You Might Also Like: The $100 MBA Show

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Mazda, more of what matters most to you. Go to mazdausa.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse or promote any product.

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When you're in back-to-back meetings all day, you're trying to stay present, but you're also worried you'll forget the decisions that are made in the meeting. The action items you got to do, the important next steps that you need to take. That's where Granola comes in. Granola is an AI-powered notepad for meetings. You jot down rough notes like you always do, and in the background, Granola transcribes and turns them into clear, useful notes when the meeting ends. No bots joining your calls, no distractions, just a clean notepad that helps you focus. During or after the call, you can chat with your notes, ask Granola to put out action items, help you negotiate, or even write a follow-up email. I've been using Granola for some time now, and one of my favorite features is that after a meeting, I just ask Granola, what are my action items? After a 30-minute or 60-minute meeting, sometimes you'll forget to jot down a thing or two that you need to do. So, it's always good to know that Granola's got my back, and I can just ask it after the meeting what I need to do next. Head to granola.ai/mba and get three months free with the code MBA. That's granola.ai/mba and get three months free with code MBA.
The TV pundits are saying that we're not technically in a recession. Please, if you've been to the grocery store, you know we're in a recession. And if you're a business owner right now, you know it's definitely a recession. Leads are slower, customers are hesitating, deals that used to take a week are taking a month.
Right now, you have a 90-day window before things get a lot worse. Businesses that come at a recession stronger are not the ones that get lucky. They're the ones who go on the offense that don't play scared.
Two of my most successful multimillion-dollar businesses were built out of a recession, and one of them went through two recessions. And it still changed my financial life forever. Today, I'm going to show you exactly how I did it. And I'll also share with you the truth about the lessons I learned the hard way and what it cost me in the process. At least I get to share those lessons with you today.
Welcome back to The $100 MBA Show. I'm your host Omar Zinhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, to help you start, grow and scale your business.
If this show has helped in any way, it would be amazing if you could drop us a quick review on whatever app you're using to listen to this podcast right now. It helps me and my team bring new episodes every week, and more importantly, more entrepreneurs will be able to discover our podcast so you can help someone else start their journey. Thanks so much.
When COVID hit in 2020, Webinar Ninja, the software company that Nicole and I built, back in 2014, we started in 2014, it exploded in 2020 because of COVID. Overnight, everyone needed webinars, businesses, schools, yoga studios, gyms. We had karate instructors running classes through our platform because our studio was closed because of the lockdowns. We had churches running funerals via webinar because people couldn't go to church anymore.
Now, as sad as that situation is, our company and our numbers looked incredible, right? Signups skyrocketed, revenue went up, growth charts were off the charts and in the right direction. And for a moment, I thought we caught a wave. We did, but it was the wrong wave because lockdowns ended and the world opened up and those customers left. It was not because the product was bad, it's because webinars were not how they actually wanted to run their business. The pandemic forced them to do it. And the moment they didn't have to do it anymore, they can do their karate classes in person and run their events in the church and all that kind of stuff. And everything was back to normal. They didn't need webinars anymore. So we saw a dip. It wasn't a catastrophic dip, but it taught me a big lesson. Growth that comes from external circumstances rather than genuine product market fit is not real growth. It's just borrowed time. It's just like getting money from the government. It's temporary. And then when the circumstances change, the customers will leave with that change. The businesses that are genuinely recession proof are not the ones that rode the wave. They are the ones that are built on something customers cannot live without. It's that simple. That distinction between what people want and what people need is the entire game. And I smile because it took me so long to get this. And once I got it, everything got easier. So let's start with talking about the biggest mistake business owners make in a recession and how you can avoid it. Let me tell you what most business owners do when a recession hits or looks like it's coming, right? They buckle down. They get nervous. Their palms get sweaty. They cut expenses. They tighten the belt. They tail themselves. They just need to absorb it like it's a wave, right? A wave coming crashing down. If I just can absorb the wave, everything will be fine. Everything is going to be calm very soon. And they stop moving forward. I understand why. When things are uncertain, the instinct is to protect what you have, right? It's also instinctual for a lot of people to not do anything. Like, hey, let's just not do anything. Let's not, you know, change anything. Because if we don't do anything, you know, we don't add another factor we have to worry about.