Losing business never gets easier — writing about it helps

I love running a start-up; it ticks so many boxes for me such as: the massive improvements to my quality of life, the levels of variety it affords me, the uplift in my independence, the healthy challenge to build something from nothing, the impact my company has on others and more.

However, it has lots of downsides: loneliness in the early days, the amount I am stretched day-to-day, the constant challenge of cashflow and never being certain where the money will come from, the decision overload that goes with having to cover all aspects of a business, the utter frustration when things don’t work out and more.

I wrote about many of these aspects in my 8 part blog series all about what it was like starting a business during Covid so I don’t need to re-tread old ground.

Many of the downsides I have learnt to make peace with but there is one aspect of running a start-up that just doesn’t seem to get easier…the rejection inherently built into business development.

Not only does it hurt but it can really piss me off sometimes.

The expectant father complex

Coming into last week, my company (Shiageto Consulting) had 12 outstanding proposals; some big and some small, some that were due to start immediately and some that were for later in the year, some that had been submitted only the week before and some that were outstanding for 3 months.

A friend described it like being: “an expectant father who doesn’t know when his wife will give birth nor to how many children.”

12 proposals outstanding sounds great but not getting clear signals about them was proving very challenging both for running the business and for my own sanity.

With each of those proposals, after a certain period, in the hope of getting some of these babies born, I give the client a nudge.

In fact my process is to nudge once after 2 weeks and then continue to nudge every 2 weeks until I either get a response or sufficient time has passed that I send them an email formally closing the opportunity down [it’s amazing how often this slight prompt will actually bring them back to the table].

It’s hard to predict which nudge will do the trick, sometimes a client only needs one, other times you are almost at double digits before you hear from them.

What makes it doubly hard is that our business model means that invariably the clients and prospective clients we have are all actually acquaintances — people we have worked with before and have good relationships with, many are in fact friends so this lack of response can really put a strain on the friendship as well.

This week, shaking the tree did not go well

I actually sent a nudge to all 12 clients about the proposals this week and this is what I got back:

• “Sorry, we gave it to someone cheaper…[and didn’t bother to tell you]”
• “The person leading this is ill….[and he hasn’t put an out of office so there is no way you would know that]”
• “We have decided to postpone this indefinitely… [and didn’t bother to tell you]”
• “We are having trouble getting the budget approved… [and didn’t bother to tell you]
• “We are stopping phase 3 of the project with you and bringing on board someone else” [This last one is interesting as contractually they are obliged to pay us a fee if they don’t use Shiageto for phase 3 but I wonder whether we should hold them to that ??]

Throw in the clients that didn’t get back to me and this week it particularly hurt.

Each time I got a response, I would open the email with mixed emotions, read it and then my heart would be crestfallen.

I would re-read the message just in case I had understood it wrongly and trying to look for any clues as to what did this mean for the relationship [almost like some love-struck teenager who had just been rejected by the love-of-their-life].

That’s the thing about leading with Emotional Intelligence; whilst I understand the logical way to process these responses, I invariably get a little emotional about them.

My mind dwells on them a bit longer than it should, which has implications for me and my business.

This is much the same as rejection in my dating life which is probably why I have paused on that for the time being.

Optimism in all things

Of course, it is not the end of the world and there is still hope for the proposals we haven’t heard back from — I shall call them the Magnificent Seven.

Plus, if you re-read some of the above responses, they are not all 100% dead … [or am I just kidding myself??]

I will forever be an optimist and I am constantly out there drumming up new opportunities so don’t you worry about us.

Remember, I promised to share the good and the bad of creating and running a start-up; this is it!

Fortunately for me, I will use this to fuel my creativity and the blogging is a big part of that so thanks for joining me on the journey and reading all about it — it really helps ??.

See you next blog for hopefully better news.

Faris

Faris is the CEO and Founder of Shiageto Consulting, an innovative consultancy that helps firms and individuals sharpen their effectiveness. Connect with him here

Success = IQ x EQ x FQ

Want to assess your levels of IQ, EQ and FQ? click here