What Entrepreneurs Should Be Thankful For — Even the Hard Parts

Hello, we are live. Welcome to Black Belt Startup with Feras. Thank you for tuning in. So what's happening in the world of entrepreneurship? Well, this week, what entrepreneurs should be thankful for, even the hard parts. And I know when you're deep in it, chasing leads, sending proposals, facing rejection after rejection, it can feel like every door is locked and you're the only one stuck outside. And if you've been grinding, grinding all year without the traction that you had planned for or you expect, you start asking yourself this very hard question: is this ever going to work? Now, some of you might not even be that far. You haven't jumped all in. You haven't maybe transitioned to entrepreneurship, and you're still hovering at the edge, but you're still wondering, am I making a huge mistake starting this new venture? this new business, this idea, turning this idea into a business of my own? Well, here's what I want you to hear. What you're going through or about to go through will pay off, not just in money or in momentum, but also in lessons, in resilience, and also the perspective you'll be grateful for later. And for those of you who are part of our community, you know that this channel is not about a get-rich-quick scheme, or you can become a successful entrepreneur overnight. It's the farthest from that. I want you to be successful. I'll help you be successful, but it takes a lot of work, a lot of sacrifice. It takes, um, takes resources. It takes time. Nothing happens overnight. The success that happened overnight has taken 5 years, 10 years, whatever the case might be. So if you are here because, as I said earlier, you've been grinding this year and you're questioning whether it's worth it, or if you're about to start a business and you are also thinking about it from another perspective, like, is it— is this entrepreneurship the right thing for me? Is it worth the stress and the issues and the chaos I hear other founders going through? Well, I understand where you're coming from. I understand that the failure rate in starting a business is really high. Depending on which stat you look at, you see 90% failure rate, you see 50% failure rate, whatever. They're all actually accurate stats depending on how the data was sliced. But the point is, yes, these failure rates are really high. So that's one thing. I'm not saying this to discourage you. I'm not saying this to— I want you to be part of the very small percentage of people who have an idea and want to turn it into a business. So I'm here to support you. I want you to succeed. But at the same time, I want you to know what's ahead of you and have the entrepreneurial mindset to help you go through the chaos, the problems, and the challenges that come with this thing called entrepreneurship. And I want you to think about entrepreneurship like learning any new art or new skill. Let me just do a quick check here on technology. It looks like we are A-okay. Good. All right. So, um, and think of entrepreneurship as, as learning a new skill or a new art. The first time Think of the first time you rode a bike, or maybe you learned how to swim. Probably shaky balance, you swallowed water, or in the case of the bike, scraped knees. But you didn't quit because it was uncomfortable or it was hard. You kept practicing with some hesitation, with some maybe support from others, but you kept practicing until you had the balance to ride the bike, and then the breath that— while breathing while you're— the balance was there and the breath was there and it all felt natural. And same thing in martial arts, in Aikido, when I train beginners or the youth in my youth class, the first time you grab someone's wrist, they stiffen up, people stiffen up and they're not sure what to do and they freeze. But then over time, as you practice, as you learn how to move, move out of the way, move out of the negative energy, you'll learn how to deal with very stressful situations with ease and with calm. It doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't— you won't become a master in any of these arts, including martial arts, with a few sessions of practice, even a few months of practice. It takes time. It takes 10,000 hours to, to reach mastery, but you can become proficient with deliberate practice and with the right mindset. So that is what I want to focus on today, is, is this entrepreneurial mindset is not something that, that you're born with. Some of us might, might have been born with, or maybe based on their upbringing and, and the way, um, they were raised and their lived experiences, they might be more ready and able and maybe willing to, to jump into entrepreneurship. Others might not. But all of this is learnable, and it's not just me with some pseudoscience. Actually, I happen to be reading this book. Um, my wife and I are reading this book, Rewire Your Anxious Brain. Uh, so, so, and I've read, I've read on this topic, um, about, about the brain and neuroplasticity and our ability even as adults To to learn new things and create new pathways. So so this this when we're anxious, when we're fearful, when we have worry, those fear and worry at times are important because they protect us. But in in the wrong situation, the tightness in the chest or or the the voice in our minds saying that. Don't do this in the wrong situation will limit our opportunities to grow and grow professionally and personally. So this growth, this growth mindset requires us to teach our brain a new pattern that not every uncertainty is danger. Sometimes uncertainty is just part of the path. part of the journey. There's no danger. There's no immediate, um, danger, um, coming at us, uh, from, for example, speaking to a stranger about our business. The worst thing they can say is, no, I'm not interested, right? So, so, but, but the way we are, um, the way we are, our brain is, is designed, is we, we fear, um, things, uh, situations that are bring— that bring uncertainty. We fear situations that potentially may have an impact on our reputation, maybe on our ego. Maybe we're an introvert and we're not used to be out there, not just public speaking, which is a big fear for a lot of us, but also just being at a small networking event with maybe 10 people. Some of us are very, very uncomfortable in those situations. So if you want to achieve your dreams of building a company, of getting to potentially uncapped income, to create— I always say this— an amazing culture, a company that your colleagues and employees and vendors and suppliers will sing your praises and they'll be there for you when you need them, if you want to leave a legacy, whatever your goal is from going into entrepreneurship, if you want to do that, it is important for you to understand that we have to have the right mindset. We want to build, we want to build these muscles and, and also improve this mindset that will allow us to deal with challenges, to have resilience, basically getting back up after facing some, some tough challenges. So, so all of that, it happens when we deal, or most of the time when we deal with difficult situations. And that's what I want to cover in this episode today is how we, in my case, 3 scenarios that, or 3 categories of problems and challenges and very, very tough moments taught me a lot, and that I'm very grateful for, and without those very difficult situations, I don't think I would have been able to grow the businesses and scale the businesses and then exit, So I'll cover one from a client's perspective, one from a rejection perspective, and one from just general mistakes. And I'll bring examples from early, early stage when I started my very first business. And also I'll bring in another example from later when we were accomplished and successful. And the reason I'm saying that is because Because learning never ends. You might learn and master a specific set of processes and systems and ways to work with clients of a certain size, in my case, small businesses for the first few years, and later when we got into Fortune 500, Fortune 100, it's a new game altogether. So learnings never stop. The challenges that we face never stop. So I'll cover again these 3 areas. One is to do with clients and then one with— excuse me, one with rejections, kind of to do with clients as well, and then one which is some mistakes. And mistakes, the hardest mistakes, the toughest mistakes are when it comes to do with people, whether vendors, suppliers, customers, or your own team. So that is what we will be covering, what I'll be covering today in this episode. And I do want to, just before we jump right— we jump into, into, um, these 3 hardest, some of the hardest moments I've had, I want to make sure that you're aware that we have this live stream every other week. Um, we— I, I cover a topic on entrepreneurship, and then I answer questions that I get from founders and entrepreneurs and those who want to be entrepreneurs. So if you have a question, uh, if you leave it here, drop it in a comment. If I don't address— I typically address all the questions and comments we get during the session, but I definitely will address it in a future session. And if you have something maybe very, very personal or something that you don't want to share publicly, maybe you're thinking of starting your side hustle and your side hustle, and then you're not ready to talk about it openly. I understand, I get that. So you can email me at feras@alhlou.com. startupwithferas.com. Feras spelled F-E-R-A-S, just like my first name, as you see on the screen. So I'll get your email, I'll reply to it. I check all these emails personally. I don't share it publicly, so confidentiality is really important. So yeah, but I'd love to help. I'd love to also learn about the challenges that you're going through and the wins, small wins, big wins, those first few steps that are maybe very hard to take, but you're taking them. I'd love to hear from you on how you're conquering the fears, the challenges, the blocks, and the wins that you're having. It could be a small business, small— it could be a small contract, it could be an event that you went to and you got a whole lot of qualified leads. So let me know when in your phase of either starting a business or you've started and you're struggling. I'd love to hear from you, and I'm here to support you grow to 6 figures and 7 figures. and be there for you. All right, so let's jump back into here. So the 3 hardest, or 3 hard, very hard, tough moments and stories and scenarios that I went through on my journey, still going on learning, even after all these businesses and all the business success we've had, You're always learning new things. But first, from a client's perspective, I remember early on, this is maybe 3 or 4 months into starting our first business, and we were building websites for small businesses, and that was in 2003. So websites were a big thing at the time. Now you can go on any of these services and create a website probably in 10 minutes. So back then, it was a project, and convincing a small business owner that they need to invest some money in, in a website was, it was, was hard, was, was hard to overcome because they said, why would we need a website? That's 2003. Only, it's only for big companies. So, so I remember we went to some restaurants and we went to, we went to, um, We told everyone we knew about the business that my co-founder and I started. I attended some sales training, and mind you, I had zero background in sales, so a whole lot of learning just on getting, mustering courage to talk to people about that, and I'll talk about specific examples in the next point on rejection, but in terms of clients, we did land this client that came through through word of mouth, and it was a local artist and up-and-coming, and, and they want to have a very, very flashy website. And we said, of course, and we quoted them. I think we were quoting $2,000 for, for the website at the time. We had charged $1,400 for our very first project and said, okay, I'll up my pricing by 50%. And here we are selling this very flashy Uh, he wants advanced with all these capabilities and features and event scheduling and, and a lot of capabilities that he— this artist wanted on his website. And I had no idea what's involved in building this fancy website, this very elaborate website. I was, I was in charge of selling and marketing. My business partner was, was doing all the implementation work. So I'm happy I landed that project. came to him, came back to the office, told my business partner, and he looked at it and said, Feras, we're going to lose our shirt on this project because the scope is huge and they're looking for— but they're doing all these things, they're asking for all these requirements, you know. But let's do it because we did not have a whole lot of clients. We needed cash, we needed some cash flow. So we said, you know what, we'll do this work, make them happy. So we did the work. This client was super, super, super picky. Um, every time we did, we did, we went over and above on implementing this project, and every time we finish the project, I'm there, I want to say, okay, sign off on, on the project and pay me the rest of it, 50%. They would ask for more, they would ask for more, they would ask for more. So, so we, I think we spent 3 or 4 times the time Um, uh, you know, that we dedicated, uh, for this client. But we eventually delivered something to their liking. They loved it. And, and also they didn't pay us on time, so I kept asking and calling and emailing. Eventually we got paid. So yes, this client was not very reasonable. Yes, this client asked for a lot. Yes, we lost our shirt on this project, but I can tell you, without having gone through this experience of a very, very demanding and unreasonable— they were okay, um, they're not jerks from that perspective, but they just didn't know any better. They kept asking. Like, for them, paying us $2,000 was a huge thing. for an up-and-coming artist, you know, with not a whole lot of money. So, so we learned— I learned many lessons. One of them is that I have to check with my business partner before I sell something and put it on his laps to deliver. I want to make sure he's on board with what I'm selling because he's in charge of delivery. So, so I could be off 5%, 10%, but if I give him a project that will require 4 or 5 times the effort, and he has other projects or he has other things that he's planning on doing, and then I made some crazy aggressive delivery deadlines, I'm putting a lot of pressure on my business partner, and that's not fair to him. And that could— you do it once, that's okay. You do it a lot, then you start, you start in a way creating a lot of tension, unnecessary tension between you and your business partner. And potentially, if this is not addressed, it could lead to people burning out or deciding to leave or getting into this business divorce. That's unfortunately— the divorce rate in business is higher than what we see in our society between spouses, and that's already too high. So that was one lesson, is that I will make sure my business partner is on board with big decisions that impact them. So that's one thing. The second thing is scoping a project properly. So yes, I was selling websites at $1,400 and then I sold at $2,000. So me, from a sales perspective, I was very happy that I, I upped my pricing by 50%, but this project should have been at $6,000 or maybe $8,000 for us to for us to make any margin, any profit, right? So, so learn a lot about scoping, asking, asking detailed questions and going back to the client and confirming what is included in the project and in the deliverable. So if you're looking for a basic website, okay, just some 4 pages, maybe 5 pages with some text and images and whatnot, that's one thing. But you want— if you want to have some advanced functionality like reservations and, and calendars and online payments I mean, this, all of that adds to the scope of the project. So we learned a big, big expensive lesson on scoping these projects properly. And the last, and that's, there are many, many other lessons, but I want to keep it short. The last point here is that we knew at the time, my business partner and I, that we had to have super happy, delighted clients. Because without delight— that's the one thing we got right from the sales coach, Marvin, at the time. Thank you, Marvin. You, you gotta have super delighted clients, because if, if you make the most unreasonable client happy, if you, if you make the most unreasonable— if you make the most unreasonable client delighted, then it's a piece of cake for everyone else. So I'm not saying you go and look for unreasonable clients, but you'll run into them every once in a while. And part of this unreasonableness is because maybe you did not scope the project properly, like, like I did in my case, right? So, so I learned that by making this client happy and being patient with all these new requirements that they asked us, and then being patient with them to receive payment it led to many good things. They referred to us— they referred us to 2 other leads that we turned into, into business. And then they also were a case study and an example. Every time I went to sell a new, a new client, I say, hey, we have this local artist, look at him, up and coming, he's going to be the next big shot. And we built their website. So that gave us a lot of credibility that we had some, some local local artists with this very fancy website. So it was a very tough project to manage. It was a very tough situation to handle given that we were very, very low on cash and we needed to finish the project to collect that second, you know, $1,000. But we learned a lot from it, and then we used all of those, all of those mistakes, all of those learnings, we used them for future projects and did a much better job in scoping projects and also pricing accordingly. And one side note here, a pro tip. It's okay to get these unreasonable clients, and it's okay to bend over backward to make sure they're happy. It's always a good, good idea to keep your clients happy, and it's okay to sell under, under price just to get the initial client or 2 or 3 because you're just starting. But that's not a strategy. But this, what I just mentioned, is not a long-term strategy. You would actually run out of money, basically close your shop if you keep getting clients who demand more time and they pay you less than you deserve and less than what you need to have so you pay your contractors or maybe yourself and your co-founder, then you'll just basically run this business down to the ground, so it's okay to do to, to take on some of these clients early on because you need the clients, you need the cash, you need the case studies, you need the references, you need the referrals. But don't use that combination of factors— unreasonable client, huge scope, small price, you know, small amount, you know, for the project. That combination is a deadly combination for the long term. Initially it's okay just so that you can get some traction, and you also get to practice your delivery processes and systems and documentation. So there are a lot of benefits to doing this initially. So that is, that is one. So, so Fareed, thank you for commenting. He says, sounds like scope creep client. Yes, 100%. It's definitely a scope creep client. And again, they were unreasonable, 100%. Um, not too unreasonable, but it's on me, the consultant. And at the time, I was learning how to be a good consultant, it's on me to define the scope of the project to a certain level of details. You cannot define everything down to the, to the, to like the smallest granularity, to make it very granular, but there should be some, some parameters around the scope and there should be a section in every proposal and we're coming up with a video, long video, detailed video, comprehensive video on proposals. There should be a section on What's not included? So that is, and then what's the client, what is it that the client is responsible for? So those sections in a proposal will make it easier for you to navigate these difficult discussions with the clients once you are, once you've signed the paperwork, you've gotten some of the money and they're already engaged and invested in this project. If they ask you for things outside of the parameters that you've defined in your proposal, then you can point them to the proposal and say, hey, you know, um, love to help you with this, but this is out of scope. You pay us another $500 and we'll do it, and then we'll add another week or 2 to the delivery timeline. But yeah, scope creep is a common thing. Thank you, Fareed, for your note. So that's, that's one. The other example, and this was, this was later as we were more, more established and we had, we had, I think we had about 10 people By that time, and we were Google AdWords certified. So we were one of the Google partners in AdWords, search marketing, or pay-per-click, PPC. That's what we call it at the time. Now it's more like search engine marketing. So we were selling that service to all these small business owners that they were in a state of shock, and they were like, wow, you can get us on top of Google and you can get us clicks and people will come to our website and we'll get leads and all that was measurable. So we were doing really well with small businesses and then we got this mid-sized client and they had a huge budget. We were managing like $1,000 a month worth of budget for these small businesses, but this client, they were in B2B and a lead to them could be some SaaS, um, you know, package for tens of thousands of dollars. So they were ready to spend north of $20,000, $30,000 a month on pay-per-click. And we were responsible as an agency, we were responsible to manage those $20,000 or $30,000 a month of, of basically of ads on Google. So, um, we were very excited about this client. We charged them a whole lot of money. for the initial setup, and then we had a nice recurring. And in this process, and I'm like, oh my God, look at this recurring monthly. I can hire more people. I can grow the business. But before we got to that point, we were in charge of setting up that business, the keywords and the campaigns and the landing pages. So the client was very, very specific on what to include in terms of targeting their own end clients. And he said, do not include, exclude these keywords. These keywords don't apply to our business. And he gave us a list, 10 or so keywords. Um, in, in Google Ads, these— there used to be— I think they used to be— they used to be called negative keywords. I think they're still called negative keywords. Um, I used to be a Google AdWords certified consultant, not anymore, but I understand, I understand how this system works. But basically he said, do not bid, do not spend money on these keywords. He was very adamant about it. I think he worked with another vendor in the past and, and he knew that these things will not convert for them. So we go and we set up this massive different campaigns and different ad groups and different, different landing pages, and we had this nice, very nice presentation. And we went before we launched, we want to go and get his sign-off on our campaign structure and the whole So we go to his office, myself and my colleague, and we start to present this, our work to him. And my colleague happened to be the person who set up those campaigns. And we have in our system, we had a process where we would do a QA cycle. We would do a review of the campaign setup and then compare that setup with the requirements we got from the clients, from the client. So we go and we put this on the screen. With our client, and he was a director level, and then the business owner. And then we go through and everything looks good. And then like right before the, the last— I think the last slide or the slide before last— we set up the keyword, the keyword categories, and we had a snapshot of one of the campaigns. And on that snapshot, there were the list of those 10 negative keywords that he told us explicitly not to include in this campaign, and we had them included, and we had a specific cost per click, and we had a whole thing around them. And he looked at me, and then the business owner said, wait, I thought we're not bidding on this. This stuff doesn't work for us. And the person who hired us, the manager, the director, looked at me and said, Feras, I told you explicitly not to bid on this. What's going on? And then he went off on us, dropping the F-word, and, and just basically he fired us on the spot. It was very embarrassing. I had to collect myself and with my colleague and go back to the office, and we didn't get paid for the rest of that initial setup fee. And then obviously we lost the recurring revenue. And the glitch that happened in our system is that we did not follow this QA process in a hurry, whatever the reason might be, with other clients or we're busy with growth or whatever excuse we had, we did not follow our QA process that we had used for a couple of years by that time and it worked really well. So on this first, I think it was one of the first larger clients we got with a very nice recurring, we ended up losing this deal. But, and it was painful. And again, I didn't go hard on my business, on my colleague because they didn't do their job right. There was a process, a piece missing that actually I was responsible for because I sold at the time we were small. I was still selling and also involved in delivery and I should have done the QA. But in a hurry, I figured we have a good system. I did not do this review before we present to the client. And that stayed with me for the rest, till now, is making sure there's a process that is repeatable, that is scalable, that is— people are responsible for. You have task lists, you use systems, whether it's Notion or Asana or Basecamp, whatever system that you use, make sure it's— the tasks are detailed and assigned to certain people, and even just you, one person, make sure these tasks are very detailed and you follow them every time you deliver. I'm not saying that we won't make mistakes even with these tasks and processes. You know, people still make mistakes. Sometimes the requirements are not very well documented or not very well understood, but that was, I think it was all on us. It was all on us because I did not follow this process. So from— I'm more left brain anyhow. I'm process-oriented, task list-oriented. But if you don't follow the process, things will fall through the cracks. So big lesson, huge lesson. It cost us— oh my goodness, I think with the recurring, it probably north of $50,000 a year had they stayed with us. That was all gone. So that is, you Yes, it was very painful at the time. Yes, we left a very negative impression on this person who trusted us, and we wasted a month of their time. It was very painful, very sad. I was sad for a few days with this, not just about the money, but you disappointed someone. We're in the service business. We're in the consulting business. So we're there to solve people's problems, and I added more problems. on, on this director's, you know, on, on his, on his shoulders and then made him look bad in front of his boss. He looked like he selected the wrong vendor, us, and that just, it was really awful all around, but, you know, you learn from that, you know, I sent him, I sent him an email the next day and I apologize and say, hey, if anything we can do to make it up, we're here. He said, thank you, that was the end of it. But I learned how to be even more systematic when it comes to project and client deliverables. So that is on the second point around learning those tough moments, those hard moments that teach us a lot of lessons and then we should be grateful for. So before I move on to the second point, which is about rejections, So a whole lot of them, and I'm talking about business here, not about personal life. That's another episode for another podcast. But for those of you who joined a bit later, today I'm covering— I'm talking about entrepreneurs and we should be thankful even for the hard stuff. We want to be thankful through it all. Yeah. Those tough lessons, those tough, um, the challenges we face and, and the failures we, we go through in, in, on our entrepreneurial journey, there are always lessons to learn from them. So, so with the right mindset, with the mindset that this entrepreneurship is, is an art, there's just, there's, there's a science to it, there's a science aspect to it, but it's also an art, just like martial arts. Just like riding a bike, just like learning how to swim. You just gotta do certain things in a certain way. And over time, as you do it, as you do the reps, as you practice deliberately, you become better at it. And it becomes almost like second nature. And you become, you start enjoying what you're doing because it's just flowing. And then your clients are feeling that, are sensing that, they're benefiting from your expertise. and then they're paying you handsomely for it. So that mindset is really important. It's just we're learning, and we, even as adults, we can rewire our brain to learn new things, and then also forget bad habits and bad things. So moving on to the second item here, the second point is on rejections. And I do— and do I have stories for you on rejections. And again, I'll mention one example, one story from when we first started, and then I'll mention another story from later on. So after I was laid off and after not finding any, any job opportunities, I didn't even get— I sent so many resumes and just did not get a single interview. So tough, tough time. And that, you know, was, was right after the bubble burst here in Silicon Valley. I had a young family to support, so I had to do something savings and that modest severance package I had, they were disappearing. So I ran into a friend of mine, my co-founder, and then we started that business. So both of us, we worked hard. We're nice people. We worked together very well. We did some nonprofit work together. So, so, so, but we didn't know anything about, about selling, so we had to learn it, listen to CDs and, and watch, paid money to go and attend courses, and those were really helpful. But all that theory is one thing, and then putting this theory into practice is, is a completely different thing. So I remember Once we decided to, to start the business and, and we put together a partnership agreement and, and we started to put a business plan and all that good stuff, we kept hesitating. We kept pushing this first day officially of going out and asking people to buy our services, website design. So the first day we go out, and some of you who follow this channel might have heard the story previously, but on that very first day, we decided to go to people that they know us, people who might be more sympathetic, people who, you know, we've been giving them money for a long time. These are the local restaurants where we eat. So we went to 5 restaurants here in Santa Clara and San Jose, and all 5 of them said no. And it was really hard. It was really, really hard. Imagine you don't have any background in sales, like many of the entrepreneurs that I come across. And from what I read, 68, 70% of entrepreneurs start a business and they don't have any background in sales or marketing, or very little. So I hear you. So, so imagine you're going that first day and you've mustered all that courage to go out and pitch and knock on doors, and then you get not one, not two, not three, not four, 5 rejections in that first day. So we came home at that, that evening, and we were totally devastated. We had— we said, no way, maybe, maybe this is not for us. Just, we're not gonna do this. It's too much. We cried, we mourned, we, we, we just Talked about it after a couple days. You know what? Let's do it again. So we sat down and we wrote down all the rejections. Every every no that we were told. I don't need a website. I'm a small business. I don't need a website. Nobody comes to the internet. I don't need a website. I don't have money for it. I don't need a website. I don't have my menu all finalized. Whatever, you know, all these rejections. So we wrote everything down, and then. We had prepared answers, and then we went out, and ironically, I mean, good fortune, the first sales we've ever made was to a restaurant. And I think part of it is because we had prepared. We had those 5 rejections from those 5 other restaurants, and we learned what these business owners, these restaurant owners, what concerns they had, what challenges they have, what pain points they have. And that's my advice to you. And I'm so grateful to these 5 rejections. Again, easy to say now, but it was very painful at the time. But you have to think about it, that this is part of entrepreneurship, is that you take a step forward, you step on the mat, you knock on doors, you hit the pavement. That's just part of entrepreneurship. And there's no amount of theory and no amount of studying that will replace that practical experience. You cannot learn martial arts watching YouTube. You can maybe refine your technique, maybe you can see some techniques, but until you get in front of someone and they're attacking you, you're not going to feel that pressure. So, so the same thing in entrepreneurship. The lesson here is that these rejections will teach you how— what, what pain points that the clients have, what issues they have. They teach you about maybe your pitch, maybe the way you're pricing, about maybe your packaging. All of that you learn from talking to people. So I'm very grateful for those 5 rejections because they enabled me to do the very— to make that very first sale. That was probably one of the happiest moments in my professional career, is to validate that I can sell and that These people, these clients have a need and are willing to pay for the service I offer. So that's the first story, 5 rejections. And then for those of you who are out there these days, you have access to something called ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude. You can go and do a lot of research ahead of going out and pitching. So you can anticipate, you can, you can go into these meetings well equipped, you have to do the homework. You have, you, you have to spend time to learn and become very proficient, not just in what you— in the service that you offer, the product you offer, that you sell, whether it's IT consulting, HR consulting, financial advisory, whatever the case might be, whatever is it that you're selling. If you're not, you gotta know that for sure, but also learning about the other aspects of the business. And in sales, learning what, what are the concerns of these people. You can go on ChatGPT and say, here's, here's my area of specialization, here's my avatar, my persona, my ideal client profile, ICP, here's, here's the people that I'm going after, and give me like, what are the top 20 rejections that a business owner, a small business owner, or maybe a mid-sized IT manager or an HR manager would have? And then go and read and practice those. Not saying that you'll, you'll become a master in handling rejections day one. That's the wrong expectation, but you'll be much better equipped, um, when you have— when you go in these meetings with the research that you have done. And remember, in, in preparedness, the 5 Ps: prior preparation prevents poor performance. So there's another version that's not very family friendly, so we'll keep that out. So 5 Ps: Prior preparation prevents poor performance. So another lesson learned here. All right. So that is one example. The other example on rejection is this was later. This is maybe 10 years into the business. And we were by that time very, very established. And we had, by that time, we had pivoted into analytics and became one of the top Google Analytics certified partners globally, and we had case studies, and we had top brands, Fortune 500. We had this slide one time, I'll show it, with all these amazing logos. So fortunate to have an amazing team that can sell and deliver to those Fortune 500, Fortune 500, later Fortune 50. So we knew we had our systems, our senior consultants, we have our processes, we were speaking at conferences, all of that. And we start to get these RFPs, requests for proposals, from big companies, and those are typically multi-year contracts, 6 digits, you know, quarter million dollars, half a million dollars depending, and they all required a lot of work. So we got this one RFP from a company in the travel space, and it was a pretty involved RFP with a lot of technical questions, with a lot of business questions. Did we have experience in their domain? Did we have experience in this sort of— in this type of analytics they were looking for? So we spent, I don't know, maybe 20 hours to prepare for this doc, to respond to that document. So typically in that process, for those of you who are selling to mid-sized businesses, to large businesses, there's this RFP process, request for proposal, sometimes called RFI, request for information. There are several names depending. The government does a lot of this as well. So you— they send you this document and they say, this is— these are our requirements. And then you reply to that. Typically you reply to the, to the RFP with what you're, um, with your answers and responses to their questions. And then if you, you make it to the next round, you— they ask you to present in person or maybe virtually these days And then you might be then, if you make it well through the second round, you might be asked to maybe meet the executive. So there's a whole long process that, you know, the bigger the contract, the longer this process is and the more involved it is. So, and we had done RFPs in the past at that time, and we had a good win rate. So we developed this response, spent a lot of time on it, sent it to them, and we made it to the next round. So they asked us, us and 2 other vendors, to come on site. So we— I traveled to Florida, and we had another colleague travel there as well. So that's time, money, and, and then we had 2 other colleagues dedicated to support us virtually via Zoom. And we sat down and met and prepared, and we had to work on a custom pitch deck. with the client logo and color and all that good stuff. All these are best practices. I'll talk about those in this long video that I'm working on for proposals, the ultimate guide to consulting proposals, to winning proposals. So we go there on site and 20 people in the room, 2 from our part, 2 virtually, and then they had people from different departments, and I focused on the most senior person in there, which is I think normal, natural, and I was obviously looking around and fielding questions, and I thought we did very well. We answered this technically, like we were— and we had written a book on analytics by that time, so we came in like very, very confident, and we did a lot of research, and we spent a lot of time answering their questions, so technically we— We nailed it. We were the top contender. We got an email a few days later that we did not make it to the next round, and that was really, really hard to take, not just for me, but also for the team members that worked really hard preparing for this pitch. So collectively, we might have put together north of 60, 70, 80 hours. Again, I don't suggest you do this like day one if you're just starting a business. But at one point when you're more established, if you get one of every three or four RFPs and they're like multi-year and they're large in size, it it it it is worth the effort. The ROI is there. But then at that time, you know again you feel depressed, you feel sad. The money obviously losing the deal, losing the money is is or this up. this opportunity to make a whole lot of money, it does bother me. It did bother me, but there's also just not winning, not getting that client and someone else getting that client. That just, it bothers me a lot. So I asked our contact person if they're okay to get on a call and let me know, just give us some feedback for us to improve our processes. And that's a tip for you, a pro tip. When you get a rejection, a no from a client, Be very professional, acknowledge it, say thank you, and ask them if they're willing to give you exactly some feedback on why you were not selected. I would say half of the people would reply, and if they can get— if you can get them on the phone and they can be very open with you, that is gold, because you'll learn, you'll learn the gaps, you'll learn the issues, you'll learn the, the— maybe some things are behind. Maybe you did everything perfect. It was— everything you've done was perfect, but there was something on their end. The client had some internal, maybe some internal politics, and one of the executives want to get the partner that they worked with previously. Or maybe the person who is vouching for you, maybe they're not liked by the CFO and they're not going to approve their proposal. Or maybe there's— it could be to do with timing. So, so if you get feedback that everything was fine, it's just the timing wasn't right, then you don't need to change anything. Go for the next RFP, the next proposal. But if you get feedback about maybe the timeliness, about your pricing, about the quality of the response, about maybe your pitch, about whatever it is, that's gold. That is information from a potential client that will help you improve so you can then improve— you can improve your performance and your preparation so you can in the future improve your win rate for other proposals. So, so I got, I got on the phone with this, with the client, with my contact information that I had established some rapport, you know, over, over this process of RFP. And she said, Feras, she said, Feras, you and your team done an amazing job technically. You had answered all of our questions thoroughly. No one, no other vendor matched you, not even close, with the depth of knowledge and information you shared. He said, unfortunately, there was one person in the room that's not very technical that had questions about UX and about the design aspect of things, and they felt that they were ignored, that their questions did not get enough attention in the RFI response and also during the meeting. So subconsciously, I didn't pay attention, or it definitely wasn't conscious, it wasn't intentional that I would ignore someone, but they were sitting a bit far and they were from another department, and when they introduced themselves, I was probably too preoccupied with my pitch and what I want to say once my turn is there for me to start the presentation. I didn't pay attention to that person and their role and their title. And that was— that cost us this 6-figure deal. I think it was about a quarter million dollars. So we talk about reading the room, and that mistake taught me a whole lot about paying a whole lot of attention to the room and who's attending, who's there, what What is their title? And then over time, as you become better at what you do, you'll know by titles what the typical concerns and pain points those titles would have. If the CFO wasn't in the room and you're not talking about numbers and the return on investment and/or cost savings, the CFO is not going to like you, not going to like your pitch. So that was a very painful lesson, but again, I'm thankful for that situation. I did end up going to Florida. It was in the winter here in California, and I ended up in the morning going and swimming for an hour in the Atlantic Ocean. So that was something positive. I did meet my coworker in person because we were a virtual company at the time. And then, but jokes aside, I did learn— I thought I knew how to read the room after all these years of sales and being successful at it. but sometimes you just, you're not present at the moment, at the right moment, at the very important moment, and you're preoccupied and you miss an important piece of detail, and that could cause you— that could cost you a big client, a big logo, a major logo, and a whole lot of revenue. So again, grateful for that opportunity, and we learned from it and we moved on. So the last thing here I want to cover is Let me see. The last, the third section is on mistakes that, that forced me to grow, and those are to do with tough situations when it comes to people. See, dealing with technology, software, processes, that's one thing. Mistakes with people, they're just in a different sphere altogether. They're in different category altogether because you're dealing now with people, with emotions, with human beings. And, and, and sometimes you do something that just— it takes a whole lot of time and effort to repair, and maybe it becomes irreparable. So, so we had, we had an amazing culture in, in all the companies that, that we built. And, and, you know, I'm on the top where I learn a new practice, I apply it, I ask the team, I involve the team, we hire smart people, A-type people, A people, so we never had issues sort of from a cultural perspective, but every once in a while, you have someone who maybe is not a good fit for the team, for whatever reason, or maybe they were going through things in their lives and their behavior their performance, the way they deal with customers and their colleagues, it just changes, right? So in one incident, we had a colleague who was— they were very, very senior, very competent. Their deliverables were masterpieces, very knowledgeable, very helpful. It just every once in a while, They would respond in a way that is maybe a bit aggressive, sometimes with clients and sometimes with colleagues. I mean, with clients is one situation, and then with colleagues is another situation, but not good at all. So, and they were not reporting to me at the time, they were reporting to one of our directors. And they've— the director talked, and we were still at the time, I think, with about 30 people. So not a big company, but not a small company either. But I wasn't involved in every decision and every review and every performance review. I was focused on growing the business and partnerships and those sort of things. So the director decided to basically ask this person to leave. And we met and we went through the situation, and I was aware of some of these situations. And then, and then we actually spoke with the HR, the director of HR at the time, and we came up with a plan. And I asked the director to make sure that this is communicated, you know, with the person who was about to be let go, that the issues and And that, that there's, you know, there should be a period where the person is aware of the challenges and their— maybe their mistakes, and they're given a time to work on it. That's standard procedure. And the director assured me that this was communicated. And later, this person was asked to leave, and, and, you know, they left. And, you know, we, we give them whatever severance at the time. We were able to provide. It wasn't— we weren't cheap, and we took care of them at that time. But the lesson for me was, yes, this person made some major mistakes. Yes, that impacted the business. But I think as a company and me as a leader, I could have done One more thing where I would have instated a policy where we document these challenges and we sit down with the employee and have it in writing, like a very detailed plan and how to overcome these challenges. So instead of verbal communications, or maybe like an email here, an email here, an email there, if you have an employee or a colleague who's underperforming or have some issues, Make sure in big companies, in corporate America, they're called PIP, Performance Improvement Plan. Have a 1-month plan or a 2-month plan and make sure it's thorough, it's detailed. And this is a time to be very candid, very open, no sugarcoating. Like, this is serious. And these are very awkward conversations to have. So the regret I have at the time is that I think my director and the the HR manager at the time, they did their job properly. But me— but as a company, as we were growing, we didn't have this process where we would document this performance improvement plan thoroughly and have this discussion with this person and have it— have everyone, everyone involved, the person, their manager, HR, everybody on board with everybody on the same page with the issue itself and also with the corrective action plan, with this PIP, with that performance improvement plan. So even— so that, that's my regret, and that's something I learned, and that's something it's ingrained here now, that every time we have an issue, 2 things. One, 2 things. One is, one is that you go and don't let things go out of control. Don't, don't hide things. If you delay awkward conversations, they only— things only get worse in life and business in general. So these awkward conversations, prepare for them. They're not fun to have, they're not easy to have, but this is more professional, this is more sincere, this is just the right thing to do is prepare for this meeting. Let the person know, come in and talk about the real issues. Hard on issues, soft on people. That's the motto we had in all of our companies. And, and come up with a real assessment of what is going wrong, and then identify the plan to address these issues and have everybody sign off on it— the person, their manager, and the HR manager. And then monitor this on maybe biweekly basis if you have like a 2-month personal improvement plan, a PIP. So big, big, big lesson there. Again, when it comes to people, it's just hard to deal with some of these things, especially if you care about the culture and you care about growing the business and helping people also grow and become better consultants, better team members, better employees, better just better people, it hurts when you feel like you did not do everything you could have done, right? I think we did adequately, but I think I would go above and beyond in that aspect, especially when it involves asking someone to leave. I'm not, you know, they say hire slow and fire fast. Yeah, there's some truth to that, but I'm not— if you identify an issue with that person, yes, you shouldn't let it drag, Have that awkward conversation, understand why they went. If they need help, support, training, resources, time, whatever, give them all of that. And if they're still underperforming, have this one-on-one, heart-to-heart conversation, document the issues so it's not subjective, and then come up with a PIP, with a personal improvement plan, and then work with them towards it. And then at the end of the plan, if they still don't perform on something they agreed to, then yes, Ask him to go. So, so that's, that's what I wanted to cover today. Uh, it's, it's, it's a tough, you know, it's difficult that, that, you know, we go through these tough situations as entrepreneurs, even, even when we're just starting, uh, even if, even when we're very accomplished, the types of challenges, the types of issues we run into will be different. You won't have a whole lot of employee problems early on because you don't have any employees, but you might have issues with vendors and contractors and suppliers, so having those same— applying those same principles to those relationships, I think, is really important. But at the end of the day, especially this week, sit down, take 10, 15 minutes, and go through some of the very tough situations that you went through this year, and look at what you learned and how you improved going forward, And I hope that you'll be grateful for those tough, hard situations, because without going through these tough situations, as they say, no pain, no gain, and that definitely applies to entrepreneurship. That's it for today. Let me see if we have any questions, any comments from folks who are with us today. Again, as I said, I always love to hear from you. Let me know if you have any Any questions or comments? Let me, let me just share one thing here before we wrap it up for today. If you are not a member of our community, I'd love you— I'd love for you to subscribe to the channel, the YouTube channel. If you're watching on other platforms, like, love for you to follow and connect with us and give me your feedback. Hit the like button if you like what you're seeing, and you can also sign up for my weekly newsletter. We send it out every Saturday. at startupwithferas.com, and then you click on the newsletter, and other than that, for those of you in the US and celebrating Thanksgiving, I wish you a very happy and meaningful Thanksgiving, and let me know again if you have any issues that are coming up as you're planning for next year, I'm here for you, I'd love to— Thank you. I'd love to be of help and to be there to support you on your growth to 6 figures, 7 figures, and hopefully to 8 figures. See you next time.