Welcome to the eCommerce Podcast with me, your host, Matt Edmundson.
Now, the eCommerce podcast is all about helping you to deliver eCommerce wow.
And to help us do just that, I am chatting today with Omar Zenhom from Webinar
Ninja, and we are gonna dig into his story about how a successful entrepreneur
learned what it took to succeed.
But before we jump into that, let me suggest a few of the, uh,
eCommerce podcast episodes to listen to from our back catalog that I
think you are gonna enjoy as well.
Uh, podcast number one, try Jared Mitchell's conversation, uh, where we
talked about an e-commerce success story.
He's such a legend, Jared, you're not gonna wanna miss that one
if you've not heard it already.
Or even if you have.
Check it out.
He's like I say, top bloke, uh, and the other one, Haikki Haldre.
This is going back a few seasons, but still a fantastic conversation.
Still one of the most listened to podcast episodes, uh, three top
tips, uh, for startup success.
So you're not gonna want to miss that conversation with Heikki.
Now this episode is brought to you by the fantastic eCommerce Cohort,
which helps you practically to deliver eCommerce wow to your customers.
If you are not sure what the eCommerce cohort is, well, let me tell you, it is
a mastermind group that you can join, but it's a mastermind group with a twist.
With a difference.
It works on the idea of weekly sprints, short sort of easy, digestible
content that you can use to build and grow your own online business.
There is expert coaching.
There are topics covered and deep dive into.
You can share your work, you can get peer accountability.
There is all kinds of stuff that is going on in there, all designed to help you
just grow your eCommerce business.
The cool thing is it's pretty lightweight.
It's light touch, uh, and so you can do it at your own pace, but you are gonna
be in a community of like-minded people.
So whether you are just starting out an eCommerce or if, like me, you
are a well established eCommercer, you've been around a while, uh, then
I encourage you do check it out.
Honestly, you're not gonna want eCommercecohort.com.
I think it's brilliant.
I'm gonna be in there, that's for sure.
So do check it out eCommercecohort.com or any questions, just email me matt
eCommercepodcast.net with any questions.
I'll try and I'll try and answer them as best as I can, which by the way,
nicely leads me onto our website.
If you wanna see our back catalog, check all of those things out,
head over to eCommercepodcast.net.
Now.
Without further ado, here is my conversation with Omar.
Well, it's great to be here with Omar.
Now, Omar is the co-founder and CEO of Webinar Ninja, which has
to be one of the coolest names, uh, for a company on the planet.
He, uh, founded the company in 2014 and has since grown to become one of
the world's leading webinar platforms.
I have used Webinar Ninja.
Uh, over a million people, including me, have attended a webinar on
Webinar Ninja and here, and the company was named one of the fastest
grown SAAS companies back in 2018.
But as we are going to learn, business hasn't always been sunshine and
rainbows, we're gonna get into his story.
Uh, but in addition to his work at Webinar Ninja Omar is also the host of
the hundred dollars MBA show, and he was kind enough to have me as one of the 1300,
uh, episodes, which is now on iTunes.
It was the iTunes, uh, best podcast in 2014 has been download an insane
amount of times over 90 million times and ranked as a top business
podcast in over 30 countries.
. Wow.
I have slight podcast envy, slight podcast fandom start and whatever you call it.
Omar, thank you for joining me.
It's great to have you, uh, and after, uh, being on your show after read in
those stats, I'm, I'm stoked, man, that you, you've taken the time to join us.
Thank you so much for being here.
I'm happy to be here, Matt.
You're a legend.
Now you are in fact a legend from, uh, dialing in from Sydney, uh, Australia.
Uh, and I'm, I'm just amazed at the technology which allows us to do this.
Uh, now we're using a platform called Riverside, but obviously
you've been in this game for a little while with Webinar Ninja, this
whole video sort of streaming thing.
How did you.
How did you do that?
Did you just wake up one day and thought, you know what, I'm just
gonna conquer the world of webinars.
Uh, not exactly.
Actually, I kind of stumbled into it.
Um, before I became a full-time entrepreneur, I was a high
school and university educator.
I was a teacher.
I taught students five times a day.
Uh, and uh, that's what I did all my for 13 years.
Um, so teaching was my jam and this is what I love to do.
When I made the transition into full-time entrepreneurship, uh, I was
just in love with the concept of being able to teach at scale with webinars.
Um, I was running a lot of webinars to grow our community
at the a hundred dollar mba.
And I just hated all the other, uh, options out there for running webinars.
Uh, but not only that, uh, you know, when people start writing
webinars start to realize, you know, there's a lot of moving parts.
There's other pieces of software you need to have them all Franken signed together,
whether it's landing page software or recording software or video software, or
the streaming software or email marketing.
And there's all this other stuff that goes into it.
Um, so I actually, we'd spend two hours every week to run my
webinar, to put it all together.
Uh, initially I actually ran, I ran a, uh, a pro a product.
I launched a product called the DIY webinar guide, to, and I
documented every step of the way of me putting these webinars together.
And that product was a total flop.
Like nobody bought it.
I actually had two sales and one sale was a chargeback, so it was not even.
So, and the second sale was, was like a sympathy sale, was a friend of mine who
was just interested in what I was doing.
Wow.
But what that taught me was, uh, was basically what Ben Horowitz calls,
uh sometimes you have to create a bad product or create a good one.
It taught me that people don't wanna know how to do it, they
just want it done for them.
They want, they don't wanna do the work.
So, uh, I started, you know, messing around.
I'm a very amateur, uh, engineer or developer.
I put together, um, you know, a very simple PHP uh, HTML kind of app where I
ran my own webinars with the people that are running my webinars or on my webinars
are asking what I'm using for this.
And I just said something I slapped together.
And then they asked me, Do you, can I buy this thing?
Can I buy the software you're using?
I was like, Oh, okay.
Learning the lesson from the first failure, you know, you know, don't work
four months on something and not be sure and have, you know, idea validation
that people actually want this thing.
Yeah, I pre-sold it.
I actually put, uh, together a landing page.
And I, uh, put up the mockups of the design of the, of the, of what
I thought would be a good solution.
And I told people this would be ready in about, uh, four months
if you wanna put down some money.
Um, I can, I basically created my own Kickstarter and, uh, you know, we
sold out 150 spots in 48 hours and we realized, okay, this is striking a nerve.
People hate their webinar solution to the point where they're willing to put money
down on the promise of something better.
So yeah that kind of gave us validation and gave us some funding to kind of
get going and, uh, the rest is history.
That's fascinating.
So, uh, I'm just gonna oversimplify here.
You, you, you so, cuz so many stories for entrepreneurs come
out of, I was doing this, it was annoying me that I had to do this.
So I came up with a solution where I didn't have to do that,
and lo and behold, somebody else wanted to buy that said solution.
Right.
It's a, it's a real simple sort of story arc, isn't it?
That we, that we read a lot about.
Yeah.
Uh, in entrepreneurs.
So I'm, I'm curious, Right?
I, I just want to go back a little bit and clarify a few things.
So, you are a teacher, right?
You're a high school.
What did you teach, if you don't mind me asking.
Taught English as a second language.
Okay.
You should talk to my wife.
She also has that same qualification.
Loves it.
Teaches refugees and asylum seekers here in the uk.
And just, is her, is her thing incredibly rewarding, as you would call it?
Yeah.
Unbelievable.
So here you are, you, you've got your, um, we call, do you call
it a TEFL, is what we call it.
Yeah.
Actually taught, uh, uh, the, uh, TSOL degree part-time to earn money on
the side and all that kind of stuff.
Brilliant.
There you go.
So you are doing that, but did I, did I hear right?
You are also at the same time doing the a hundred dollars MBA show?
Well, actually, um, from 2002 to 2012, the, the last 10 years of my career as
a teacher I was building, I guess side hustles is what they would call it today.
You know, I would build experiments.
I had smaller businesses, eBay stores, e-commerce stores, um, and I was basically
learning entrepreneurship by doing.
I read a ton of books.
I get my hands on, you know, this is, you know, from 2002 to 2000 and like
I would say, 10, The concept of an online course was not even available.
Like, so I, Yeah.
What I had to, my, at my disposal were, were just the classics books that I
could find on the, in the library or books I could find in a bookstore.
And that, and just through trial and error, I kind of learned,
uh, well business is all about and a PNL and how to, uh, have a
profitable business and marketing and sales and all that kind of stuff.
And then I also learned, uh, what kind of business I want to be in and what
business I don't wanna be in, what kind of entrepreneur I'm gonna be.
Um, and I was fortunate enough to be able to do that while I
was in a job, uh, for 10 years.
Mm-hmm.
But, uh, 2012, that period.
I was doing quite well as a teacher and I was getting promoted and at the
time I was the chair of the department.
I was acting chair actually, because the person who was in that position
went to a different campus and I was doing that person's job for about,
uh, you know, a year and a half.
And I was wondering, Hey, when am I gonna get this promotion and when am I gonna,
you know, be able to be the official chair and get the raise and all that stuff.
So I went to my supervisor, the dean of the university at the time and she
basically just leveled with me and told me, uh, I know that the director
wants to make an outside hire for this position, so I'm sorry, but basically
we've just been stringing you along.
And at that moment, exactly, my frustration just outgrew my fear.
Uh, and I just thought anything is better than this.
I felt so powerless.
I felt like, I don't have control over my destiny.
I put in all this work and time and effort I've given, I've given this institution so
much that I can't take with me, you know?
And uh, I just decided I'm going to, you know, resign and, and, and become
a full-time entrepreneur at that point.
So and was it at this point you started your podcast or was
that a bit further down line.
So why a hundred dollars mba?
What was the reasoning behind the title?
Yeah.
Um, actually while I was kind of in that, in that transition phase, I
was really insecure about being an entrepreneur and starting a business,
even though I've been, I built some smaller businesses on the side.
Uh, so I thought, let me go back to, to school.
Let me get my MBA.
Uh, I went to Wharton Business School, uh, which is great business school, and
I was really thrilled that I was able to attend, and I only did a semester
because in that semester I learned, uh, that uh, you know, everything
they're teaching is kind of outdated.
And, uh, really I was wasting a lot of money.
I could, I could have invested that money into building a business and
failed and still got more out of it.
Mm-hmm, you know.
Um, and the average, uh, you know, Master of Business education, uh, are, uh, is
is about a hundred thousand dollars.
So that's, Uh, a fun spin to it.
I thought I'm gonna sell a course, uh, a community for a hundred dollars and,
uh, teach just enough to get started.
And really, I felt like a lot of people were in my shoes where they just felt
like they needed to do something to feel like they have permission to start.
So I wanted to give them that something.
That's really interesting.
So why podcasting?
I mean, why did you, why did you decide, Well, I'm gonna do something
called the hundred MBA Show.
I get, uh, why you call that now, but why, why the podcast Medium?
Because this is, this is a while ago.
This isn't when podcast was super trendy.
Yeah.
So, It's an interesting story because it's, it's, it's, uh, filled with
failure, because, uh, that's most interesting stories are Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I, um, I went to this conference in Las Vegas at the time.
It's called, it was called Newdia Expo, and it was 2014 January at the time I got
to meet all my heroes in blogging and in podcasting and all that kind of stuff.
And, and YouTube was kind of blowing up at the time.
And, uh, I learned about podcasting and always wanted to do it.
And at the time we were doing video interviews for the hundred dollar
MBA program and at the conference people were telling me, Oh, you
can just rip the audio from the video and there you go, a podcast.
Obviously that's not really the best way to do a podcast cuz that's
not what's built for, it's not built for the the audio experience.
But we did that and we started a podcast called People Who Know Their Shit.
Excuse my French, uh, and we did 46 episodes.
Unfortunately, the podcast was shit.
Um, and we didn't, we didn't really knock it outta the park.
You know, I, I wanted to start a podcast because I wanted to build an audience
of doers, of creators, of coaches, my people, so that I can be able to learn
from them what they're struggling with, and build solutions and help them out.
And that's really why I wanted to have that kind of audience
through the podcasting medium.
And I loved podcasting as a listener cuz I feel like it's a very intimate
relationship with your audience.
But the podcast was just a total flop.
It just really didn't do well.
We really tried.
Our har our hardest was 46 episodes.
We ran it for about six months, and at that time, Nicole and I, um, were,
we did a road trip, uh, to do some freelance work, uh, to New York.
We went, we drove from San Diego to New York, and we had some time with
the open road to just examine like, why are doing so bad, you know,
like, what, what's going on here?
Um, and we realized, you know, the podcast was an interview podcast.
It was, you know, a format that really doesn't lend itself to our strengths.
We realized in that moment, like, We're not really leveraging our strengths.
Like both Nicole and I have great, uh, experience as teachers.
We both have Masters of education.
We should be teaching on this podcast.
Why are we doing interviews?
That's not our strength.
Mm-hmm.
. Uh, on top of that, um, Nicole was a big fan of, uh, the podcast, Coffee
Break Spanish and Coffee Break French, which are language learning podcasts.
Yeah.
That will teach you a language lesson every.
And, uh, we thought no one's really doing this with business, like teaching
a small business lesson and just teaching them something to do today so they
can move forward in their business or their, their life as an entrepreneur.
Uh, and that's kind of how the idea of the a hundred dollar mba, uh, show was born.
Um, and I think the best thing I did before we launched is, and that
kind of cultivated the idea of how we're going to form the show and
how we're going to make it sound and look and all that kind of stuff.
As I really just got honest with myself.
I went to iTunes, uh, our, you know, Apple podcasts, and I looked at the
top 10 business podcasts and I asked myself at the time was like, Tim Ferris
just launched, uh, you know, Jordan Harbinger and the Jordan Harbinger
show, they, they launched their podcast in 2007 before the iPhone.
Right?
How am I gonna compete with these guys?
How am I gonna compete with the Pat Fins of the world?
Or John Lee Dumas, who's like on fire constantly and like, revolutionized
the podcasting world with his program.
Like the dude is like, all he does is win.
Like, I gotta be real.
Yeah.
How am I gonna, uh, differentiate myself?
And I thought to myself, I may not be the best marketer or have the
biggest brand, but I'm, I'm pretty sure I can teach better than all
of them because of my, just my, my experience and my, my skillset.
So that's kind of where I leaned into, where I leaned
into what I can do differently.
Um, and in fact, when we won best of iTunes, you know, Apple told
us, the reason why we won is that we added to the genre of business.
Like we, we offered something a little bit different.
So that was kind of the story.
We launched the podcast in April, uh, in August of 2014.
Um, and uh, we just kept on working on making sure it's a
great show and, and built upon it.
Uh, you know, and that December, that year we won best of iTunes and,
um, we've been trying to grow and, and help our listeners ever since.
So it's been, uh, it's been a great ride.
Fantastic.
Well, well I've got hear a few notes already, Omar, in terms of
stuff that I want to get into.
Um, you talked about, um, validating your ideas, uh, which
I think is quite important thing, um, and validating funding.
You've talked about leaning in stuff that you are good at and
stuff that, uh, makes you different.
There's a whole lot of stuff to get into, so we are gonna be right back
with Omar in just a few seconds.
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Okay, Omar, just before we, um, we were talking about your, your sort
of journey into entrepreneurship, we were talking about the, the
podcast, which I'm a big fan of.
And if you don't actually subscribe to the a hundred dollars MBA
show, do it because it's great.
It's it's bite size content, which is just super practical and helpful.
Um, how, how have you, how have you taken all of these
lessons, um, uh, over the years?
You know, we talked about a few, like validating ideas, leaning
into things that are different.
How have they sort of shaped you into being the entrepreneur that you are now?
That's a good question.
I think that through the ups and downs, through the hard lessons, I start to
realize that, you know, it's what Derek Siver says in his book, Anything You
Want, when you're an entrepreneur, you get to build your own utopia.
There's no one way to do something.
There's no right and wrong way.
You gotta do what's best for you, what's best for the way you wanna live your life.
You know, you don't have to raise money, you don't have to be self-funded.
You don't have, like, there's no one way to do it.
And that's the beauty of business.
So in the beginning, you're, you're always trying to find the answer
and there's no real, the answer.
All it is, is that you gotta figure out what you want and you gotta
build the business around that.
And that's really important because, uh, when you build a business, you're
basically married to your customers for as long as you have this business.
So you better really enjoy these people, enjoy their company,
enjoy what they talk about.
You gotta really love it.
Um, and as long as you do, you, you'll, every day's gonna be exciting.
Every day's gonna be fun, even through the challenges.
I would recommend you do find something like that, because otherwise
it's just not gonna be worth it.
It's gonna be so hard.
You're gonna go through so many challenges.
You're gonna be like, Oh, I'm just gonna, you know, do something else.
So that, that's the biggest lesson I learned is that like, you gotta just
make the decisions that's best for you, um, and, and, and be okay with it, and
be okay with, you know, understanding that there will be trade offs and you're
gonna make the trade offs that are, that are, uh, suitable for your life.
That's super powerful, right?
Because especially in the modern world, with the advent of all the digital
courses that we have and all the online information, uh, it almost becomes like,
I need to copy this person if I want to be deemed successful in my own head.
So if you follow someone I know like Vaynerchuk, you're gonna
approach life like you, you're almost like a Vaynerchuk disciple.
Do you know what I mean, and you kind of feel like that's
the way you have to do it.
Um, and this is where a lot of people sort of fail, isn't it?
Because they're trying to do it in a way that they think somebody
else would do it rather than run their business their life in a way
that actually makes sense for them.
Yeah.
And also if you don't do that, you're just gonna blend in with
everybody else trying to be Gary.
You know, you, you're gonna be vanilla.
Um, and the best way to kind of prevent that is to be okay
with just being who you are.
You know, I was fortunate enough to grow up in the, in America where
both my parents were immigrants, they both came from Egypt.
I was born in the States, but my parents migrated, uh, you
know, in the late sixties.
And growing up as an immigrant, uh, family, uh, you quickly
recognize, Oh, we're different.
Like, you know, it's, it's, it's hard to grow up in an environment
where you look different, you sound different, your parents look different.
You have different culture, different language at home.
Um, and I, I feel like it's been a blessing.
I was, I grew up in that environment because I'm comfortable with
not being like everybody else.
I'm comfortable with being strange.
Um, and being an outsider.
And as an entrepreneur, you are an outsider.
Like if you ever hang out with family or friends that are not an
entrepreneurship, they just think you're weird, you know, strange.
So I feel like I, I grew up that way.
I feel very comfortable that way.
I, I, I, somewhere around 10, I realize I'm a, it's not worth me
trying to make everybody like me.
Because it's just not gonna happen.
Um, so you gotta be comfortable with that.
You just gotta be comfortable with the fact that I'm just gonna be myself.
I'm, I'm not gonna resonate with everybody, which is a good thing.
That means you're gonna resonate very strongly with your people, with
the people that actually, uh, really need to hear what you have to say.
That's really, I've never thought about it like that.
Uh, having immigrant parents, you obviously resonate well
with your tribe, don't you?
Uh, and, uh, bringing that into business I think is, is, uh,
yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Can I ask, um, in the advent of, uh, the, sort of the time that we
find ourselves living in, were you, if you don't mind me asking, was
racism a big issue for you growing?
Um, looking back at it, I probably would label it as people,
maybe I experienced racism, but at the time, I just thought, you
know, that's, that's just the price you gotta pay as an immigrant.
Like, you know, like growing up, my family, you know, my parents
just like work hard, put your head down, do your best, you know, if
somebody says something, you know, or you're not liked or whatever.
Doesn't matter.
We have an opportunity here.
You know, growing up in that environment where your parents sacrificed
so much, they left their family, their friends, their livelihood.
My mom had to do her university degree all over cuz it wasn't Egyptians, the Egyptian
degree wasn't recognized in the States for her to be a registered dietician.
So like the amount of sacrifice they have to go through, you know,
and seeing that as a child, you realize, I really can't complain.
I can't, I can't sit there and make excuses.
I just gotta do what I'm supposed to do and that's it.
So I didn't have time to be a victim.
I didn't have time to think about, Oh, this is not fair and whatever.
But I just got along with it, you know, and just dealt with the fact that maybe
I was disadvantaged, maybe I wasn't.
I don't know.
Looking back at it, yes, probably that was the situation.
But, um, I'm happy that my parents kind of just had the attitude just like,
don't worry, don't even think about that.
Just do your best.
Yeah.
And, uh, the rest will fall into place.
Have you read the book?
David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell?
Yeah.
I love Malcolm Gladwell.
A great book.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And so just as you were talking then, the whole premise of his book wasn't,
it, was the, the idea that, um, people who take disadvantage and turn it
into advantage for themselves, uh, and he covers a lot of people like with
dyslexia who end up disproportionate at large proportion of people who have
dyslexia and end up as entrepreneurs.
And it's interesting how, um, those experiences for you kind of
shaped your your approach to just is, No, we need to be different.
We need, we need to stand out, we need to, and that's okay.
We just get on and do it.
And, and that shaped your entrepreneur sort of life.
Um, This is the eCommerce podcast.
So let's talk about eCommerce a little bit.
I'm just getting carried away at all these, just listening to
your story, it's fascinating.
Have you, um, have you dabbled in the world of eCommerce?
Yeah, I had my own, uh, custom tailored clothing line.
It was called Zenhom Designs.
I had that business for about four years before I gave it up in 2012.
This was early days of 2008, 2012.
This is before even Shopify or even WordPress.
At the time I had a Magento site.
Yeah.
Um, and a lot of people don't realize that you can really, if there's a need in the
market, you can have a mediocre experience and people, because they're so desperate
for what you have, they're willing to go through hoops to buy what you have.
And that, that's the type of business I had had a, the, the, the product
was, uh, men like me, I'm six five.
It's very hard for me to buy dress shirt in a, in a department store.
I can't go to Harrods or Macy's and buy a dress shirt.
I usually have to get a custom tailored or go to a special store,
and it's never really perfect.
So I used to custom tailor my own clothing.
Um, at the time when I was teaching, I was teaching in Dubai and that was very
normal to tailor clothing in, in Dubai.
So I actually was that way that business started, is that I would just wear the
clothes that I would get tailored when I would go back home to the states to
visit my family, my friends and family be like, Oh, that's really nice shirt.
That's a really nice, uh, you know, uh, top you got there,
you know, where'd you get it?
Its like, Oh, I actually made it myself.
And then a couple of my friends would be like, Oh, can you make me one?
I was like, Okay, you lemme get your measurements.
Things like that.
Um, I would ask the tailor, like, what do you, what do you need?
What measurements do you need?
Mm-hmm.
. Um, and then that kind of snowballed to the, their, their friends found
out and they asked me to do it and I realized, oh, this is a lot of work.
Maybe I should start charging for this.
So I started a, a small e-commerce store where literally this was the process,
and this sounds so archaic, but literally people would download a PDF from the
website that would have a cutout, uh, tape measure where they put together
and measure the plate, the things I told 'em to measure, like their neck and
their sleeves and their, you know, the wrist size and all that kind of stuff.
And, Um, they would email me their, you know, the, their measurements and then I
would custom, they would choose from a few colors, and then I would custom tailor it.
I would send it within two weeks, they'd PayPal me the money
and, and that's pretty much it.
That was, that was the first version of it before I actually had a, you know,
inventory and stock and people would, uh, order online and things like that.
So, uh, it was, it was very humble days in the beginning.
That's quite fun though, isn't it?
And I, I, I remember with my own eCommerce journey, the sort of
the humble days in the beginning.
I quite like those, the madness of it all and the just the figuring it out.
Yeah.
And you do look back on it and you kind of go, There's no way that
would work now, but that's okay.
That's okay.
. Yeah.
I quite enjoy the fact that it, it, it kind of did, you know?
And, um, it's just, it's just, it's interesting that simple things like
a PDF download with a tape measure.
Yeah.
Um, That's, that's quite insightful because actually you are going,
there's a problem that they, they, you know, these guys are gonna,
they're not gonna have a take measure that they, you so I'm Oh, exactly.
Really I just, even simple things like that.
I'm surprised how many sites don't do things like that in the modern day.
Do just the simple kind of,
You know, the ingenuity that you need now they have it like down to a science.
They know, like they ask you your t-shirt size and they ask you like
all the different brands that you've bought before and they match you to
the size based on the brand sizing.
And like, it's great, I mean, I, I, I stalked a few custom tailored clothing
lines and one of 'em were sponsors of the show one time called, um, Uh,
they're called, uh, for God right now.
Lost.
I lost, I lost their name in their head.
My head.
But, um, they, um, Proper Cloth.
They're called Proper Cloth and, um, Okay.
And, uh, they're just brilliant.
Like now that they have an amazing experience.
Way better than what I had.
But, um, I really enjoyed e-commerce.
There's something about selling a physical product that's special, seeing it out
in the wild, seeing somebody wear your clothing that you never met before or
something that you've, you've created.
Uh, there's something about the idea of exchanging goods for, for money and then
building that relationship and having them come back and buy more from you.
It's a different animal than software or services or things like that.
And, it, it's, it's interesting because most people go into eCommerce in
early in their entrepreneurial career because that's what they've envisioned
businesses like selling something for money, you know, like
a physical thing for money.
It's the, one of the, the oldest ways to sell, or oldest ways to start a business.
And, and there's something about that that's very, you
know, rewarding in my book.
Yeah.
Yeah, I totally agree.
I totally agree.
So what happened to your, um, E-Commerce store?
To Zenhom Designs?
Yeah, so this is a very interesting story because that experience really taught me.
It's really important to know what business you're getting
into before you start it.
So I started, like I shared my story, why, how I started it, but why did I start it?
It was just an opportunity.
I just saw an opportunity in the market.
I thought, this is cool.
People want this.
Let me try to make a business out of it.
I was, you know, really interested in having a successful business
and that's unfortunately not a good enough reason to start a business,
uh, in, in my opinion at least.
Because, like I said, you're going to be very, very close to these people.
You're going to eat, breathe, live this every single day of your life,
and if you don't love it, you're gonna start resenting the business.
And that's what happened to me.
Um, I realized very quickly my customers were more passionate about my customer.
My customers were more passionate about my products than I was.
You know, they were eager to know what's the next style, what's
the next things coming out?
Oh, you know, let me know what's going on.
And I'm.
I'm not even that hyped up about this.
What, what's going on here?
Um, and it taught me a big lesson about, you know, I really need to serve people
that I'm already a part of that community.
Like, I'm not a fashion person, I'm not a fashion designer.
I'm not somebody who's even like, you know, I put some thought into what I
wear, but I'm not really, uh, you know, uh, cultivating a wardrobe, you know?
But so what happened was really I decided that I wanted to just end the business,
because I had a lot of inventory.
I sold it in in bulk at trade shows.
I was considering selling the business, but it was my own personal brand and
they would need rebranding and they would devalue the whole thing if they
took over and all that kind of stuff.
And I was just at peace with the lesson I learned and I was
at peace with the business.
And what was shocking to me was I was so worried about closing the doors because
I was like, Oh man, people are gonna.
Be upset and my customers are gonna resent me and they're gonna, you know,
I'm really gonna disappoint people.
And that's really why I kept it going for as long as I did.
And when I did close the doors.
Nothing happened.
Everybody was okay and they just went and found another solution
or bought clothes somewhere else.
And I realized, wow, like at the end of the day, people are
just worried about themselves.
They're not really worried about, you're not really thinking about you.
You might as well build a business that serves you and your, your,
your passions and your needs.
Um, so that way you are actually happy in the process.
So that was a big lesson for me.
Now you see, that's fascinating because one of the questions I get asked a lot,
um, by, uh, eCommerce entrepreneurs is, How do I know when, when it's not working?
Right.
Uh, because you do, there's a lot of, uh, uh, instruction
is probably the right word.
There's a lot of instruction out there about resilience, about keep going,
you know, Edison, 10,000 tries and all.
And so there's this belief that if I just keep going, if I just keep going,
eventually breakthrough's gonna come.
And of course you have to, There's a real interesting intention isn't there with
this, um, the persistence versus, versus knowing when actually to call it a day
on whatever it is that you are facing.
So for you, am I understanding this right for you, you, you knew it was time
to call it a day when, um, it should, you just, it wasn't there for you.
There was a passion that just wasn't there for that business.
It wasn't serving you.
Yes.
That, that, that's a good way to put it.
I would also just add for me, I didn't feel like it was my calling.
I didn't feel like I was doing what I was meant to do, or I was
adding unique value to the world.
I know that sounds grandiose, but like I really, I really felt like there were
other people that could do this better.
You know, I don't feel that way now about my business.
I feel like this is what I should be doing.
I'd be doing it anyway.
You know, like, um, yeah.
A lot of people say, you know, you should just keep going.
I, I say choose a business that you just can't stop.
Like, I can't not.
I can't imagine not doing what I do today.
Like I would, I would do it even if I didn't have to, you know, So in
some form, in some, in some fashion.
So that's, that's really how I felt at the time where, you
know, and I still feel that way.
But is that the idea that.
I wanna be able to do something where I feel like when I'm all done
and dusted and I'm, I'm not in this world anymore, I felt like I left
something that really made my mark.
I felt like I've left something that really has something of, of
value to the world, and I didn't feel like that was the thing for me.
And that's okay.
Sometimes you gotta fail.
Sometimes you gotta fall on your face and, and learn through mistakes
and learn through those experiences.
And I wouldn't take it away for a moment because, uh, I learned some amazing
things outside of the failure, like I learned, you know, how to, you know, do my
accounting and how to do my bookkeeping.
I learned, you know, what customers need.
I learned about copy.
I started my blog the first time when I had that e-commerce store and I
was doing, you know, uh, newsletters.
And so there's things you learn along the way, like when you leave a job,
you take skills from that old job.
Same thing with an old business.
So how would you define your business now?
So you, the, you know, you, you've got this business now, which is, is
generating, uh, this sort of life for you.
You know, it's your calling, your sense of purpose, your mission, you
know, all different types of language.
How would you define it?
What, what does it look like?
For me, it, when people ask me, Can you like boil down your bio in one word?
And for me it's, I've always been a teacher and that's what I do now, but I
just do it in the form of my business.
You know, I, I teach on the podcast.
I help people become great teachers through webinars, through our software.
Uh, I teach on the webinars for our members and, and through our sales, uh,
demos and all that kind of stuff, uh, I teach my team when I'm coaching them and
helping them and, and through meetings and are all hands, or through evaluations
who are doing like one-on-ones, you know?
So I just teach in different forms and that's really, that's
been my calling all my life.
I just wanna do it on my own terms.
Um, and I, entrepreneurship was that vehicle for me.
And, um, I'm really grateful for that, that I, I was able to
kind of find that later in life and, and turn that into that.
But for me, um, you know, I, I really wanna empower as many people as
possible to use their area of expertise or knowledge, their experience, even
if it's just a bit of experience.
You know, I always say it's easier to learn something from somebody who's just
a few steps ahead of you than somebody who is, you know, years or decades
ahead of you because, uh, they, they remember how it is to be a beginner.
A lot of people ask me, Hey, I wanna learn how to start a podcast like, I don't even
remember, man, how to start a podcast.
You know, it's been eight years, you know, so the world was different
back then when I started a podcast.
Yeah.
So asked if we started one last year or something, you know?
So, um, and, and I wanna do that through, you know, our, our software
Webinar Ninja through the podcast and just help people take those first
steps and realize maybe I can do this, Maybe I can build something for myself
and, and add value in my own way.
So how would you, um, I, I How would you take then that teacher
within you, and you look at the eCommerce market in general mm-hmm.
. Um, what is missing that you see from that, that you, that you feel like,
guys, listen, eCommerce entrepreneurs wake up there's an opportunity here.
Yeah, and we have, we have a lot of our, uh, members at webinar ninja,
a lot of our users of the software that are in eCommerce and its because
they, they've heeded to my advice.
So I believe eCommerce, uh, there's so much opportunity when it comes
to content marketing, when it comes to trust building, when it comes
to teaching as the new selling.
Uh, there's so many people that come to me and they and, and they say, Oh, I
sell custom uh, I sell organic honey for my honey farm on my e-commerce store,
but I'm not really sure how to sell this thing or use webinars or use a blog.
I was like, Dude, are you kidding me right now?
Are you kidding me?
I should be finding out all the different ways I can use your honey
with your honey cookbook, with your blog posts, with your Live Honey Cook Show.
Like there's so many ways to use content to show people how to use
your product in different ways.
And there's so, and this is so underutilized, so underutilized,
and the bar is so low in e-commerce.
If, if you're e-commerce store today, Uh, had a live video or webinar, had a Q and
A or something once a week showing people how to best utilize your products or
services, uh, whatever you're, you know, even if you have a, um, you know, a varied
store with different products, you can feature one product this week, this week
we're gonna be talking about, you know, um, this product line that's in our store.
Here are some of the great ways that people are using, use clothing.
Here, here are some great, you know, some of our customers, let's
look at the pictures they have on Instagram using our clothing.
This person wore to the prom, this person wore to a wedding, whatever.
There's so many ways to utilize this, and by the way, this is nothing new.
It's called QVC, it's called Home Shopping Network, right?
This has been around forever, but, and now you have the ability to do
that live to, you know, thousands of people from the comfort of
your living room if you wanted to.
And you can share your screen and you can show your products in, in,
in, on the, on the, on the website.
A lot of your customers kind like your products.
They've seen 'em on Instagram, they've seen 'em on the web, maybe
they've seen on the website, but they just need to be walked through.
Hey, this is actually quite simple.
Did you know that if you buy three products to get free shipping,
some people don't know, tell them.
Mm-hmm.
, you know, so, uh, one of the things I, that I did well in the beginning
cuz I came from the blogging world.
When I went, when my e-commerce stores, um, I, uh, actually used like
a VIP club kind of model, so mm-hmm.
, the VIP club model was basically they pay an annual fee and it was like $200
a year and they would get free shipping on all their products, but also, They,
they were a part of a, basically a community of basically super fans of
our products and people would, these people have something in common.
You can get them together on calls.
You can get them together in forms.
You can have them have special content that you ha they have contact with you
or ask you questions or learn more about what's coming next in your, in your store.
Uh, they get exclusive access or early access to your products.
There's so many ways to turn your eCommerce store into
a more than just a store.
It's a community.
It's a movement.
People are just excited about what you have because you're, you're not just
showing them the product, you're showing them how to, how it fits in in their life.
Yeah.
That's really powerful.
Teaching is a new selling.
I like that.
So have you have, you come across the concept live selling, um, which
is the buzzword I hear a lot about now in, in the world of eCommerce.
This in effect being QVC on your own website.
People come to your website, there's a live stream going on, you have a
question, you can interact with people.
Um, it does seem to be a big thing.
Um, so in terms of content marketing, What are some of the easy ways
to get started with that um, for an e-commerce entrepreneur?
People really underutilized blogging.
Blogging is still one of the most powerful ways to get traffic to your
website because of the power of SEO.
Even though we're in the digital age with video and audio, uh, text SEO is still the
most powerful way for people to find you.
When people search, they type on Google, um, for the most part.
So, publishing really great articles on your blog as a e-commerce store, and it's
gonna take some time for you get momentum.
It's, it is gonna take more than two or three blog posts.
I always say put in, put in at least a year of work once a week,
a blog post, so you got 52 posts.
I have blog posts that, um, that served me, that I wrote eight years
ago, you know, that, uh, didn't get traction until six or seven years
after because it just takes some time for things to kind of move on.
Um, and that's not typical results.
You probably can, you know, SEO often is, is the results are quicker.
But the point here is, is that it's evergreen.
You write it once and it serves you for the rest of your life.
Two, people don't just go from, I don't know anything about your
product to I wanna buy it now.
There is a process of education.
There's a process of them envisioning themselves and
their lives with your product.
You know, if you think about buying, if you bought anything, any physical
product in your life, you went through a process before you actually bought it.
You know, even if it's something that you feel like a necessity,
like an, like a, like a, like the iPhone or like a mobile phone, right?
At some point you evaluated your options, you looked at what's out
there, you thought about which even, which model do you want?
Uh, do how much storage do I need?
All these things are things you're Googling and things that you can
show up for in your own products or services in a blog post.
And if you educate them, if you help them, they're gonna be like, Oh,
cool, what else does this site have?
They're gonna look around.
Oh, they have accessories for iPhones.
Cool.
What?
What do they have?
Oh, when I get my iPhone, I'm gonna definitely come back here.
People don't wanna shop around, they wanna just go back to where they know.
Yeah, and this is an incredible way to get started.
So just get consistent with blogging is my my personal opinion because
it's very underutilized in e-commerce.
Uh, as I see, I go to a lot of e-commerce stores cuz I like to shop online.
And their blog is like an afterthought.
It's like there's 12 posts and never really maintained.
And, and, and it's okay to have fun with it, have some personality.
One of the best pieces of advice I have for you is like, find
somebody who's funny on Twitter.
Find a, find a maybe a part-time comedian, somebody just stand up in your community
and get them to write your blog posts, like get them to copyright for you.
They're gonna make your blog fun.
People are gonna wanna read your newsletters and be like, this
is interesting and it's gonna get you some free publicity.
Yeah, it's very, very good.
Very good.
And just finding out the questions that people have and
answering them in your blog post.
Uh, just it's a simple strategy.
We've been, uh, pounding that drum for years and it still works.
It still works super well.
Uh, Omar, listen, I have so enjoyed, uh, conversation.
I feel like I'm just getting started honestly.
I appreciate it's late for you.
And you've been doing podcasts all day, so you're, uh, you getting
towards the end of your day.
Well, how do people connect with you?
How do they reach out to you if they want to do that?
What the best way?
Um, I'm most active on Twitter.
Uh, my handle is theomarzenhom on Twitter, so you can find me there.
Uh, follow me, I'll follow you back.
And, uh, love to help in any way.
You can go ahead and, uh, ask me questions there.
You see, you're most active on Twitter, I find that's fascinating.
Um, I'm, I, I'm not active on Twitter and I really need to
become more active on Twitter.
Ha When you, Are you like on there like, three or four times a day.
How you, how are you managing Twitter?
I'm just curious.
Yeah, no, totally.
So I actually like Twitter the most.
I'm actually not on Facebook or, or, um, I'm on, I have a profile, but
it's not on my phone and I'm, I really don't mm-hmm uh, frequent it a lot.
I'm on Twitter maybe three or four times a day.
And the reason why I like Twitter is because I like conversations
and it's all about conversations.
It's all about helping and answering questions and, and adding a different
perspective on people's conversations.
And it's just easier to, for me to contribute cuz I don't have to,
there's not a lot of production.
You know, with Instagram we gotta pick a photo and filter it and make
it look nice and put a caption.
And if I put a video, I gotta put captions on that.
It's like, I just don't have time for that.
So it's like, okay, it's Twitter, I can jump in, I can answer
questions, I can type things.
Uh, there's a lot of funny things out there and it's all about who you follow
and I, I, um, I highly recommend you just be very vigilant about who you
follow, follow people that you think have good conversations and, and are
followed by people that you like as well.
And that, uh, to me it's, it's the platform that I
like to spend the most time.
Fair play.
Yeah, fair play.
I, I've thought for sure you'd have been an Instagram reels kind of a guy.
I'd have thought you'd have killed it on that.
But you know, nevermind.
So we will put a link to Omar's Twitter bio in the show notes as
well if you want connect with him, he would love to connect with you.
Uh, so Omar, from me to you, I appreciate it man.
Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it.
My pleasure Matt.
So there you have it.
What a fantastic conversation.
Omar's a legend, isn't he?
Absolutely brilliant.
Really, really, really enjoyed that one.
So thanks again Omar, for joining me.
You're a legend.
And also, let me give a big shout out to today's show sponsor eCommerce Cohort.
Uh, do head over to eCommercecohort.com for more information about this new
type of mastermind slash community slash online learning slash all the things
you need to grow your business online.
Yeah, go ahead, learn, join.
We'll see you in there.
Uh, but do subscribe also, uh, wherever you get your podcast from because
we've got some great conversations lined up and I do not want you to miss.
Any of them.
And in case no one has told you today, you my friend are awesome.
Now, the eCommerce podcast is produced by Aurion Media.
You can find our entire episode, uh, our entire episode back catalog.
I, I think that sounds right in my head.
Basically all the episodes we produce, they're online.
Uh, you can find them on your podcast app.
You can also find them on our website, eCommercepodcast.net.
Now the team that makes this show possible is Sadaf Beynon, Josh
Catchpole, Estella Robin and Tim Johnson.
Our theme song is written by me and my son Josh Edmundson.
And if you would like to read the transcript or show notes, head over to
our website, eCommercepodcast.net where you can also sign up for our newsletter.
So that's it for me.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
Have a fantastic week.
I'll see you next time.
Bye for now.