Zak Mustapha

Ecom Entrepreneur | Overachiever | Adventurer

6 Random Business Tips I Learned After 5 Business Failures

By Leave a Comment

What valuable lessons will you learn here?

These are some very valuable yet random business tips I’ve learned buying and starting many businesses.

Go ahead and read them.

It’s short and quick to read…

1. Create a range of products

I learned this one from Russell Brunson. You need to have a range of products that have various levels of value.

You will always have a signature product that’s a best seller or the one that’s both affordable and relevant to most of your audience. But then once you’ve created your signature product it’s good practice to add other levels of products that compliment it.

Of course, don’t just roll out products for the sake of it. Make sure there’s actual demand for it. Listen to your audience/customers.

2. Use a calendar

Many people think that they should have a to-do list to manage their days. But the problem with to-do lists is they don’t have any deadlines so you’re likely to procrastinate.

That’s why it’s much more effective to manage your day using a calendar to script your day. The world’s billionaires use this to manage their days and so should you if you are looking to a successful entrepreneur.

So write down a To-Do list with everything you have to do. And then schedule them on the calendar to make sure you get them done at those specific times.

But don’t cram it all in one day. Just add what you can do on that day and prioritize. Most important tasks first.

3. Have an opinion

Trying to play it safe so everyone can like you is one is common among beginners. What people don’t realize is, when you share neutral opinions with others, you will be classed as the boring person because neutral is boring. You need to stand out by sharing your opinions. Those who agree with you will stand by you and those that don’t will be against you. You have to get ready for fans and haters if you want to be successful in this world.

So it’s either fans and haters or bored people that walk away. Pick one.

If you ask me, I’d rather have the fans and haters. Than be boring vanilla and invisible by playing it safe.

4. Hire slow, fire fast

Hiring is a hard task and a very sensitive one. Adding someone to your payroll isn’t easy for a small business and can mean the success and failure of your venture. Make sure you know exactly what talent you are looking for and whether they are suitable for the job. Make sure they fit in the culture, get the work done, create value and are within your budget.

Firing an employee isn’t a pleasant experience for both you and the employee. But it’s unlikely your ex-employee will come back as an evil villain for revenge after a few years and turn your life into a thriller action movie.

It’s simple each employee should generate more revenue than they are paid (or how much they can save).

5. Learn how to Code

Kids these days are starting to learn how to code. You don’t need to become a professional programmer, but you need to know basic stuff. You can learn that easily in a month or less from an online school (include article link). Every business has a website and hiring a developer for even the smallest tasks is an unnecessary cost for a small business. So go and at least learn some basic HTML and CSS.

There are dozens of programming languages out there. You can learn from freecodecamp.org for HTML & CSS. But there are plenty of other free sources. Pick the languages you’re most exposed to in your business.

I outsource coding myself. But I still know a few basics. Sometimes it costs you to outsource something you could have easily done in 30 seconds.

6. Don’t waste time networking

Yes, your network determines your net worth. We’ve all heard that one before and you will find a lot of articles from entrepreneurs telling you to go out and network, which is good. But not if it means you can’t get your work done, not many entrepreneurs highlight that point.

Making products, learning and planning for your startups future are the main things you should be focusing on as an entrepreneur. Schedule certain times for networking, such as weekends or after 6 pm when you’ve done your main projects or whenever you’re done with the main revenue-generating tasks (whatever they are for your business).

Besides most people who go to networking events are hoping to sell something so its not really a great place unless you’re looking for partnerships or you know for certain that your buyers are hanging out there.

So yeah…

Don’t forget to DESTROY the share button and share it with your colleagues if you found these helpful. 😊

You can pin it 👇

3 Business Lessons Learned from My Mentor Dan Lok

By Leave a Comment

Dan Lok is giving away his Unlock It book because of the CoronaVirus. Get your copy here.

3 Lessons you don’t hear about everyday…

So I’ve been a Dan Lok mentee for about a year now… I went through his High-Ticket Closing program and I’m part of his Inner Circle.

And today I’m about to share with you 3 very powerful lessons that changed the way I think in business that I believe will help you as well.

Lesson #1: You Cannot Get to Quality Before Quantity

A lot of people procrastinate or wait until something is perfect before they launch.

But as the founder of LinkedIn Reid Hoffman said “if you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”

I remember before starting my YouTube channel I thought, let me perfect my video skills first and then I’ll start my channel.

But what Dan Lok says is, publish your first 100 videos and then we’ll talk about quality.

Lesson #2: Most Business Problems Are Personal Problems in Disguise

If you have problems being organized then your business is most likely unorganized as well.

If you’re bad at sales, your business is most likely doing bad with sales.

Every business is a reflection of its owner.

Everyone wants to blame the business but no one wants to take ownership.

Look from within.

Don’t blame the vehicle. Blame the person who’s running the vehicle. That’s you.

Improve your skills. Work on yourself from within.

Which leads us to the 3rd lesson.

Lesson #3: Don’t Doubt Your Self, Doubt Your Skills

Never doubt your capabilities as a person. If you can’t do something it’s because you haven’t honed your skills enough.

Developing a skill takes practice.

Reading a book on something isn’t developing a skill. You have to put in hours of practice.

If your business is suffering from attracting customers, improve your marketing skills.

If you’re not happy with your employees then improve your management and leadership skills.

If you’re not doing well financially then improve your sales skills.

If you’re not presenting well to financers and investors then improve your pitching or presentation skills.

So there you have it.

Make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel so you can get more lessons like these in video format. And don’t forget to like, share if you found this useful.

Until next time.

How to Create A Bucket List That Inspires You to Live

By Leave a Comment

What have you always dreamt of doing but never done?

Isn’t it time to finally step up and turn your dreams into reality?

Well in today’s article I’m going to show you how to create a bucket list of all the things you want to do before you die so you can live a fulfilling life.

And I’m going to show you how to do it in 3 simple steps.

But before I do that. Let’s briefly answer this question…

What is a bucket list? To put it simply it’s all the things you want to do, acquire or experience in life. Think of it as your life’s To Do List.

Now that we’ve cleared that up. Let’s jump right into it…

Step 1: Brain Dump

Write down everything that comes to mind of all the things you want to…

  • To Do
  • To Acquire
  • To Learn
  • To experience
  • To eat
  • To visit

In this video I list 5 questions that you can ask yourself if you get stuck with this step.

In fact, the video below helped me hit 2 birds with 1 stone because it was one of the things on MY bucket list. Here, take a look:

Yep, that’s my first video 🙂

Anyway, make sure to write as many things as possible no matter how far-fetched or unrealistic they may seem. Make it a goal to write down 100 things. 

Remember you’ve got your entire life to work on these. All you need to know is… if you want it, then write it. 

Step 2: Steal Other People’s Ideas

When you dry out of ideas then go and have a look at other people’s bucket lists for inspiration. In fact, here’s a link to my bucket list with 334+ ideas for inspiration. And I keep adding more each time.

Step 3: Add the Stuff You Don’t Want To Do

Wait what?

Isn’t this supposed to be a list of all the things I want to do in my life?

Yeah it is, but trust me… you’ll find out that this stage is the most fulfilling. So here’s how it goes…

Think of all the things that scare you or make you uncomfortable and add those as well. Whether that be jumping off a plane or bungee jumping. The reason behind this is because conquering your fears is going to feel fulfilling and will improve your self-confidence.

Since the opposite of confidence is fear. So conquering that fear will therefore increase your confidence.

Remember the difference between fear and excitement is only your perception because physiologically it’s the exact same reaction in your body.

So let fear fuel you, not stop you.

Don’t put this on hold any longer. Get out there and make your bucket list!

3 Forgotten Sales Tactics to Boost Your Sales Now

By 1 Comment

Who doesn’t, right?

I mean no business has ever complained from an increase of sales.

Actually what I’m going to share with you aren’t your typical sales tactics. In fact, they are often taken for granted that they’ve become almost forgotten.

You’ll notice a lot of the top people in your industry secretly use them, but they don’t tell anyone about them.

When I share these tactics with you it’ll all make sense and you’ll probably be like “Oh yeeaahh, I’ve seen that before!” OR maybe you won’t.

Anyway, the most important thing here is to implement. If you’ve followed closely you’ll know I’m big on implementation.

Ok, so here’s the first one..

1. Annoy Your Target Audience

You know that person that is just everywhere and at some point you almost feel annoyed to see them again?

Yeah, that’s who you need to be if you want to increase your sales…

How come you might ask?

Two Reasons:

Reason #1: It all comes down to the rule of 7 which states that it takes 7 times before people start to notice you and take action on your offer.

And in today’s noisy market you’ve gotta work hard and smart to get people’s attention once, let alone 7 times.

But, you didn’t think I was going to show you the easy fast stuff that everyone else is doing did you?

I mean if everyone is doing it then it wouldn’t be any good no more.

Now the good news is you don’t have to get in front of EVERYONE but you do need to get in front of your target audience and become well known in your space.

Why?

Glad you asked because that’s the second reason…

Reason #2: When you’re seen often your authority increases and when your authority increases it’s easier to command higher prices AND you won’t have to chase people for business – they’ll chase you.

In business it’s not who you know, it’s who knows you!

And when they know you, they trust you and when they trust you they buy from you.

So now that we’ve covered why it works, let’s get into the how. Here are some ways to get seen everywhere and build your authority (on a scale from good to great):

  • Guest blogging – Share your expertise on blogs that your audience reads.
  • Guest Podcasting – Get featured as an expert on podcasts which have higher engagement than blogs.
  • Shooting Videos – Posting videos on YouTube has the greatest potential to turn you into a celebrity if you really take it serious and post consistently.

These aren’t the only ways obviously, you can distribute snippets of your blog content for example on social media. You can transcribe your YouTube videos and create them as blog posts or even share snippets of them on let’s say Instagram.

The key here is to be consistent with just one especially when you’re getting started and you’re just a one man/woman show. Don’t jump around when things don’t work immediately.

It’s really slow in the beginning but after some time it really takes off.

2. Make Them Jump

A mistake many people make is they just sell to anyone who visits their website or store. That’s not the way it should be…

You see, what happens when you let anyone buy from you is it makes it very accessible to everyone. And if it’s accessible it’s not valued as much.

Take Hermes for example, you can’t just walk in there and buy any handbag… they won’t let you.

And it’s not like their handbags are cheap. They start at around $10,000 and you only have an option to pick from two colors – even though they may have more and it’s not the one you want… they’ll only let you pick from two colors.

Can you pay them more and get the color you want? No.

And sometimes you’ll even have to buy some of the accessories before you can own a Hermes handbag.

And you won’t see them putting up any Black Friday sales either.

What am I trying to get at here?

They can afford to do this because they have the authority AND they make their customers jump a lot of hoops.

They don’t beg people for their business – people beg them.

Look you’re probably not looking to be that extreme but the point I’m making is: “Make Your Prospects Jump Some Hoops Before They Can Do Business With You!”

You’ve probably seen this, where the authority in your industry gets you to watch a video, fill in a few qualifying forms, surveys whatever… to make sure you’re a good fit to work with them.

It flips the tables around.

They are no longer selling to you, but you’re selling yourself as to why they should work with you.

From there, it’s no longer the typical sales process where they give you price resistances and look for discounts. No.

Now it becomes a privilege to work with them at any cost.

And you can be that person…

If you build your authority and make your prospects jump a few hoops.

3. Don’t Be A Lone Wolf

So you’ve built your authority in your niche, you’ve set up a system to get prospects to jump a few hoops… now for the final piece.

Don’t be a lone wolf.

If it’s just you and your customers talking about how great you and your business are then that’s great.

But if you want to gain instant credibility, then don’t just get others to talk about you…

But get other authorities and influencers in your niche to praise you and promote you to their audience. Now that’s instant credibility.

It’s probably happened to you when you’re browsing around a site you’ve never heard of before… only to see a celebrity or authoritative figure saying good stuff about the company/person.

They instantly gain credibility.

You can be working day and night, be better than your competitors, but still be behind…

Because again, it all comes back to who knows you. The more influential and authoritative those people who know you are – the more credible you will seem.

Look it’s all a dog and pony show. Life isn’t fair – tough.

Your stuff has to be great, that’s a given.

But in today’s market it’s not enough to just be great at what you do, you also have to be a marketer of what you do.

And one of the fastest way to grow is to use the help of other influencers and authorities in your niche.

Haven’t you ever noticed how influencers collaborate with each other? And those guys are influencers yet they still do it.

In fact, you could also argue and say – those guys are influencers because they grow together and leverage other influencers. That’s the key to faster growth.

Don’t be a lone wolf. Because the lone wolf dies and the pack survives.

Those are the three magic ingredients to boost your sales for life and I’ve just given it to you for free.

Are you going to do anything with it?

And if you do, are you going to persevere till the end?

And if you don’t where do you think your business will go? How will your financial situation change?

Yep, you guessed it right…

You’re going to stay in the same situation as you are right now and nothing is going to change if you don’t change your way of doing things.

So don’t delay and take action now.

3 Ways to Achieve Ambitious Goals

By Leave a Comment

Do you have ambitious goals?

How ambitious are your goals really?

Well I don’t know about you, but when I say I have ambitious goals, I mean traveling the world, becoming a billionaire, ending starvation and all the other stuff on my bucket list.

Everyone is different and I’m not saying your goals should be to make billions, build an empire and plan to end world starvation either.

I’m just showing you what I want out of my life to hopefully inspire you which is why I just linked to my bucket list above.

But, I’m guessing you’re here because you wanna know how to achieve your goals and stop postponing them for later.

Because the last thing you want is to feel intense regret when you’re on your deathbed… wondering “Did I live my life the way I wanted?” “If only I did X what would have happened?”

This article is about achieving your goals whatever they may be and making sure you do achieve them once and for all.

1. Write Them Down

You can’t get something done if you don’t even know what it is.

Clarity is power. So get clear and write down EXACTLY what you want to achieve.

Frankly if you’re not even bothered to write them down then how do you expect to even achieve them?

Okay, now just before you write them. Let’s get something clear…

There’s a difference between goals and your long term vision.

For example, all the stuff I said about becoming a billionaire and ending world starvation is all part of my long term vision. Which you should also write down.

Once you’ve written down your vision of what you want to accomplish in your life then it’s time to set those annual and monthly goals.

What do you want to get done this month? Where do you wanna be in 12 months from now?

Be realistic and practical here. You can’t become a billionaire or impact millions of life or do big things in a months time – but you can take steps and get closer to achieving them.

The key here is to work backwards.

  1. Set your annual goals – where you want to be in 12 months
  2. Set your monthly goals – where do you have to be in a months time
  3. Set your daily goals – what do you need to accomplish in the day

I personally have 3 goals each month that I share in my monthly newsletter, where I also share the actions I am going to take to achieve those goals. Just put in your email address on the right hand side and I’ll show you my journey to $100K.

Okay, so you’ve written down what you want to achieve in the next 12 months, set your monthly goals and the daily actions you need to take.

Again it is extremely important to be realistic and practical. How will you know?

Well if you’re not achieving your daily goals then you’re not going to achieve your monthly goals. And if you’re not gonna achieve the monthly goals then you’re definitely not gonna achieve the annual goals.

It’s okay to go back and refine your goals to make them more realistic so don’t feel bad if you’re not able to achieve those daily goals regularly.

2. See Them Daily

Now that you’ve written them down, stick them on your wall. Look at them every single day. Remember them. Remember why you woke up. And remember what you’re working towards.

It’s very easy to forget what we’re trying to achieve if we’re just running around doing things, trying to make a living and just putting off fires. So make sure you see them every single day and contemplate over them for a couple of minutes.

3. Visualize The Actions

This is where reality kicks in. Can you see yourself doing these actions?

How are you going to take these daily actions? At what time?

If you don’t schedule a specific time for it every day then it’s not gonna get done. You’ll end up relying on your willpower and that’s a bad strategy.

Because if you’re hoping you’ll have the willpower then you’re pretty much leaving it to chance.

We all have the same 24 hours. It’s all about how you manage your priorities. If you don’t give your goals a priority by assigning a specific time for them each they, then just ask yourself… is this goal really important to me? Am I willing to dedicate my time towards these goals? And am I willing to give them a priority in my daily life?

4. Tell Everyone

The power of accountability and saving face.

Tell everyone about your goals. Tell them that you’re going to achieve X and X by [Desired Date].

Now your family, friends and people around you will expect you to achieve them.

Because how are you gonna look when you don’t?

You’re a man/woman of your word aren’t you?

Yeah, exactly.

And don’t be like… hey guys I’m gonna take my family to Hawaii this year. NO. Instead it should be like…

Hey guys, I’m gonna take my family to Hawaii on the 17 of July 2019 and we’re gonna stay there for 5 days.

Now you can’t talk yourself out of that. Because if you say this year.. then that could be anytime in the future.. they’ll probably even forget.

But by being specific it’s more memorable, they can hold you more accountable and you can hold yourself more accountable.

This is what I’ve done in my newsletter where I’m sharing my exact goals and actions for my journey to $100K. Because if I don’t achieve 100% of what I say I’m gonna do in my newsletter then what does that say about me?

Raise the stakes for yourself and share it with the world.

That’s How It’s Done

Now that’s how you set ambitious goals and guarantee yourself that you’ll achieve them.

Get started now.

Chances are if you don’t do this in the next 24 hours then you’re not ever gonna do it.

So don’t postpone till later – set a time today and let’s start achieving those goals.

And if you want to kind of hold yourself accountable by seeing other people achieving their goals then join my journey from broke to $100K newsletter. I’ll email you every month what I’ve done and what I’m gonna do – so you can see how it’s done and maybe feel a sense of inspiration to do the same.