Struggling With Focus & Organization? Let’s Fix It

Welcome to episode 103 of Black Belt Startup with Feras. Thank you for tuning in. What's new in the world of entrepreneurship? If you've been struggling with focus and mindfulness in entrepreneurship, you've probably tried the obvious fixes: more discipline, stricter routines, and better tools. But in many cases, that approach actually makes things worse. Focus isn't just about effort; it's about alignment— how you think, how you process information, and how you direct your attention. And this is especially true for neurodivergent entrepreneurs where traditional approaches to focus often create more friction than clarity. And I've been in this business of entrepreneurship for over 20+ years. If you're new to the channel, welcome, and built several businesses, including an 8-figure one that we sold to global media giant Dentsu. And also as, as a martial artist and as an assistant instructor in Aikido, I've worked with many, many, over 250 entrepreneurs, and then a lot of youth students in Aikido, and I've seen a consistent pattern. Tactical advice alone doesn't solve the focus problem. Mindset does. So in this session, I'll walk you through 6 principles drawn from martial arts, from mindfulness, and cognitive behavioral frameworks that have helped me and then many of the founders that I've worked with, and they help build clarity, consistency, and better execution. And then the goal here, which is more important, is how we apply this to your situation. So as we go through these principles, I have examples, I have questions, I received many questions, and also I'd love to hear from you if you're— what are Whether you're listening or watching live, or if you are joining us later, I'd love to hear from you on what is it that you are going through, the challenges, the difficulties, whether it's mindset related, the topic of today's session, but I also cover a lot of strategic and practical advice on entrepreneurship from marketing to sales, to hiring, to back office, to partnerships. I'd love to hear from you. I'm on a mission to help the next generation of founders get to their destination quicker, faster. This journey is not easy, but my job is to make it easier for you, so sit back, let me know what questions you have, leave me a comment if you are live with us today, or if you're listening or watching later, I'd love to hear from you, and then if it's— I always say this, if it's something a bit personal, something you don't want to put on social media, Because you haven't announced to anyone that you are starting a new business, you can email me. Email me at info@startupwithferas.com. Feras, F-E-R-A-S, like my first name. And I read all the emails I get and I respond to them and I keep it all confidential. All right, so let's get started. And my allergies are acting up, so hopefully, hopefully they won't act up too much during this session. So the first principle, beginner's mind, or As it's known in Japanese, shoshin. And this beginner's mind is the ability to approach situations with openness and curiosity, even when you're experienced. And in business, this shows up in 2 ways: learning new skills outside of your own core expertise. Let's say you're an HR consultant and you know this domain very well, so you might need to learn how to sell, how to market, how to do an audit. You haven't done maybe audits in the past, so you're learning new skills to help you get better, become a better consultant and better business person. So that's one category. The other category, which is more difficult for most people, is that staying open to feedback and learning within your area of expertise. So one is you're learning new things. Okay, we got to learn new things to become better people, better entrepreneurs, better business owners. That's— most people embrace that, but fewer founders from my experience embrace the second one, which is staying open for feedback and learning within the things that we already know. See, as we gain experience, It's very easy to stop listening. You stop listening to your clients, your team members, or even the market itself because you're doing well, especially as you start to do well, you figure things out and you say, you know what? I got to keep doing what I'm doing. So this is, I think, very dangerous because maintaining a beginner's mind helps us adapt, helps us evolve and improve continuously. So I'll give you an example. Let's say you've been running ad campaigns for a couple of years and you're certified with Google and Meta and all that good stuff, and then you have a junior team member. They might come on board and suggest that you test a new creative format and you dismiss it because we've tried everything already in the past and what's working today is what we have implemented today is working well, I don't want to spend time on this new creative format, and then you go to meet your client a month or two down the road and he said, hey, we're not happy, you're not trying these new formats that the junior person suggested to you, and they go with a competitor. So you have— I'm not saying you'd listen from everyone, you listen to everyone and you take advice from everyone, I'm not saying that at all, And I'm not saying that you stop working and, and you're anxious to just— you're second-guessing yourself on everything you do. No, I'm not saying that. But you want to be open to feedback. You want to see how other people are doing this. And in martial arts, I'll give you an example. Um, one of, one of the senseis, one of the senior teachers said, he said black belts Never listen. They stop listening. Like once you get your black belt, you think you know it, you think you've made it, and actually black belt is really the first step to learn, to begin learning in an experiential way and also in a structured way. So, but some folks get their black belt and they think they know it all and they stop listening to senior teachers. So as a consultant, As a new consultant, you want to have this beginner's mind, this shoshin, with 2 areas. One, things that are new to you, and things that within your expertise. And in business, you might know, let's say the client, you might know more than the client. You might know more than your team, especially if you don't have a lot of senior people on your team yet. So should you still listen? And I think the answer is yes, and I think it's important because there's knowledge, there's the application of knowledge, and there's the context within which this knowledge is applied. So you want to be listening carefully and actively. I talk about active listening a lot when it comes to sales because you don't know the situation of the client. You might have this amazing marketing plan that you developed for the client, but they can't do most of it because they don't have the resources. Maybe the person that is in charge of it, they don't— they're afraid of failing, they don't want to try something new, or maybe they're just busy with other things. So if you keep pushing, if you keep pushing for something without listening, without being aware of what the client and the client's issues are, I think you risk, um, you risk losing a lot. So, so the main point here before we move to the second principle is is having this mind, this open-mindedness, this curiosity, this openness in areas we know and in areas we don't know. And I remember the last martial art example in this principle, when one of our senior teachers, when he sees someone executing a technique wrong, they come and nicely correct them. And then if they see— if he sees you do the technique right, he say, good. 5,000 times more, so it's the reps, it's always looking for fine-tuning the way you execute, whether it's your pitch, whether it is the actual service that you delivered, whether it's how you deal with people, especially if there are challenges, people, stuff happens at work with colleagues, with employees, with clients, with partners, so How can I learn from this situation? How can I? I'm great with people, but there are always there are always ways to improve how I manage a specific situation. So openness, open-mindedness, openness, curiosity is principle number one. Number two, relaxed alertness. This is the second principle that will help us. Focus on getting the job at hand done and also not losing sight of the surrounding and what is happening around us. So for example, you are working on a delivery for the client and you have one main point of contact and you're addressing their needs. Now when you went to meet the client after the kickoff meeting and you presented your project plan and you said, here are the milestones and here's what I want to do, there were other stakeholders in the meeting, especially if it's a bigger company, you'll have someone from IT, someone from sales, from marketing, from product depending. So you want to be focused on the main point of contact on the VP or the person who's signing the contract, of course they're your client, but you also want to have that alertness Around relaxed alertness with everything that's going on in that meeting. Understand who seems to have the, the say, the word, who seems to be— they need a lot of attention. People have priorities. People can't— if your business, if your service requires another department to support you and maybe IT has to certify some software you're installing, you have to get IT on board to understand why you're doing this, so being aware of those around you in a kickoff meeting, when you start to work with the clients is really important. I know we lost a pitch one time, it was a 6-figure client, this is later after we've I think we've, yeah, we were 8 figures by that time. And I was actually on site with my sales director, and we had a technical person. And then we had a VP who had been communicating with my salesperson, and they liked us. They loved what we're doing. They knew that we were technically solid. We were doing analytics at the time. So in that meeting, we gave all of our attention to this person because he's the one who's been working with us. There are 2 other people in the meeting, seem to be junior. Not— it was inadvertent, so we did not ignore them. We asked a couple of questions. We obviously got to introduce— got to be introduced to them and their functions. One of them was in charge of usability. really nothing as related to what we were implementing for the client, but this person, we learned later, they felt that we ignored them. We really didn't, but we did not give them as much attention as we should have and could have, so they voted against us as a vendor and we lost that deal. So, and in the thick of it, in the thick, you know, the heat of the moment, you're focused, VP is there and he's asking all the questions and you're addressing them and he's on board with you, but pause and read the room. See who else is there who has an influence on this decision and make sure their needs are addressed. And if they're quiet, you can have probing questions. You can, as a consultant, do you know how your service would impact Their function, so you can be proactive and prepare, and I have a whole video on that we're working on now on delivery and how to deal with these situations, but before you go to a kickoff meeting or before you go to a sales meeting, if you're pitching in person, make sure you understand who's going to be in that meeting in terms of roles, functions, and then you should do your own research to see how your service is going to impact the function of this individual, of all the individuals attending. This way you can be proactive about addressing their concerns. So now, long story here, but the idea is that— this relaxed alertness in self-defense, in martial arts, if you're attacked by 2 or 3 people, you don't want to just focus on one individual and try to pin them down or immobilize them because the 2 others, if you have 3 attacking you, you can't put 100% of your attention on just one. You have to also be aware of the whole situation including the 2 attackers that are coming after you as well. So in Aikido, one way we do it is potentially you can have this one person that you're dealing with between you and the other 2 that will delay before you run away, call the police, or deal with them. But having— you can't just be 100% focused in the deep end of a task or a project and ignoring the context. And another way this shows up in business is that there's a shift between— you want to be shifting between detail, like your craft, your service, your expertise, and then context, which is the market demand, the needs of the client, the business strategy, regulatory changes. Could be something external, a war could be breaking out. So, so if you're about to launch a service and and some new regulations that will prevent you from delivering the service. I remember that happened to us back when data privacy in 2016, '17, '18, around that time, it was a big deal in Europe. It was starting to be adopted here in the US. The way you deal with data was about to be regulated and the way you collect information, so you have to be aware not just of your craft and your service and what you're doing, but also that context that is happening around you with the market, with the regulations, and then obviously with the client needs. So that's the second principle. Moving on to the third, and I have some questions here actually on this one. When should I zoom out and rethink my direction? So, I mean, in terms of zooming out, Again, it's a balance, and some of this will come with practice. It's like a catch-22. You can't— you have to do it to learn it. You can't learn it if you don't do it. So, so you don't want to be shifting strategy, shifting focus like every day, every week, right? Um, but at the end of every phase of a project At the end of the quarter, at the end of the month, you sit down and just evaluate what happened, the good things that— things that went well, things that did not go as well, and evaluate all of that and then reposition your approach. If you're going out there and pitching and you're not getting any leads, analyze that. Is it that I'm going to the wrong places? These are not where my qualified leads are, or it's potentially something with my pitch. Maybe I am— I have this 3-minute pitch where I confuse the client. I overwhelm the lead with all the information, trying to wow them with everything I know. So evaluate things as they happen, whether it's something internal with your team, whether it's something with the market, with the clients, but have time at the end of the week. I used to do this. religiously, Friday afternoons typically are quiet, so sit down, okay, what are we doing next week? What have we done this past week? What do I want to focus on, right? And then if we have a Monday meeting with the team, I would bring up these issues and then get feedback from the team, and then we implement. So you can't be just too focused on what you're doing, but on a periodic basis, You want to be learning, and then over time, especially for those of you who are new to sales, I know you have things memorized initially, like here's how I will pitch, here are the questions that I will be answering, here are the typical rejections that I'll be getting, and here's how I would respond to them. I know that you— I— that's what I did. I memorized this, and then when you go out and speak with people, like, you'll come across a bit rigid or stiff. That's, that's just part of the training. Over time, just like in martial arts or any art, When you're— whether you're— it's flower arrangement or it's painting or whatever, or it's playing music, initially you're going to be stiff, you're going to be rigid. Over time, with the reps, with practice, with learning from others, you'll become more fluent, you'll become more natural at it, it'll be more of a second nature. So that just requires reps. So don't worry about it if it feels that you're rigid or stiff, you just got to do more of those reps. All right, the 3rd principle, fancy word for it is successive approximation or learn as you go, okay? So basically a lot of people I speak with, and I speak with 2 to 3 founders every week, they delay taking steps because they feel a need to have a complete plan. So I'm not going to register my business because I don't have a full business plan. I'm not going to go to a networking event because I haven't registered my business. I'm not going to develop a website because I'm not sure what is it that I'll be offering. So here too, there's a balance between under-planning and over-planning, and learn as you go, or the successive approximation, is about Taking steps without having 100% clarity, without having everything documented and planned out. Because even if you have everything documented and planned out, you'll have issues. Things will come up that you did not expect. Just the nature, nature of business, nature of life. So if you want to get one thing out of today's session, it's this: iterate and iterate on the go and learn on the go. So You have to have a pitch. And in my video on the ultimate guide to starting a consulting business, that's been very well received by the community, I'll show it to you after the call at the end of the session. I talk about how to develop a pitch, how to reach out to your warm network, how to, how to get better at it, how to identify your offer, your service. So, so I'm all for planning But at the same time, I don't want you to develop, to sit down at your desk or with your business partner and develop a 50-page business plan and then go out and try to sell something. You don't need to do that. You should not be doing that. I'm all for planning. So put your— as you're vetting your idea, as you're talking to potential clients, as you're documenting your skills, hard skills, soft skills, you're identifying in your network who can help you with this new venture. As you're doing that, try it out. Find people that are likely to buy from you and just go and network with them. Now that takes time, that takes a bit of courage if you haven't done it before. I get it, I get it. I had to learn that. I had to learn that from the ground up. I had zero background in sales. when I started my very first business after that very painful layoff. So in here, what I want you to do is plan. Yes, don't overplan. Now, what is planning? What's underplanning? What's overplanning? Again, you develop, you develop a, a muscle, muscle for that over time. But progress— the most important thing here is that progress happens through action, not perfection. So I don't want you to be in this delaying execution by overplanning or being reactive because you've done zero planning. I want you to be iterating and building momentum. And I have, I have a video on, on vetting your business idea. And you start, you start, you might have 3 or 4 or 5 business ideas. That's okay initially. Talk to other people. I have this 10+5 rule. Talk to 10 potential buyers and research 5 potential competitors. That exercise will give you a whole lot more clarity than anything you can do in front of the computer with the amazing power of AI. Use AI 100%, but it's not a substitute for you to talk to people. I'm a big proponent of founders going out there and overcoming the fear and the concern and the doubt of me talking about my business and selling my services because it's an No, no, it's— you're not a, you're not a sleazy salesperson. You are a problem solver. As a consultant, that's what you do. You solve problems. So when you're going out there talking to people, you're not begging for charity. You are adding value. You're helping them sleep better at night because you've solved their IT issue or their HR issue, or you've helped them with their employee retention or client retention, or you've helped them automate their workflow with AI, or whatever it is that you do, you are solving a problem that people will— that will benefit people's bottom line, and, and that in turn, they compensate you. So think about it that way. So, so don't wait too long before you go out and pitch or, or network or build that website or update your LinkedIn profile. Plan, iterate on that plan, and then execute, get feedback from that execution, and then improve what you have done. All right? Now, a couple of questions that I have. What if I put something out there and it's not good enough? What if I put something out there that's not good enough? Okay, I won't answer this. I'll let Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, answered. He says, if you're not ashamed of the first pro— if you're not ashamed of the product that you just launched, you've launched too late. So you got to put this stuff out. If you're waiting for this product or the service or this packaging or this pricing to be perfect, especially for a consulting business, especially for someone new, You just have— there's so many things to learn. There's so many things to, to— you'll get feedback on from the market, from the clients, from, from your team members, right? From your contractors. So, so launch. Just go out there. And maybe you won't make a whole lot of money on that first service that you, you deliver. That's okay, because part of that first client or second client or third client you're also still figuring things out on how to deliver that service. You're still figuring out how to put a thorough proposal, a proposal that addresses the concerns of the clients and also protect— proposal that protects you as well. So with these initial few clients, it's okay if you don't make a whole lot of money. I want you to make a lot of money, trust me, but initially it's okay if you do a project for a nonprofit and you understand how to pitch, how to sell, how to write a proposal, proposal, how to negotiate. All of that, all of these are muscles you're building as you are growing that business. So don't worry too much about the service is not good enough, or the pricing is not good enough, or I haven't done this before. Yes, if you are a consultant, you have 3, 4, 5, 10, 15+ years of experience in something And that's what you're selling. That's what you're solving problem with. It's the years of experience. Now, for those of you, if you happen to come across this session and you don't have any experience, then you're not ready to be a consultant, despite what people tell you on YouTube that you can make a lot of money overnight. No, it doesn't work that way. So develop a skill. If you're— especially if you're on the younger, uh, younger age bracket, see what you're good at. Whatever your teachers, your parents, your friends praise you for. You might be a very good listener, you might be someone who people come to when they have issues. These are important soft skills, right? But also, if you love— if you're in AI and you're very process-oriented, maybe you can start learning some of these AI tools in a specific sector and get a free demo and get a free account and play with it, and then do a couple of, couple of projects for some nonprofits, and then you have something now under your belt that you can go out and sell with. So ideally, before you start a consulting business, you have an area of expertise. That's the technical part of it. Of course you have to learn about, about business, about entrepreneurship, about the entrepreneurial mindset, about sales and marketing, all that good stuff. Yes, of course you have to learn about that, but you don't want to start a consulting business if you don't have the skills yet, right? But you can develop skills if you are, um, if you're really intent on starting your own business, especially if you have some, some young graduates. I, I spoke at a couple universities here last, last couple of months, and I know some of the young folks, it's a challenging environment now. There are a lot of talent, there are a lot of senior talent out there, a lot of layoffs. So these junior folks, people who are just graduating they don't have a long resume of experience, that's okay, but how can you differentiate? People still need to hire junior people, companies still need to hire junior people, but how can you differentiate? How do you differentiate? How do you show on your resume that you've got some certificates, that you have done some, you've interned, that you have been dabbling with like 10 AI tools, and you figure out a way to make it all work well for a specific segment of for a specific vertical. So that will help you differentiate, that will help you stand out when you're applying, when you're talking to people. It is a tough job market. I remember when I was laid off in 2003, I couldn't land an interview 6, 7 weeks into it, and I was active like the next day after I mourned for 2 days and took me a couple days to recover from the layoff. I was working on my resume, sending that out, but it was a very, very, very dry market at the time. So, so for those of you who are just— if you're a student or if you know someone in your network who's, or in your family who's a student, it is tough out there, but you bring in, you know, you're AI native in a way. You've been using it for the last couple years. You understand the demographics, you have a lot of energy, you have a lot of ambition, and people, when they hire fresh graduates, they're looking for people with reliability, hard work, those sort of things, because no one is going to— this is the misconception with a lot of the graduates, like, I don't have experience. Of course, dude, you don't have experience. Yeah, why would you? I mean, you might have interned, And you have some experience, that's great, that's a plus, that's a plus plus, it's one of the number one predictors of getting a job if you've interned, so, but how do you stand out from the other 100 people who are applying for this job, right? You know the space, you've researched the company, you've gone out of your way to show that you care, that you want it, you respond, you send a thank you email after your interview with everyone who interviewed you, You show that you care. So that will make you stand out. All right, that's a subject for another topic. That's a subject for another session, but since these questions come up a lot, especially with what's going on with AI and the new job demands, so I thought I'd touch on it. Principle number 4, staying organized. So staying organized is about helping you focus. So focus requires some structure. So if you have no systems or if your systems are disorganized, then your mental energy gets consumed by tracking tasks instead of executing them, and I'm not talking about expensive software and tools and platforms. No, you can start very simple. You can start with a Google Sheet if you're still in that vetting phase, you're still vetting the idea, you don't want to spend any money on business, Start with a Google Sheet, but have a tab for research, a tab for talking to potential clients, a tab for researching competitors, have a system. And these days you can get like Asana or Notion or a bunch of these. I don't have any association with these, great software in my mind. So get one of those, maybe something you've used in college, you know, and start organizing your tasks, okay? That's really important. Not, not unposted, not on— just put it all in one place and use that at the end of every day, at the end of the week. Make sure you keep this updated with the priority for the next day, the priority for the next week. Now, as you are getting more traction, let's say you are now out there talking to leads, you're out there networking. So this is what a lot of people miss. People collect business cards or they connect on LinkedIn And they never follow up. I did an experiment. I went to 10 or 15 last year, 10 networking events, local, and I was there telling people, you know, sharing with people what I do and learning what they do. And I made, I made a point, I made it a point to send an email thanking everybody I met. That's just how I, that's how I learned sales way back then. I mean, out of maybe 100 or so people that I've connected in these events, less than 10% initiated an email or, hey, glad, you know, it was great meeting you, or, hey, you said this and I can help you with that. So if you're out there meeting people and that you're not— and you're not organizing your leads, then you will be missing out many, many opportunities. And I want to share with you— let me share with you this sheet I have. You don't have to buy a CRM yet if you're just— eventually you need— every company needs a CRM at one point. But let me show you this initially. Give me one sec. Yes, you should be able to see it now. Here you go. This— I have this DIY CRM. I'll put a link to it in the description. But basically I want you to track in this first tab here, so it's leads. You put the name of the person, first name, last name, company, email, phone number, healthcare, whatever industry they're in. And then how did you meet this person? They come to your website, they came to your website, you met them at an event, you were knocking on doors like I did when I, when I started that very business, the very first business. I was knocking on doors and getting all sorts of rejections. And then over time, are they qualified or not qualified? And what is the next step? And then you keep sort of like, okay, here's what happened on this day. I did this. And then in a month from now, I'm going to do more follow-ups. I'm going to send them a case study, whatever. You can customize this the way you want, no problem whatsoever. But the idea here is to track this, the number, the track, the interactions you're having with people, whether it's an email you're sending, or an in-person meeting, or you're calling someone, I want you to see this is one way to show that you are serious about your business, that you're expanding the spreadsheet vertically and horizontally. Vertically, I mean, you're adding more people, you're talking to more people, and that's the number one KPI, the number one key performance indicator for new businesses. How many conversations are you having a week? How many sales conversations are you having every week? So I want you to Add rows to this, meaning you're having conversations. And I also— you should have progress, like this person is qualified, I'm going to follow up. This one is not. This one said follow up with me in, in a month, whatever. Add that information to the spreadsheet. This way you track it. Again, this is something that you can get for free. Just make a copy of it. I'll have the link in the description, but Over time, over time, you would need, you would need, let me go back here to my screen. Over time, you would need to invest in a CRM and you can go with Salesforce for small businesses, Pipedrive, you can go with HubSpot, a lot of great CRMs out there. So we talked about a task management system, a mechanism to track leads and sales opportunities, and last but not least, have templates, have worksheets, have things that you can use the first time and then tweak and use the second time around. So if you have a proposal, if you send your first proposal, that's your first template based on the feedback you got from the client. And maybe after you've seen other proposals, if you research, you've researched with Claude, other ideas came to mind, you can go and improve that template, but always build these templates, whether it's a proposal, it's a contract, it is a sales sales deck, a pitch deck, when you hire people, how you onboard them, everything you do in the business that, that has a, a naturally you'll, you'll be repeating those tasks, you want to start building templates. It all can be done with Google Docs and with, with spreadsheets or Excel and Word. So nothing fancy, that's at a minimum. And then every time you have a project, every time you use this template, one more time, go back and improve it based on this next experience. Because at the end of the day, without structure, it's not just— it's not a focus issue. It becomes a burnout issue. And knowing, trust me, knowing how to avoid burnout as an entrepreneur starts with how you manage your attention and also your systems. Okay? So So do I really need a CRM? That's a question I get all the time. Not right away. I, I would say if you have like 50 to 100 qualified leads, around that time you want to invest in probably the least expensive subscription option of a CRM and get into the habit of building these sales processes— how you follow up, how you always add value in your follow-ups, how you leave reminders for yourself to Not forget to follow up. That, that all of that is really important. Sales, there's a lot of— there's, there's some art to sales and you become better at it with time, but also there's a lot of science, a lot of things. If you do, you will— if you follow up consistently and you add value and you remember what people ask you to, to do for them and, and you tell them I'll send you a case study in 3 days and you do it in 3 days, you are leaving a positive impression on the client because they know now, okay, this person is— he said he's gonna do something and then he or she, they did it on time. That's— you're building trust, you're establishing trust, you're growing that bond between you and the client. All right. And so far my allergies have been under control. I'm happy. All right. Principle number 5, stay empathetic. All right, so this is very practical. In Aikido, I'll give you an example in martial arts. In Aikido, the goal is not to overpower the opponent, it's to redirect the energy. So if someone's coming at you straight, typically we move out of the way and help them roll that way or potentially Move on the inside or on the outside. There are different ways to do it, but the idea is not to match force with force, is to redirect the energy. So the, the definition of Aikido is Aikido, the way to harmonize energy, right? So, so that's, that's part of the teaching of Aikido, and other arts have the same principles, and these same principles apply in business as well. So instead of approaching a client with a very transactional mindset or with an adversarial mindset. As an effective consultant, you should understand why the client is behaving that way. So understanding client motivations is important, then aligning with their goals. What is it that they want to accomplish? And then use that alignment to get to the outcomes that they want and you want. You want to get to their outcomes because that's when they pay you, when you're done work, right? When you finish the work for them. So when— and this happens a lot in client service, in customer service— client is not happy, you've done something for them. I'll give you an example from, let's say, let's say you're a marketer and you've done some work for this client, you've developed a marketing plan, let's say last quarter. They come to you now and they say, hey, Jeff, we want a new marketing plan. The one that you delivered last quarter isn't working. Well, you can take that at face value and you can get angry, you can get defensive, you can push back and start defending your work. Hey, I spent 50 hours on this. I only charged you for 20 hours. I did all this research. I helped this other client. They're now making millions of dollars. You can do all of that. But before you escalate the conversation, it's better to pause and ask, ask a few clarifying questions, understand what's going on. So ask the client, why now? Why did you just— you were happy when I delivered this marketing plan last quarter, so why now? What, what, what's new? Uh, what's not working today? And in your mind, what is success? Because they might have some unreasonable measure of success. And then when you are having these discussions and these conversations with the client, you realize that the real issue isn't the plan, it's that the initiatives that you documented in last quarter's plan, they were not implemented or not fully implemented. And then As you dig deeper, you notice that the client didn't have the capacity or skills to execute on what you told them they should do, and maybe they're embarrassed in front of their own boss to say like, we don't know how to do this. So if you understand why people are surfacing these issues, these concerns, and again, this happens a lot in customer service, then instead of becoming defensive or reacting reactively creating a new set of initiatives and spending time and money, and you have to give discounts or do the work at no charge. Instead of that, you want to help the client think through how to, how to get to these outcomes. And in the example I mentioned earlier, again, it wasn't about a marketing plan, it was about implementing what you have already recommended. Okay, so this happens with customers This happens with your team at work. This happens at home. I've been married for a long time. Trust me, I know a little bit about, a thing or two about relationships. So understanding, pausing, and understanding why people are saying things. You can say they're a jerk, they're mean, they're unreasonable. You can say all of that, but then that doesn't help us get to the outcomes. Again, their outcome is to get the stuff done. Your outcome is you want to get paid for what you've done, and you want to have a customer who will sing your praises, a customer who will— who would refer clients to you, a customer who would be a reference for you. Like, that's— there are a lot, a lot of, a lot of outcomes here that you want to have, especially early on. This could be detrimental if you have 2, 3 clients and they're all unhappy. Like, you're creating a lot of negative energy about around your new business. So you want to bend over backward to make the clients happy, especially initially. Over time, you learn ways to control the scope of work or to make— be very clear about what they're expecting, what is it that they're doing, what is it that you're doing. You can protect your margins in many different ways and I have an ultimate guide on writing winning proposals that I cover all of it. I'll show you that before we end this session, but initially the principle here is staying empathetic and asking questions With a sincere attention that you want to understand what's going on. It could be hard at times, it could be difficult, they catch you in a bad moment, another customer is unhappy, an employee just left, a contractor did not deliver, but it is your obligation to dig a little bit deeper before you react, okay? So that is number 6. The last one here, empowerment. So hi, we have Manish saying, is this AI? What do you mean by this? This is me here, real. What do you mean? What do you mean AI? So, um, well, thank you for joining and thank you for asking a question, but it is me, it's not AI. Um, I use AI, proudly use AI, but it's me, real. All right, so the last principle here is on empowerment. And in martial arts, at its core, martial arts and good business are about empowerment. In a consulting context, you're helping solve a problem, but it is not— it's not a one-size-fits-all. The way you empower clients, the way you help clients takes different shapes depending on what the client is buying. And depending on what they're expecting from that engagement and broadly, and we can, I think I have a full, yeah, I do have a full livestream on this concept here that I'm about to mention. You have, you as a service provider, you can have a DIY, do-it-yourself type of offer. You can have done with you, so DWY, you are providing strategy, And then they do the work, or it could be done for you. You, after you capture the client's requirements, you go and do everything on their behalf. So, so DIY, you provide templates, you provide documents, you provide tools, client does the work on their own. Um, the done with you, DWI, DWI, sorry, um, you're coaching, you're, you're providing a strategy, you're showing the map and the client has to do the hustle, they have to do the work, and then the third one typically is done for you where you're actually doing full execution, so once you capture the client's requirement, you provide high-quality delivery plus sharing all your thinking, all the trade-offs, all the key decisions, so in these 3 models of delivering a service, DIY, do-it-yourself, DWI, done with you, or DFY, done for you, the empowerment, the level of empowerment is different. So be aware, depending, depending, I'll give you, I'll walk you through some example. So in a DIY, do-it-yourself model, you might provide the roadmap and the templates and the guidance. So the client, you're done, your delivery is done, you've empowered them with that. But on the other side, on the other hand, on the other end of the spectrum, if you are in charge, let's say you sell lead generation, so your job is you will generate leads for the client. You can't give them a list of emails, say, I reach out to these people. That's different. That's— but if you are doing it for them, so you understand the client's service, who they target, geography, market, that good stuff. And then you produce the list of potential people you want to reach out to, and then you execute on, on reaching out to these potential buyers. And then you, you do the initial vetting, and then you pass on the qualified leads to the client. So, so again, empowerment is going to be different depending on what, what you're selling, depending on how you're packaging your offer— DIY, DWI, or DFY. All right, and if you need more details on these 3 models, I do have a full livestream on those models. I will include a note in the description with a link to that livestream so you can refer to it later. So those were the 6 principles, starting with the beginner's mind, that curiosity and openness, and then ending with being empathetic and also empowerment. So it's really now in your park, so you identify where you're over-focusing, over-planning, over-focusing, details versus strategy, you want to learn on the go, you want to adapt anything that is, if you don't have any systems, you don't have any processes, you don't have any templates, you don't have any tasks, management software, you want to adapt a system, some processes, and then apply them, and you do want to take action before you feel you're fully ready. This is really important as an entrepreneur. You're never 100% sure, you're never 100% ready, so taking action before you feel fully ready is really important, and then if you are having these adversarial type conversations with being empathetic with that principle. Keep in mind that you want to shift these conversations from dominating and overpowering to understanding and then responding properly. So that is it, uh, for today. I, I do want to show you a couple things on the channel that I mentioned. Let me go here. Oh, I thought I had it open. So if you go to the video section here, a couple of things I mentioned. Uh, yep, this is the Ultimate Guide to Starting a Consulting Business, um, then very, very well received by the community. It's a 51-minute video. I go over every step that you need to do and the, and the how-to and the templates and the worksheets. So check it out if you're, um, if you're struggling with proposals. I also have this Ultimate Guide Again, these are not things you listen over 5 minutes. No, you're building a solid business. You want to take that business to 6 figures, 7 figures, maybe 8 figures in the future. So I'm giving you these roadmaps. This is an hour and 4-minute video on how to deliver a winning proposal. So check that out and check out the channel in general. And if you are liking this content and you're finding it useful, um, I appreciate it if you subscribe to the channel @StartupWithFeras, like the video, and send me a comment, send me a question, send me— share with me a win that you're having. I love to hear that. I love to help with challenges and issues that you're facing, but also I want to hear the wins that you are having. I want to know about how you're solving these difficult problems. See you next time.