Turning 2025’s Setbacks Into 2026 Momentum

We are live. Welcome to today's episode of Black Belt Startup with Feras. Thank you for tuning in. So what's new in the world of entrepreneurship? Rejection is redirection. A couple weeks ago, I attended an event for Biz World. Was their annual luncheon where you meet entrepreneurs of all ages, and I mean all ages, very young entrepreneurs. And 3 different speakers at that event said this rejection is redirection, uh, quote. And it's not the very first time I've heard it. I've heard it many times before, but it's different when you live it, when you speak with an entrepreneur and you see how they deal with rejection. And it so happened that there was this young girl, I don't know, 10 or 11-year-old girl, and she was selling bracelets. That was part of the program. They gave us fake money and we're supposed to be buying things and negotiating and helping these entrepreneurs learn how to sell and how to market and how to present themselves. So she was selling bracelets and I said, how much is this bracelet? She said, $5. I said, hey, I'll only give you $3, and she did not hesitate. She just looked me in the eyes. She was this young. She looked at me and said, no, $5. I worked hard to make it. So I laughed, gave her the money, and moved on, but that point when a founder, a young founder, looked someone, an adult, in the eyes and said, in the eye and said, no, this is high quality, I worked hard to make this bracelet. It reminded me of so many of us adults who don't know how to face rejection. Sometimes we freeze, sometimes we hesitate, sometimes we don't show confidence, and then clients, leads, suppliers, vendors don't take us seriously or end up not buying from us, and then we also struggle with that rejection. So what I want to cover today is how we deal with rejection. I have 3 Rs to deal with rejections, and then I want to share with you some examples that you are likely facing as, as an entrepreneur. I speak with, with on the average with 2 to 3 entrepreneurs every week, and I hear all kind of stories, challenges, setbacks. I also hear some wins. I love to hear your wins as well, and there are patterns. And what I want to cover today is how we as adults and as founders, how we deal with rejection. Do we take it personal? Do we focus too much on what people are saying? Do we ignore it totally, or do we do something with it? And that's what I want to cover today so that we can start the next phase, where it could be The— hold on, make sure the tech is working fine. Yep, tech is working out. We make sure the next period, next month, next year, uh, whatever, whatever you're planning now, and, and if you're planning, and the monthly planning, and the quarter planning, make sure that you reflect on what has happened and you collect all the nos, all the rejections that you have received, and what is it that you can and should do with those. So Keep that in mind. And before we jump into today's episode, a couple of administrative items. If you have a question, if you have a challenge, if you are stuck, don't hesitate to reach out. I dedicate a number of hours every week to help those who are struggling, no charge. It's all helping out. So many people helped me along the way, and that's my way of paying it forward. So You can reach out to me on any of the platforms you're on, on LinkedIn, on anything on social media, on YouTube, you can comment. If it's something very maybe personal, and you don't feel like you want to share it with the world, you're still working in corporate, and you're thinking of taking the leap, and you don't want to share that publicly, feel free to email me at feras@startupwithferas.com. I read all the emails that that I get, and I keep all that confidential. So if you have a question or you feel you're stuck, or if you're just struggling with what to do next and you've been getting a lot of rejections recently, don't hesitate to reach out, and I will make sure I'll get back to you. And also, if it's some, some of the, those common questions, I typically answer those questions on, on these, on these, on these live streams. So, so hesitate— don't hesitate to reach out. at all. And Yasser with us here live, thank you so much for joining us. So if you have any question, um, business related, or if you are in a nonprofit and you've been stuck at raising money or finding talent or growing your nonprofit and supporting your cause, the same principle, the same organizational and business principles apply. So reach out, I'll be more than happy to answer. So that is on the logistical side of things. And, um, yeah, don't forget to, again, if you like this content, subscribe to the channel, follow me. And then I have a weekly newsletter. I send it every Saturday with strategies and tips to help you get your— get started as a new consultant, or if you've started already and you're struggling with marketing, with marketing, with sales, with back office, with hiring, Let me know. You'll find a lot of tips, a lot of strategies, a lot of practical practical things you can do right away to help you get unstuck. All right, so that is the introduction. Now, if you are joining this is the first time again, my name is Ferris. Love love to hear from you. But today we're talking about rejection is a redirection, and the three Rs I talked I mentioned earlier. The first one is. Rejection reveals. So what do I mean by that? When someone says no to us, and today I'm talking about, this is in the context of business. Of course, the rejection in personal lives and relationships, that's not what I'm covering today. That's a topic for a different time. But rejection reveals in the sense that it exposes weaknesses. Weaknesses in our offer, in our positioning, in our maybe pricing, in people did not respond well to a proposal that you have sent. Maybe the proposal wasn't put together professionally. Maybe you way overpriced. Maybe you did not include a case study that is relevant to your client. So when there's a rejection, in a proposal or in a message or you put an ad, you run an ad campaign on Meta or on Facebook Ads or on Google and you're not getting any leads, so these are all nos that we're facing, so they expose weaknesses and the right way to look at it is definitely not to take any of this stuff personal. It is— think of rejection— it's hard, it's easier said than done, but think of rejection as feedback. Think of rejection as information. Think of it as direction. I'm not saying that everyone who is criticizing you and everybody who's putting you down or someone who's mean to you, they're right and you listen to that. No, but in the context of business, especially for the new consultants where you are learning new business owners, you are learning a lot. You're learning, you know, you know your subject matter really, really well, but you don't know a whole lot about sales and marketing and back office and hiring and leading people and working with partners and suppliers and delivering projects. So, you know, there's a lot to learn beyond your subject matter expertise. And that's part of entrepreneurship. So when you're getting nos, assess Take that as signal, take that as feedback and see what you can improve for the next time, for the next pitch. And I'll give you an example. When we started in our very first business, we used to sell, we developed websites, simple, very simple websites. That was cutting edge back in 2003. And then we start to get into designing very, very elaborate, very elegant websites. And I wasn't able to close. I was probably pitching 20 times to close a deal, and I would go and meet with a client, and I would share with them, you know, how great we are, and we have all these clients, and it never occurred to me till I learned this from someone, a peer, someone in our industry who shared with me a tip that they use, and he said, I was sending a proposal, a whole lot of text, not showing examples. I would go and look at their website and show them issues with their current website, with the client's website, but I wasn't showing them something that they can emotionally connect with. So this friend of mine said, why don't you download a template from— there are a lot of templates for websites at the time, and now we still have those— and show them something. This is not the final design that you'll be making for them and selling to them, but show them examples of their current site and what a professional-looking website could be. And we started to print these designs. These are templates that we did not design. These are available, but But we would print those on color paper, and it was expensive at the time, but it was worth it. And then when I went, when I started to use this feedback, this tip that I had from, that I got from a peer, from a friend of mine, and I go to this, I remember going to this attorney's office. He's a very serious person. So when I, and he was yes, no, just yes, no answers. But when I showed him their current website and I pointed out some issues, said, okay, all websites have this, and then I showed him him a design, a professionally made design, and how it's more user-friendly and how it's aesthetically appealing. I mean, he was super engaged. He started to drool. He wanted to improve his website, and he signed the deal with us at the time. So, so all those rejections, it took a tip from a friend of mine to realize that it wasn't the pricing, it wasn't me or my business or what we were selling, it was the way I was presenting my proposal or I was educating the customer about best practices in web design, and assessing the feedback I had gotten by that time and then acting on improving the way I'm proposing to customers led us to a much better response rate and win rate. We were closing, I think, 1 out of 4 proposals from that point on. It was, it worked. It was like magic. So, so again, if you are getting a lot of nos when you are starting out, let me tell you, that is okay. Actually, I'm happy that you're getting nos because that means you're doing something. A lot of consultants or a lot of people, 62% of Americans want to be their own bosses. They want to— they want to be their— this is according to Gallup— they want to be business owners, they want to be entrepreneurs, they want to— they want to be the CEO, but only 9% act on this data, act on these ideas, and start their own businesses. So if you are one of those who want to be their own bosses and you want to act on that idea that you have and build the business, I'm going to tell you that you will get a lot of rejections. And at the same time, I'm telling you in the same breath that this is, this is what you need to learn and build the sales and the marketing muscle. So, so if you're not getting rejections and you're not getting any clients, that means you're not out there pitching and doing things to get clients. So, so when you, you, if you're telling me you're getting a lot of nos, In a way, it's a good sign because that means— that tells me that you are doing something, that you are engaged with potential leads. And now that you are engaged with potential leads and you, you broke that wall of fear and, and telling the world and telling strangers that, that you are a business owner and you have something of value for them, that you've done that, now you're getting the nos. So start assessing Why is it that people are rejecting you? And then you can ask, like in the proposal perspective, you can ask people, don't be afraid of asking leads who said no to your proposal, have a follow-up call or an email and tell them like, out of curiosity to improve our processes, can you, would you please let me know what you didn't like about our proposal? You're not going to get a response. every time. You're not going to get— you might get some sugar-coated answers every once in a while, but a few of these people will tell you exactly why they did not choose you, and that would be the feedback. So you turn that rejection into feedback so that you can improve your offer, your pitch, your proposal for the next time around. So that is on the first R of rejection, is rejection of rejections. Rejection reveals. Now let us Move to the second R, and that is rejection refines. So it— rejection revealed the issue. Now we want to clarify our focus and our target. What is it that we're going after? So you go and start to pitch clients, and you're just not connecting with them. Maybe it's a niche. It could be that it's a niche or a sector, a vertical that you're just not familiar with, and maybe in some cases, I see founders are— they're very broad, they're very vanilla in their pitch, so when you're approaching someone, you have something to offer, whatever the service that you offer is, it could be again IT consulting, it could be HR consulting, it could be finance, you could be a financial advisor, it could be cybersecurity consultant, it doesn't matter. You have some skills, you have some domain knowledge, and now you have a solution for problems people have. But if you are pitching and you don't, you're not getting the response that you expect, it potentially, it could be that You're too broad. And I'll give you some examples. I remember when we started out, we started to go after specific— we went after restaurant owners and we scored, we did several restaurants early on just because a friend of a friend of a friend got us into some of these to speak with some of those restaurant owners. And later I was pitching to doctors. And I made that same mistake actually twice, once when I was starting out and later when we started to work with Fortune 500. So, and I remember we spoke, I think we ended up doing work for a few dentists. Our second client was my own dentist. She was kind enough to take a bet on me and sign, give me a check for $2,000, and we took care of her website and some online marketing at the time. So, so later when I went and spoke with another dentist, I was, and I was still, I was still learning sales and I was still struggling with how to pitch and how to propose and, and how to talk to people about my business. Confidence was very low, but with reps I got better. But I noticed that the second time I went and I spoke with a dentist, I was much more fluent. And I was using some of that language that I learned from selling and delivering a website to the first client who was also a dentist. So, so if you're speaking with someone and you start to relate to them, relate, connect with them, and, and, and what you're saying is resonating with them, most likely it's because you're speaking a language that they understand. They feel that you know their pain. So when I go to a— later when I went, and I think it was one of our very, very early Fortune 500 clients, it was a large insurance carrier, and I went in there, and that was the second mistake actually, the same mistake but later, and I haven't done any work in the healthcare or medical space at that time. So I went in there, and I'm in our, in our slide deck, we're talking about clients. So I'm telling this, this marketing person, director of marketing, and other people that she had with her in that meeting, your clients, your clients. And then I was stopped, and they said, we don't have clients. We have patients, and that was like ouch. And that was that was a hard lesson. Eventually, we still got the deal. We were very technically solid. We knew our stuff cold, and we impressed them with other things we've done. And maybe that was a nice way of her to to remind me to to to speak the language of of the customer. So so when you get a rejection, luckily we did not get a rejection from that client, and it turned out to be overtime like six six figure. contracts over time, over many years, but it could have been a rejection because I was not— I don't want to say I wasn't smart enough. I just didn't know any better, but I learned from that lesson is that before I go to a specific pitch, especially in a vertical that I am not familiar with, research that vertical, understand the language that they use. Again, in the context of healthcare or insurance, You're talking about patients, you're talking about providers, you're talking about carriers. So instead of saying clients, say patients. Instead of saying suppliers, say providers, right? So the same thing if you're speaking with someone in the auto industry, if you're speaking with someone in IT, if you're speaking with someone in retail, as a consultant, make sure your pitch and your conversation and your documentation, and ideally if you have a case study from that vertical, that will help you overcome some of those rejections that you're getting because you were maybe too broad and you did not focus and target on your audience. So again, the second R is on refining. So rejection could help us refocus our energy and niche down in a specific sector, and even if you're not niching down your entire business, at least those pitches that you are making, make sure they're tailored, they're refined for your audience. So let me just pause here for a second and make sure— for those of you who are just joining, thank you for being with us. And I, um, I'm covering today rejection is redirection. We all face rejections in, in business. We face rejections in life in general. I'm not talking about that today, but let me know if you have any questions about when you're getting these nos in business and you're not sure how to deal with them, or maybe you're taking it too personal. Today, that's what I'm uncovering, and I want to help you build that muscle, how to turn that rejection into feedback, into direction. It looks like we have a comment question from Yasser. So yeah, thank you. How can we— let me see. Oops. Yeah, I see it now. Yeah, let me just Oh, it's— I see it. Yeah. How can we turn every rejection into a roadmap for smarter decisions? So turning rejections into smarter decisions. And then what ways can learning from rejection strengthen our community engagement? A note today, a lesson for tomorrow. Each rejection uncovers hidden opportunities. At CRO WISE, we transform obstacles into growth, learning, and meaningful Thank you for sharing the mission for your nonprofit. So how can you turn rejection into a roadmap for smarter decisions? I mean, in business and in the nonprofit world is the same thing. I mean, you're not selling products, but you are promoting a cause. You're educating people about your cause. You're building a community around your cause. A lot of people, when you go and ask them for money, they might say no, or you ask them to volunteer, they'll say no, or you ask them to do any sort of support, maybe to write a letter to Congress to support your cause, they don't act. So I think it's important to, if you're not getting any traction, is my message resonating with people, right? Because a nonprofit, just like in business, you have something that you want people to, um, not to buy but to contribute to or to support with their time, with their money, with their thoughts, with their prayers, right? So, so if you're not getting the engagement, it could be a function of outreach. Maybe, maybe more outreach can be done. Outreach via phone, via email, via WhatsApp, via text messaging, visiting people in person. I know in my nonprofit time when I was— put some time to, to, to, to support a few nonprofits, it was important to go to different cities where there are the major supporters for that cause and meet with them and educate them on what's involved. So if you like this cause and you want us to reach these objectives, that's what we need. We need this many people on in our newsletter, so share our newsletter with your community. We want this amount of commitments on a monthly basis so we can hire and take this to the next level. So I think, and these same concepts apply in the business world mostly, so I think, is it, am I reaching enough people? In sales, if you send a proposal to 10 people, even the best people out there, best salespeople out there, you might be able, your close rate might be 20%, 30%, 40%. You're not going to close every deal. You're not going to— get every person who likes you, who likes your cause, to donate to you or to support your cause. So, so I would say reaching out to people, that's, that's one. The, the maybe we're not getting enough yeses because we're not doing enough outreach, but from those who are saying no, um, can we maybe, maybe we, we have in our nonprofit, we focus on, on 3 things, and, and sometimes it could be like humanitarian, it could be more political or it could be more development-oriented. So some people, they might say no to political engagement and to development and they like to focus on feeding the hungry. So different people react differently to different messages, so I would say examine those nos and if you're seeing a trend, maybe the way we are positioning our service or our cause needs to be improved, and again, in business, people buy from people, there's an emotional aspect to buying, and definitely in the nonprofit world, there's that also emotional connection with the cause. So I would dig deeper, and if you have a chance to get feedback from the nos and ask why is it that you are not doing A, B, and C, and then take that, um, and then, and then, and then, and then, and, and have an action plan. As you mentioned, make it part of your roadmap based on that feedback from the community. I hope, I hope this is helpful. So moving on to, uh, to the next question, and that is— sorry, we talked about the 3 Rs of rejection. So the first R was on, on rejection reveals. The second one is rejection Refines, so broad to niche. And then the last one is rejection redirects. So sometimes we're stuck in, we're in a rut, we're stuck. We hit a dead end. We have a plan and we execute on the plan and we're not seeing results. And it is hard. I know for Founders, you put a lot of effort, you put your heart into something, and then you're not seeing the results. There are always opportunities to learn and do things better. That's the case in entrepreneurship. At times, it could be that something that is totally out of your control, just literally, like if you're going into a street and it's a dead end, Like, what are you going to do? It's a dead end. What, are you going to climb over the wall? Maybe. Okay. That's an option. It's one option, right? But you make a U-turn, go back and find another route. So in entrepreneurship, there's— you pivot, you double down, you pivot, or you call it quits, right? So here we were talking about redirecting. There are times where it's important to— you've tried everything you have. You put a lot of your time into it. You've talked to advisors. you've done your research, you've given it everything you have, and it just— there's no market for what you have. And okay, you call it quits. That's one thing. And then you take all the lessons you've learned from that one venture and you apply it to the second venture, the second idea that you have, and your chances of succeeding are significantly higher because now you have a whole lot of experience with you under your belt. Now, back to the redirection. So think of You have a plan and, and you— I'll just, I'll just say paid ad. You want to run a small, something relatively contained. You want to run a paid, a paid ad campaign on, on, on Google Ads or maybe on Meta Ads, right? And you put $2,000 into it and you're, you're seeing clicks, your credit card is getting charged, but you're not seeing conversions. People are not buying from you. So do you continue to spend money or maybe you pivot something else? I'm not saying ads are bad. I'm not saying ads do not generate results. No, ads properly set up, properly set up and managed ad campaigns, they work. That's why Google and Facebook make a lot of money from ads because they work if you do them right, but Facebook and Google are not there to look after your business. They provide you the platform and they make it relatively easy for you to spend money on ads, but it's on you, the business owner, to make sure the ads, the campaigns are set up properly and that you have a supporting website landing page that also connects the user who's coming to your website that addresses their concerns and get them inspired to do business with you. So, but if that campaign, you've done everything that you can and it's just not working out, then maybe You redirect that energy into something different, okay? Maybe you haven't done— you might not have done any networking before, and it's been very difficult, and you're avoiding being out there, and you focus on doing things online. That's okay. Doing things online is great, but also one of my— one of our principles at Black Belt Startup is I want you to be out there meeting people in person, unless you happen to live in a very small town and there are no people around you in terms of no, no potential buyers, then yeah, that's different. But I do encourage you to find the regional events that you can travel to and meet people. There's nothing like meeting people in person and listening, actively listen to the issues that they have, because you as a consultant, you are solving problems for people, and that's why they will trust in you, they will put their trust in you, they will buy from you They will, if you take care of them, they'll sing your praises and then you get more customers. So, so if something, if one marketing campaign did not work, you, you do something different. How was it? I think there was a mute issue with, um, with the mic. I'm not sure if actually I was getting across the last part of this live stream, but if you have any questions, let me know and we'll see you next time.