Solving Common & Unique Business Challenges

Hello, hello! Welcome to today's episode of Black Belt Startup with Feras. Thank you for tuning in. What's new in the world of entrepreneurship? Have you ever tossed out a quick thought online, then suddenly find yourself drowning in comments? Well, 2 weeks ago, I casually posted on Reddit asking people if they had questions about entrepreneurship. And boom, 300+ questions came pouring in. And I get it. People are having a lot of issues, a lot of challenges in their businesses. Some were stuck on things like balancing their time while trying to scale. Others were hunting down these elusive high-paying clients. Others were trying to figure out retention, how to keep clients and get more, more business out of them. And And other— while others were boosting, trying to boost their stubbornly low conversion rates. And as I researched and prepared more for today's episode, I was reminded of some eye-opening stats. Roughly 90% of startups fail, and about 10% don't even make it past year 1. 50% of businesses survive— don't survive beyond 5 years. And then in terms of scaling, just 22% of the new businesses that were launched in this past decade have successfully scaled. Now I know those stats can sound intimidating— 90% fail, 50% won't see their 5th birthday, and only 22% scale successfully. So it is tough out there, but the good news is that And these 300+ questions and the 20+ hours I spent answering them revealed something incredible, at least I think so. Each of those challenges that founders and business owners shared, these challenges, they have clear actionable solutions. And through my own personal experience and working with other other entrepreneurs and founders, I've either navigated these waters or I've seen other founders navigate these waters, and I've seen the processes, the systems, the mindsets that, that is— that, that are required to build and, and, and grow and scale. And potentially in the future, you know, if you want to sell that bit— that the business and reach, you know, 7 figures or even 8 figures. As in our experience. So I'm going to walk you through exactly how I'd do it. I would do it again. But before we do that, I want you to grab your notes and stay plugged in because the specific examples that I will be answering or the specific questions I'll be answering might not be in your vertical, in your sector, in your journey of your business, but I put a lot of thoughts behind these answers, so I'm pretty sure you're you'll get a gem or two, uh, from, from listening to the issue, to the issues that other founders and other business owners are, um, are facing. And before we dive in, a couple of housekeeping items. One, if you have a comment, if you have a question, I'd love to hear from you, whether you are watching or listening live now or tuning in later. Leave us a comment on whichever platform you're on— Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, X. YouTube or LinkedIn. Let me know what the struggles that— the struggles you're going through, the questions that you have. If you are having some wins, small or big, I'd love to hear from you, and I'd be more than happy to help you overcome any of the challenges that you are going through. Just leave us a comment. If it's something a bit more specific and personal, you can email me at feras@startupwithferas.com, and I'll get back to you, and we don't share any of this confidence— confidential information with others. 2, and it's a reminder that we go live with these episodes every Thursday at 3 PM Pacific, 1 PM, uh, sorry, 6 PM Eastern. So make sure you follow us on any of the channels so that you don't miss out on the content that we share, that I share with our community here. And I always, I cover a business topic and then I answer questions that come from the community. And today it's all answering your questions. So, so let's jump back, let's jump back into it and see how life went down on Reddit a couple weeks ago. So we'll go with, uh, question number 1. Let's see, and I'm, I'm gonna have those questions on the screen for those of you watching, and then also I'll read them off so those who are listening can benefit as well. So question number 1 from I own an accounting firm and we've only been at it for 2 months, but I'm juggling a full-time job and obviously this, this side hustle. How can I maximize the limited time I have to find leads? So it's not an uncommon scenario. People are trying to make more money, establish a business. They started as a side hustle and time is Limited. So when time is limited, you want to maximize the way you find leads, you want to maximize the way you deliver. So, so spot-on question here. I would say in terms of finding leads, most people, most people, me included, we underutilize our network. So we spend— we might spend a lot of time and money on paid ads, we might start to do maybe some cold calling, cold emailing, These programs work, but initially I think leveraging your network, your friends, your colleagues, your ex-colleagues, your high school friends, your roommates, ex-roommates, whatever the case might be, your network that you have online on places like LinkedIn and also offline, as I said, with these different categories, and let everyone know what you do and what problem you solve. That is really, really important. And if people in this network of yours are not ready to buy, or maybe they're not in your target audience, they will be your ambassadors to your potential clients because with your network, there's a trust that has been built. So people know you, people know that you're reliable, that you are trustworthy, that you are good at what you do, and they'll be more than happy to help you and help you grow and get leads your way. So reaching out to your network, I think your very close network, maybe again, go back on LinkedIn and you can download all of this actually on LinkedIn and sort out this in a spreadsheet. Like here's people who are really close to me and I can maybe send them a specific message. Those I've worked with maybe 10 years ago. So maybe warm it up a little bit, see how they're doing, see if you can get them on a call, get an update from them and see if you can help them out. Always reciprocate, and then they might be able to help you out. So I would say start with your network. That's, I think, something that a lot of founders underutilize. And then the second thing is you have to make sure you define very, very well, define your target audience. So your target audience, basically marketing, jargon here, people who are going to likely to buy from you or people who are in need of your service, people who are potential clients. So know where your clients are. That's really important. Know who they are and then know where they live and then go, go fish where the fish are. So with limited amount of time, you don't have a lot of bandwidth maybe to explore different things. So really have a good understanding of where your clients, potential clients are, and then you want to be there. And we have actually, we're dropping a video on this in the next couple of days on finding, identifying your target audience, finding them, and specific step-by-step guide how to find and engage your clients. And then one more thing in terms of maximizing your time, your efforts to get leads, you can also do some pre-qualification. So for example, you can have a form on your website, maybe just a Just a straightforward, easy Google Form, maybe like a Calendly form that you can have where you can ask a few questions. You can potentially, um, and then you get, you get those questions ahead of time and then you can see if they're qualified or not. So these are some ideas on maximizing the limited time that you have. But I am very happy that you are, you have taken the leap and you started something on the side. Um, this is your, your accounting firm. My other recommendation is Don't think of the side hustle as a long-term side hustle. At one point, you got to invest time into it to make it your full hustle. It's hard to be really good at what you do and make a lot of money and grow in your full-time job, and at the same time, grow and scale a side hustle. Something has to give. Initially, it's okay, but don't make side hustling a long-term strategy. It just won't work. And that's a pretty strong opinion I have. I share with people on side hustling in general. It's okay to do it in certain circumstances, and yours is one of those exceptions where you are building something, and hopefully you can get enough revenue where you can leave your full-time job and then step in and focus on your accounting firm. And we do have actually a video. We did a livestream on developing your financial runway so that you can make that, you know, send that resignation letter that you're eager to send when you're ready. financially, and, and you've, you've got some traction under your belt. Excellent question, and hope this is helpful. Again, for those of you who are just joining with— joining us today, we are answering questions from this viral post that I put on Reddit. We had 300+ questions, so we selected a few that we're covering today. And, and please, uh, let us know in whichever platform you're on, let us know if you have any specific question. I will take on live questions today. I'm not just going through, um, I'm just going through the ones that I, I posted on, on Reddit, but I'm also taking live questions. So feel free to, to, uh, send us what you have. Good. The second question here is from our friend FlatAlternative286. He, he asked something I can totally, totally relate to. He said, I'm in web design and in marketing, only free after 6 PM So there looks like they also have a full-time job. Uh, I spent $9,000 on Facebook ads, got some return, got some, uh, half back in client retainers. So any tips on lead generation with limited time? So go back to what I just earlier— I answered the first question earlier on, on, on finding leads, finding your audience, find where the fish are and fish there, and leverage your network. And in terms of other things you can do, I think Facebook and Google Ads and now Reddit Ads, Amazon Ads, they work. These companies make a lot of money from ads because ads work. But if you don't invest the time to learn yourself how to set up your ads properly, to make sure the ads are targeted, to make sure the ad copy is compelling— if you have a short video or maybe a design, make sure this is all professional. Make sure your landing page— when someone clicks on the ad, they go to a landing page— make sure those landing pages are professional, they load up quickly. So make sure that you're optimizing your Facebook and Google Ads. So this way, potentially, you could spend half, half the money and get the same results. So that's— and optimizing Facebook and Google Ads is an ongoing process. And my recommendation to founders on things like that. Either learn it, learn ads, learn paid ads, and, and do it yourself, or maybe someone on your team. Or if you, if you don't know how and you don't have the bandwidth and you have some budget, hire an agency that has a track record in your, in your field and also for companies your size, and pay them that retainer to, to manage the ad campaigns for you. It's really, really easy to go create an ad in Google and Facebook and others, they make it really easy for you to post an ad because they start making money right away, but it is on you to make sure that the ad campaign is set up properly. So it's okay to spend money on ads, especially if it's getting you some retainer, and you said, you know, it got you $9K in retainers. Are you upselling? Are you cross-selling to the clients that you already have? Because you might've already made more than the $9K with maybe some upselling and cross-selling and maybe— ongoing services. So, so again, listen, go back and listen to the first question on what I, what I just answered about leads, um, and then leverage your network and make sure your ads are, are fully optimized. Great. Moving on to the next question. This is from Coach K Lady Smith. I only have one recurring monthly client. You have a client, that's great. Standing out feels tough. How can I secure more leads without a crazy high CPA, cost per acquisition? So I don't have as much details here, you know, from you, so I'll make some assumptions, but you have one recurring client, so you have some revenue. You're not standing out, so it might be a crowded— whether it's in a local market, like in one area, or maybe online, it's just a crowded space that you're in. It's tough to stand out. So how can you stand out? Um, can you get more certifications in what you offer? Can you win an award in, in, in, in your— maybe from your industry association? Can you produce some thought leadership content on your website, maybe on LinkedIn? Can you speak at a conference? Can you Post regularly on any, pick one platform that you know well and you're active on. So I think we can stand out in a market by doing any of these things. Now you might not be, if you're small, you're just starting and you have a competitor who has 20 times the resources and the people, you can't really compete with them, but maybe you're not going after the same clients. Maybe you go after smaller clients and you give them more personal attention. So then you compete and you stand out on your strengths. So for example, maybe everyone delivers your service, every other competitor delivers your service, the service that you offer and that they offer in 2 weeks. Can you deliver it in a week? You stand out on delivery. Or maybe you can be a bit less expensive, or maybe you can offer high quality. So, so identify your strength, you, and if you have a team, your team strength, and compete on that. Stand out on that and do one of the things I mentioned earlier— the, the awards, the test— the testimonials, of course, case studies, uh, things that, that will, that will highlight how great you are, uh, you know, as a, as a business owner and what you have done, the results that you have generated. For your clients. And then, you know, what I always emphasize— networking. Only great things come out of networking. So make sure you're out there, you're meeting people, you know, one-on-one, and you're establishing that credibility and that trust. And, you know, you can learn about— we have a lot of, a lot of content on our YouTube channel, also on our website at startupwithferus.com, on how to do networking. If you're the type of person who is not an extrovert and you have trouble, you know, pitching your services, that's okay. Try it out. Go to the local Chamber of Commerce event, that monthly event, or if you're in a smaller town, they don't have a Chamber of Commerce, maybe there's some sort of online thing that you can attend, like a meetup. But it's a muscle being out there and pitching your services and listening to what people need in terms of the solutions that you offer, the problems that people have, and the solutions that you offer, it's a skill. No one was born with it. Some of us may be more comfortable being out there in a crowd, but most of us, 70% of founders, they come to entrepreneurship without any sales and marketing background, so it's okay if you feel uncomfortable, you're not sure that you're good in these marketing events, in these networking events, go out there and do it. and practice. And just, it's a conversation, right? And you'll struggle the first time, you'll struggle the second time. It gets easier over time. And you can see how others are doing it and learn from them as well. Good, good, good. So, um, and then you have a question about the CPA, the cost per acquisition. So if you're running ads, it sounds like you are, then— or maybe you're spending money on, on other marketing initiatives— see how you can optimize those campaigns. Maybe if you're doing— if you're exhibiting somewhere, maybe you can negotiate how much you're paying. Or if you're running an ad in a magazine, maybe you can try different offers, see which one is doing better for you in terms of responsiveness from the readers. So a lot of it in marketing, you have to try and then optimize on the go. No one guarantees sort of a specific ROI. A lot of times you have to do something and then tweak it as you go. All right. Hope this is helpful. Moving on to the next question. This is from Wallet Inspector 2. I, I run a SaaS alone making over $2,000 a month. Congratulations on, on the revenue that you have. I'm struggling to find freelancers, barely doing marketing, and hesitant about raising prices. So a lot of questions here in this one question, but, um, it's a— these are solid concerns. So I get it, you know, running solo could be very, very intimidating, could be very, very overwhelming. So I would say in terms of finding good freelancers, I mean, there's a lot of platforms out there today, whether it's Upwork or Fiverr, or if you want something more like on the consulting side, like maybe GLG. You should be able to find almost any other, you know, any talent that you're looking for. But if you're not, you're saying you're not, maybe if you can't find one person who can do like a bunch of things, maybe you can divide the job description into maybe 2 things. If you're looking for like a technical project manager, someone who can maybe do some light technical work and they're good in project management, if you can't find that, that talent maybe split this into 2 roles. Maybe not, it's not as efficient, there's a bit more overhead, but that could help you in terms of the resources you're looking for. Now in terms of hesitant about raising prices, I hear you. So unless you're already pricing very high, unless you're like sort of doing premium pricing and you're like charging as high as anyone else is, unless you're in that category, I always tell clients, I always tell entrepreneurs, like, what's the worst-case scenario? Let's say, let's go to one extreme. If you're pricing today at X and you double your pricing, and let's say you lose half the clients, you are still making the same amount of money without actually having to put all the time that's required to deliver the service for 2 times, you know, the number of clients. So if you're charging $100, go to $200. And there's, there's an, there's an art and a science to this. Uh, you don't just surprise people. You can have maybe— you can grandfather some pricing for the first 3 months. You can announce the new pricing for new clients only. There's— and I think we have, we have a live stream on pricing. We have actually also a pricing course, uh, that you can get on blackmailstartup.com. Uh, so, so, so In terms of pricing, I know everyone is hesitant on raising, on raising their prices, but you can, you can do it gradually as well. You can change your pricing model. If you're doing hourly, maybe you can do project-based. If you're doing project-based, maybe you can do higher hourly. You can do value-based pricing. You can do tiered pricing. So, so again, check out— we have, we have a full article on our website on pricing, and we also have a course on blackbeltstartup.com a mini course actually you can finish in, in an hour that covers all pricing models, and you can maybe pick and choose the ones that would work for you best. Good. Moving on to the next question. This is from, uh, I'm a licensed civil engineer looking to quit my corporate job and scale up my own firm. What would you advise? I'm happy that you are thinking of taking the leap. The next thing is to actually take the leap. And I mentioned earlier, we have a couple— we did a couple of live streams, um, on, on, on building your financial runway and the steps you want to take in terms of preparing for taking the leap financially and also otherwise. And, um, check those out. And we have, I think, an hour each, so a lot of details there. And we have some templates that can help you. But for now, sort of a quick answer, um, you're a licensed civil engineer, so, uh, make sure that the service you'll be offering has people— there are people who are looking for that service. So if you're already part of a big company and the big company gets these big contracts, you want to be able to— when you go on your own, I'm assuming you already have the licenses that you need. So just double-check first, double-check that you have the required licenses and any regulatory things you have to keep in mind. But I would start with defining the target audience. Who— what service do I have and who will benefit from that service? What problems would I solve? I was working with an entrepreneur who is, I believe he was an architect or a civil engineer, who is really good at one software that is used in when they're constructing buildings. There's some sort of 3D mapping that is required. And he's really, really fluent in this one software and he knows exactly what he wants to do. So he is actually in a similar boat. He's leaving. his firm and he wants to start his own business and he wants to offer this service to, to his previous employer and also to other engineering firms because it is a, a specialty that, that is typically hired for and it is required that everyone, everyone uses in his field. So, so I think find, identify what you want to offer. You know, selling to everyone and selling everything will get you no sales and no one is going to buy from you. So the more you define your own service and then the people who are likely to buy your service. I think that is what we call vetting the idea, vetting the business idea. That's part of your business planning process. I think that is— that's where you want to spend a lot of time. And then unless you have some— let's say you do the vetting process and everything checks off and you're ready to make that move, it's really up to you based on your financial situation. If you've saved a lot of money and you have a nice runway, maybe you can give your resignation tomorrow and then go put 10, 12, 14 hours a day to build that business. But if your financial situation is not as, um, I guess, as comfortable, or you don't have that long of a runway, I would say do everything you can ahead of leaving, ahead of resigning. You can, you can start your LLC, you can, or S corp, you know, your legal entity. You can, if you have a business partner, you can work on the business The partnership agreement. You can do a lot of the market research way before you leave. You can start potentially pitching. You can maybe have a side project again and have some revenue. You can do all of that ahead of leaving your current job. So if you— but that's obviously, there's always a sacrifice. There's always— hard work is always required here to start and grow and scale to 7 and 8 figures. So you can do everything I said if you can spend time in the evenings and then on the weekends, but if you have other obligations and you can't do that, then maybe this is not the time to take the leap. So to summarize, vet the idea, know exactly what you want to offer, know exactly the audience you want to go after, and then to the extent that you can, start building that business before you take the leap And then as you get revenue, you can then take that leap and be more confident. And the whole financial risk situation is, you know, you're in a better position because you have some revenue coming in, you know, now that your full-time job has ended and the benefits and the money that was coming in is no more. So do 90, 60 million Americans have a business idea. Only 9% of them actually act on this thought, on this idea, and start a business. So be from those 9%. Do your planning, do your vetting, do your homework, and then— no one guarantees success, but if you do all the above, you are significantly increasing your likelihood of succeeding, so go out and do it and let me know how it goes, and if you're stuck in building the business, I'd be more than happy to help. Cool, and we do have actually on blackbeltstartup.com, we do have a free course and we have a paid course talking about all of this stuff, so check out the free course, you can sign up, it's 12 modules, you can finish those in 1 hour, And I'll give you a lot of, a lot of tips on, on getting, getting started with the business. All right, moving on, uh, to the next question from Flying Uruguayan. Uh, I hope I did not mess it up here. I own a golf head cover company with online sales of $500 to $1K a month. All right, so good, you have some revenue. Always a good sign. My conversion rates are low. Any advice? So conversion rates, basically, for those of us new to e-commerce, we bring traffic to the website, 100 visitors to the website, 2 people buy. That's at 2%, 2 divided by 100, right? If you increase your conversion rate to 10%, then 10 of the 100 buy. So there are a lot of factors that contribute to improving your conversion rate. One would be making sure you're getting quality traffic. So, so it's one thing to— I got, I got a million visits, nobody, no one bought. Well, maybe it's, I don't know, it's bot traffic. Maybe it's, it's just people who are not interested in what you're selling. So, so you're ranking for the wrong keywords. So, so I would say make sure you— there are 2 things I would say at a very, very high level. Um, and we do— we used to do a lot of digital marketing in, in, in, in a couple of the businesses that we've had. You want to make sure that traffic is targeted, it's qualified, and I talked about it earlier answering one of those questions. Basically, the keywords and the ad copy, you know, the offer, all those have to be compelling and you're targeting the right audience. If you sell only in the US and you have your campaign running US and Canada, you're wasting money on traffic from Canada, for example, and I've done that. Ask me how I know. I've done all of those mistakes before. Also, the landing page. When people come to your website, if the site loads slowly, people are not going to buy. If you don't have compelling images, if the copy, the text on the landing page is not that engaging, you know, so there's these technical aspects of online marketing, including the landing page, including targeting your campaign. Are really important. And of course, there's the bigger question about what you offer and how competitive it is. If you're double the price of everyone else, nobody's going to buy, right? So I would examine the technical aspects of the campaign and the landing page, and I would look at it at the macro level more on is my product competitive? Can I differentiate? Can you offer something? Maybe you can offer installation. You know, you can do something to differentiate, but I would say, I would say, um, you know, focus on the technical aspect of getting traffic and see if you can get some, um, some, you know, free traffic. Maybe you can write about this stuff. Maybe you can go and speak about this stuff. Maybe you can go and network and let people know about what you do. So, so if you have a— if you don't have a lot of traffic, it's hard to effectively measure and improve the conversion rate because you don't have a lot of data to base assumptions on. So, so you want to make sure you also get enough traffic. So when you're doing analysis of your conversion rate, it's based on, on what's called statistically significant amount of data. So, so keep that in mind as you are optimizing, you know, for your business. Good stuff. Next question is, uh, from, um, here, let me Make sure it's on the screen. It's from Daniel Kim 18, running— who's running a consulting business. He says, or maybe she, depending, I guess, who's behind the name, um, I'm a $10K monthly recurring revenue. They sell consulting. Thinking about doubling prices and onboarding help. Advice on scaling. So I like the idea of doubling prices. I'm always in favor of examining where you are with pricing and not competing on being the lowest pricing unless that's just your business model. Um, I would say, you know, $10K a month is solid. $10K of monthly recurring revenue is, is very solid. So, so nothing, nothing too shabby there. Um, I would say, I mean, you want to bring some— you want to onboard some help, you want to double your pricing. So you're, you're, you're growth-minded, you know, you have a growth mindset that I like that as well. I would say examine, examine what, what the going rates are in your industry, because if you're already at the high end of, of the rates, uh, you're— the way you're pricing hourly or project-based or, or whichever pricing model you're using, I would say maybe doubling the pricing is not, not the right move. But if you're not there, if you're like, if you're half— if you're pricing— if your prices are at $125 and everyone else is charging $250 an hour, there's no issue whatsoever in doubling your prices. Even as I say, I always say, even if you lose, when you double your prices, if you lose half the clients, you still get the same amount of money, but now you have a whole lot more time on your hand. So examine where you are, I think, compared to others, and then see if you can also, as you double your pricing, you know, do it gradually let people know, grandfather some, some old clients of yours so, so you don't have any surprises. And then, and then potentially, uh, you can, you can maybe have a tiered pricing approach. Maybe you have a standard or you have bronze, gold, platinum, and differentiate that way. And clients can feel that they're making the decision, not, not— you're not imposing your pricing on them. If you want this package, stay here at $125 an hour. If you want this level of service and we have senior people working with you, it's going to be $250. So, so, so again, check out— we have an article on this on startupwithferaz.com on pricing. We have, we have a course on it. I think we have also a live stream on it. So check out blackbeltstartup.com for the ultimate guide of pricing and, and see if that will be of help to you. Good, good. Moving on to the next question, and we covered this already on screen. So let's go to the next question from Altruistic Market 858. For a— this is— and they have— let me make sure. Yeah, we need to move the one on the screen to the next question. We already answered this one here. So this is from a cleaning business, starting a cleaning Business, starting a cleaning company. What's better for scaling, W-2 with or without benefits or 1099 contractors? So again, for those of you new to business, W-2 typically full-time employees and you offer them benefits, insurance, 401 plans, you know, PTO, you know, time off, all that good stuff. Or you hire contractors, you pay them hourly or a fixed amount on a monthly basis. You know, they're responsible for their own taxes. And contractors typically don't get the benefits that employees get. So, I mean, in terms of scaling, like W-2, full-time employees with benefits or without benefits or contractors, like that's not the first thing that comes to mind. I mean, from an employment perspective, 1099s, contractors are faster, Faster to hire. There are no long-term commitments. So yeah, maybe it was easier to do that, but from a scaling perspective, I think that the core services that you have as a business owner, you know, things that are core to your business and things that are strategic, you want to build the expertise in-house. You want people, you know, your processes, your systems, your SOPs, all of that, it has to be there for you to scale. So it's hard to do that with contractors, especially if they're coming in and coming out. And there's some, you know, talk to your attorney or your accountant. There are certain constraints on 1099s. So make sure you're in compliance. But I would say to scale, you know, you can potentially have core, if like, let's say there's seasonality or you're not sure that you're ready to hire. So potentially you see an opportunity to double your revenue over the next, let's say, 6 months. So maybe you hire, and let's say you need 3 people to help you scale, so maybe you hire 1 person full-time and make that long-term commitment, and then you bring on contractors as the business improves, and then as the business stabilizes at the next level, then maybe you bring one of those contractors into a full-time employee, and so forth. So I would say you can use a hybrid model, maybe a full-time employee for the core businesses, uh, for the core services, and then contractors for things that fluctuate. That could help with, you know, with getting the right talent at the right time that you need it, so you're not— you don't have a whole lot of overhead. So I would say there are pluses and minuses to— to— I shouldn't say pluses and minuses, they're just, uh, different ways to, to look at 1099s and W-2s. And, and we have actually in one of our course modules, we talk about this in detail, uh, but, but I would say from a scaling look at the the opportunity, look at what, you know, the processes, the systems that you want to build in-house, and these 8 players that you want to have on your team to help you scale. So hope, hope this addresses, uh, that question. Okay, moving on. And we're getting to— I think we have 1 or 2 more questions. And again, if we— those of you who are listening or watching live, leave us a comment if you have specific question, or if you are listening to this later on whichever platform you're on, leave us a question, leave us a comment, uh, or let us know that this is— this amazing content is helping you with your business. Let us know what you think about this content, uh, what I'm sharing with you here, and I'll be more than happy to address, um, your comment. Or thank you if you have a— if you have a nice comment for us, or if you have any feedback, let me know. I'd love to— would love to— you know, love to improve. Always, always, always. So Question here from Soul Chocolate. I supply chocolate to restaurants, right? Also to bakeries, but struggle convincing them to switch from cheaper mass-produced chocolate to, you know, to your amazing chocolate. Any ideas? Well, I love chocolate, milk chocolate to be exact, so they don't know what they're missing. I think it's important to— you want to clearly, obviously clearly differentiate your chocolate. I don't know about the packaging or whatever, but that's more of a product discussion. But I think, are you targeting the right places? So potentially, I'm big on— I always talk about vetting the idea, vetting your audience, knowing your target audience. But you might want to look for places that appreciate premium quality chocolate, right? So find customer segments, maybe local and regional, you know, hospitality events when they have, you know, networking opportunities. If you have maybe a big employer, a large employer in your town, in your city, and they have their annual conference or they have their employee appreciation day or they want to give Christmas gifts or what, or thank you cards, whatever, maybe you can be a provider to them and they're looking for something that is, that is, you know, of, you know, premium quality. That could be one way to do it. So I would say make sure you're targeting the right people, whether it's business-to-consumer or business-to-business, people who appreciate and are looking for the level of quality that your product has. So these have been great questions, um, and, and I hope, I hope, uh, they're helpful. Again, there are a lot, a lot, a lot of commonality, uh, like when it comes to lead generation, when it comes to pricing. So, so if, um, even if you are in a different industry or a different sector, different business phase, you know, in your journey, um, a lot of these, these comments are still applicable. And if they're not, again, let me know. I'd be more than happy to answer them. So, you know, and we struggle, we all struggle. You know, it took me, it took me, a lot of these questions took me right back to when I launched my very first business. Kind of feels like yesterday, 20 years now, 20-plus years. But, you know, I made countless mistakes. I, you know, if I could hop in a time machine and advise myself, I'd tell my younger me to prioritize these 5 things that I want you to think about in your business. One is, and you know, this is again me reading these 300+ questions and answering most of them, you know, answering them, you know, there are some common, I think, threads, and these 5 things I'm recommending here would hopefully help you, especially for those of us who are early on in our journey or we're struggling. So one is Automate early. Like, I think anything you do today that you're doing manually or that's not very efficient can, especially with AI and the tools out there, you have to— AI is not just a buzzword anymore. Find ways for you to maybe optimize your lead follow-up, automate the lead follow-up sequence that you have. Find ways for you to, like using Calendly, right, to set up meetings with people, qualify people with a form. So any way you can automate what you're doing, things that are mundane, repeatable, that are, you know, that you just, they feel like a chore to you, see if you can automate them, automate early. So, and you're building systems. So when it comes time to sell the business in the future and you have the more SOPs, the more systems, the more processes you have, the more valuable the company will be. So automating and having that mindset of always looking for ways to be more efficient, I think will serve you really well over time. The second thing about niching down and niching down clearly, I think you want to be known for a specific solution. Generalists blend in, specialists get paid. I, I'm not saying there's no space for generalists. There is. Um, I think at least my experience, the successes we've had by specializing— we used to do web design and web development and online marketing. And as we started to niche down to, to online marketing, and then as we niched further to analytics for midsize and later for Fortune 1000, Fortune 500, I mean, we are— the whole business model changed. Our revenue numbers skyrocketed. Our margin margins improved significantly. So niching down helped us. You can niche down with kind of the type of services you offer. You can down within a specific sector. A lot of ideas. There's a great book called Niching Up. I read it last year. Not a very easy read, great book. Check it out if you are thinking or struggling with niching down, or just ask us. I'll be more than happy to answer your question. Number 3 is master your pricing. This was a common thread as well. So change, you know, you're charging for value, not just for time. So, so, so, um, if you're just competing on pricing It's not a sustainable strategy unless this is your business model. You're very efficient and you can just compete on price and still have a nice margin, then that's fine. But for the rest of us, I think competing on prices only is not a good formula for success and for scale. We talked about building systems and structuring your business so that it could thrive without you. I think that's another good reminder. And the last point here is that in any way possible you can create some sort of repeatable, predictable revenue, be all over this. Even if you're— the type of service that you offer, maybe the product is sort of a one-off, can you find things around maintenance, about training, about ongoing support, about upkeep? Find ways to create some sort of revenue, recurring revenues. Find ways to find a recurring revenue stream. that will help you in so many different ways. You'll have some stability, you can project better, you can predict— project and predict better for your business, your hiring, your expenses, your margins. So look for ways to improve, increase your recurring revenue, and that will serve you well in so many different ways. So that's it. That's it for today. Again, thank you so much for joining. us here and submitting their questions, those of you on Reddit. And then for those of you who are listening or watching to us, keep sending those questions. We answer them as they come. And I'd love, I'd love to hear from you regardless. And if you are liking what you are hearing, follow us, click the like button, go on our YouTube channel @StartupWithFeras, Feras spelled F-E-R-A-S, and subscribe, like this content, share it with others. We'd appreciate it. And don't forget that we have a training and coaching program at Black Belt Startup with Feras. It's blackbeltstartup.com. It's a complete curriculum from A to Z on how to start a business, how to grow a business, covering all the pillars of a business from sales to marketing to hiring to business planning to, um, to every, every other aspect. And it is— this whole program is built on timeless principles, time-tested principles in both martial arts the background I have, and then also in business, 20+ years in entrepreneurship. And we do have special offers for those of you who follow us on this podcast, on this episode, so you can get 20% off all things Black Belt Startup. So we have 3 products. We have an entrepreneurship foundations curriculum, 60+ modules. It's at $99. You get 20% off with this code here, BBSU20. We also have the full training and coaching membership with access to me via office hours. That's $499 a month, and you can get 20% off with this BBSU20. And then we also— the recently announced pricing mini course for $29, you can also get 20% off using this BBSU20 promo code. So again, hope you found this, um, make use of these, uh, these resources. And we have the free course, of course, and happy to answer any, any questions that come our way. And I think that's it for today, and, and see you next time.