only as good as your team. And one of the best things that we've done is really understand the customer we are serving and being a part of the community by being a user as well, be an ambassador to your community. Nicole, bring home that last part, be an ambassador to your community. What do you mean by that
2 (17m 10s):
Team? Is everything. You know, I feel blessed in, in what I get to do every day, because I get to work with a great team. The people that we talk to every single day who are actually use, you know, serving our customers by being used as ourselves, we will use as ourselves of WebinarNinja. We see just everyone on the entire team, whether it's a support agent to, to an engineer, they constantly inside the software so that they can be advocates, that they can actually feel what it's like to be on the other end. It's opening up this app and going, okay, clicking I've I've got things to do.
2 (17m 52s):
I've got, you know, my webinar to get on with what does it, what does that experience feel like? So constantly being immersed in, in the app with that team, you know, bringing the voice of the customer to them every single day, whether it's through conversation from our support, whether it's sharing an email that they've sent, it's that constant re reminder to everyone that we're doing this because there's a, there's a customer out there. There's a member out there who's using our software and we never want to lose sight of that. We always want to stay close to them. So that we're always feeling what they're feeling. You know, every time that they're experiencing our app,
0 (18m 29s):
Take this home for us. Omar, any final words you want to add about being that ambassador to your community?
1 (18m 36s):
I think sometimes we forget that people buy products because of the people behind the product. You know, Tesla would not be a company. The company is today. If it wasn't for Elon Musk, same thing with Steve jobs. Some, you know, some might say the same thing about Sarah Blakely and Spanx, you know, being that kind of an inspiration. People want leadership. They want people to say, Hey, you know, show me the way, show me what's the best way to do to, to, to do this. What's the best practices in delivering these webinars. What's the best way to utilize this app so I can grow my business. And if you are not willing to get in front of your audience and really work with them and try to improve your software, but also improve how they use it and how they can get the most out of it, through your content, through your webinars themselves, you really need to question, are you in the right business?
1 (19m 29s):
Cause I was in a wrong business in my past, you know, eight, nine years ago, I had my own clothing line and my customers were more passionate about my product than I was. And I realized I'm in the wrong business here, man. These people really care about this. They're, they're more ambassadors than I am. So you need to really check yourself if you're in the right business. If you feel like you can't be that ambassador, if you can't get excited and passionate about what you do and, and motivate and inspire people to use your product, that's a big part of it. Some people don't use the product just because they just need a little push or maybe they don't understand the value and you need to convey that. So that's all part about, you know, being an ambassador and, and leading that community
0 (20m 7s):
Chapter 11, step 11 and that 17 step process, the roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment, proving the concepts in crafting the solution, Fire Nation yearly getting a glimpse of what this chapter is. Of course, how I describe exactly what this means, how I share my story and then Omar, Nicole, going into their contribution, their journey, their story in much more depth than we got to today. So if you're hearing our voices before March 23rd, there's still time to pre-order this book and get all five pre-order bonuses, which disappear our March 23rd. No pre-order bonuses anymore.
0 (20m 47s):
On March 23rd, you just get the book, which is fantastic, but the bonuses you need to take action on right now, five bonuses. One of one of the bonuses, all three of my journals, freedom, mastery and podcast journals shipped to your door. Fire Nation, $150 worth of journal value shipped to your door for a pre-order of The Common Path to Uncommon Success. So if I've given you value over the years, Omar, Nicole had given you value today, show your support, make that pre-order happen. Get one for your friends, family loved ones. Make that happen. We're going to be impacting so many people by getting them to their version of uncommon success.
0 (21m 28s):
Omar, Nicole is awesome to call you guys friends. It's awesome to see you living your version of uncommon success day in and day out. I'm proud of you. I'm excited for you and we'll catch you on the flip side.
3 (21m 42s):
What if you
0 (21m 42s):
Could run an e-commerce business with no tech experience or employees and generate 10K or more each month today's sponsor at Qwantify is doing just that Qwantify guarantees your success and revenue with complete end to end training and support apply today at Qwantify.com. That's Q W A N T I F Y.com.
Killer Resources!
1) The Common Path to Uncommon Success: JLD’s 1st traditionally published book! Over 3000 interviews with the world’s most successful Entrepreneurs compiled into a 17-step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment!
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3) Podcasters’ Paradise: The #1 podcasting community in the world!