The Power of Gratitude in Business

“Thank you” are two powerful words that can uplift someone, build bridges and strengthen relationships. It is a significant aspect of life, even in business and in the workplace. 

Gratitude and appreciation are types of affirmation of something that is good, magnifying positivity and encouraging people to perform better. With this, entrepreneurs and business owners see the value of thanking their staff members, partners, and clients and putting effort into expressing it in various ways.

For Hayden Brass, Founder and Managing Director of Zea, “This is an aspect that we find so important, particularly for our staff and customers. With our staff, we are a fully remote team even before COVID, so it is vital for us to continue to connect with them and remind them they are part of a team with a great purpose.”

There are so many ways to show gratitude towards others. David Fastuca, CMO and Co-Founder of Locomote, shared his personal take on this. “I take a really simplistic approach to this and just think, how do I want to be thanked?”

David cited some examples. “I do a role reversal. If I'm a customer of someone else's, how do I want to be thanked? There are a couple of ways. I just try to be really genuine and thank them, where I send a little video message thanking them for working with us. I don't do any of the gifts or sorts of stuff because they probably get 100 different gifts. If I gift them, it's based on me really knowing them. They might love arts and crafts, so I may send them something that's relatable to that. Otherwise, I try and help them in their role. If I know that they're in sales I try and refer customers to them. If they're a founder of a business and we've done some work together or they're a customer of mine, I'll try and reciprocate and then recommend someone to them. If they're looking for a particular type of service, I really think about it and put myself in their shoes – what would I like and how would I like to be treated, and then I try and do more of that to my customers and try and help them succeed in their roles even if it's got nothing to do with what we provide,” he said.

Studies have shown that gratitude evokes a feeling of positivity, happiness and satisfaction. It also helps in improving health and decreasing stress levels. This is why gratitude, when expressed sincerely, can be a significant factor in strengthening relationships in business and in the workplace.

Hayden also shared how they extend gratitude to their team members, partners and customers. Within their organisation, “We conduct 1-2 retreats per year, try and have a team-building exercise of some kind at least once a quarter, and regularly celebrate birthdays and other occasions in their personal life. It’s to remind them that we are human and to show that we care about them in both their work and personal lives.”

With regards to their clientele, Hayden noted, “For our customers, we are always trying to go above and beyond with their experience so that it will be memorable and will hopefully see them come back to us in the future. This is why we place such a key focus on customer service and making sure we not only answer their questions but try and give them an experience that is beyond the norm.”

When it comes to those they do business with, this is what they do as a sign of gratitude. “And finally, with our partners, such as manufacturers and suppliers, we try and treat them with respect and loyalty. We understand how difficult it can be to run a business, particularly an SME, so we are always trying to be professional but also respectful of the challenges we are both facing and coming to a solution together. When we are establishing a relationship with a key partner for the first time, it has been important for me to build trust in the relationship from the outset. Some of our longest and strongest relationships in business have been with us for the whole journey, and it all started from making a bit of extra effort and understanding from the beginning,” Hayden revealed.

There are so many ways to express how thankful we are to people who have helped us along our entrepreneurial journey. No special occasion is needed to say “thank you” to someone because every day you’ll find a reason to be thankful for something good done to you. People will remember your good gesture of thanking them and appreciating their work, help or loyalty. It will create a positive ripple effect that will later come back to you a thousandfold.

How do you express gratitude to your stakeholders? How does it help you in your business? We’d like to hear your stories through our comment section below.

Dealing with rejection in business

Rejection is an experience that happens anytime and anywhere, even more so in the business and entrepreneurial space. It is a part of the journey that new and long-time entrepreneurs alike have to deal with every now and then. 

A transaction that never prospered, a possible partnership that didn’t come through, a loan that failed, a proposal that was not accepted, and so on and so forth. These are just some of the many scenarios where rejection happens in one’s entrepreneurial journey.

Getting a “no” may often be hurtful, but it doesn’t mean that it’s the end of the road. It is just a bump or a hurdle that one has to overcome to move forward and come out better and stronger. So, how do you move past rejection and make it work for you and your business?

Never take it personally

There are various reasons when one rejects your idea or proposal, but don’t deem it as something against you as a person. It could be that they are not amenable to your price points, they don’t see a fit with their business needs, or there’s just a different opportunity or option that they prefer to take. 

“Rejection is a reality in every business and it needs to be used to fine-tune aspects of your business or product offering without taking it personally,” Nitasha Badhwar, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Sunpower Renewables, remarked.

Similarly, David Fastuca, CMO and Co-Founder of Locomote, shared this insight. He said, “Being in marketing and sales for a good part of my career, I'll probably take the line of sales, such as being able to cold call and reach out to people. As a business owner and founder, for your first hundred customers, you're doing whatever you can to get them on board and you get rejected a lot. You're interrupting people's day and you don't know the right time to reach out to them, so the biggest sort of rejection is to have these people telling you to piss off, go away, and them being rude on the call. You really need to have a thick skin and understand that you should not take it personally.”

Be resilient

Take every rejection as a lesson that will only further improve yourself and your business. Many leaders would say that a failure only becomes a failure when one stops trying. And for every success, there are countless trial-and-error and rejections that happen along the way.

“The way I've dealt with it is in light of those ways of being really resilient,” David professed. “It's not about how many times you get knocked down, but it's how many times you get up. I try to instil this ethos into my children as well, wherein to expect failure and that it's going to happen, so anticipate it and agree with it with a smile and know that every ‘no’ gets you closer to a ‘yes’. If you don't hear back from someone, it's always a ‘yes’ until it's a ‘no’,” he explained.

So, keep trying. Keep approaching people. Keep on refining and upgrading your products and services. Never allow rejection to weigh you down.

Stay positive and find an opportunity from the experience

A rejection is oftentimes a detour into something even better and bigger. Find an opportunity in a rejection. Will it lead you to a new client? Will it give you more time to do other projects? Does it give you a new idea to work on?

For David, “it's just having that approach where even if someone gives me a ‘no’ on a call, I'll smile, I thank them and I even try and turn it into something like ‘hey, it may be not right for you, but can you recommend me to someone else you think this might be a right suit for them?’ So, even if I'm taking a negative sort of conversation, I try to flip that into a positive one.”

Use it as a way to improve and progress

When rejection happens, find out the “why” behind it. Knowing the reasons can help you develop yourself and your business by fixing things that are within your control and letting go of things you can’t.

Nitasha gave an example of how rejection has enabled them to refine and enhance their products. “In our organisation, we have tried to use it to deviate from the status quo and redefine the norm. After all, Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. An example of this would be in the early years of the business where we started with a home power system with a PAYG business model.”

She continued, “We kept reorienting the model expecting better results. That didn’t do as well as we expected due to various reasons: lack of telecom infrastructure in remote places, affordability, and issues with collecting payments to name a few. However, in listening to the market, we evolved our product offering and our business model to redefine our product, thus, creating our independent solar power station. It functions independently, allowing a customer to choose what features to add. It is not restricted by telecom infrastructure and can scale up as much as the prosumer needs. Getting rejected helped us in developing a better product.”

Next time you get rejected, go back to the drawing board and rethink the best approach forward. Have you experienced rejection in your business? How did you handle it? Share with us your thoughts and learnings through the comments section below.

How to deliver engaging and impactful presentations

Presentations are essential in a business. People present their ideas or topics during speaking engagements, proposal meetings, and various events across different industries and sectors. But how do you make killer presentations that are impactful enough to draw your audience to your message?

Entrepreneurs and business executives nowadays are being tapped to talk about their experiences, expertise, insights and entrepreneurial journey stories to inspire others. Members of EO Melbourne share with us some tips on how to hook and attract your audience when presenting as well as keep them engaged and interested in your presentation.

1. Connect with your audience

“Be real.” This is what Jeremy Chen, Managing Director & Co-Founder of Good Things and Co-Founder of Hustleboard, imparts to those who want to learn how to deliver an effective presentation. The best way to make a connection with the audience is to be sincere and authentic in one’s words and disposition, and not try too hard to impress your audience.

This is backed by David Fastuca, CMO and Co-Founder of Locomote, when he said, “Just like how we do in EO, we're sharing experiences all the time. It is by making these presentations based on your experience or the experiences that you've delivered for your customers and bringing those results through because then they can say, ‘Well, I'm like this customer. I can get results like this based on how they did that.’”

True enough, the best presentations are those that can capture the attention of the audience, sustain their interest, and get them to retain the message you have conveyed. “The most effective ones I have done for the business are those where it is clear that I have been able to establish an emotional connection with the audience and they feel like they are part of the journey and the challenges that we have had along the way. Getting buy-in and interest from the audience from the beginning is so important,” shared Hayden Brass, Founder and Managing Director of Zea.

2. Make your slides visually pleasing

Renata Freund, Founder & Director of Honeycomb Strategy, shares valuable insights based on the work they do. “As a research agency, our success is centred on our ability to clearly communicate insights that are easy to understand and compelling. Here is one of our go-to tips and tricks to wow your audience with your presentation: Visual design is never optional.”

“When information, insights or data is presented in a format that is visually appealing, your audience will naturally be more open and receptive to what is being communicated. The visual design needs to come first, not be an after-thought in your presentation,” Renata remarked.

The visual design includes the template you use, the background of your slide, the colours, the layout of the presentation, the illustrations, photos and graphs that are included in the slides, as well as the font and size of the text. All these must be cohesive and well-thought-of to ensure that they are appealing to your audience.

3. Use fewer words and text

Renata adds another tip to wow your audience: Let imagery do the talking. “As a general rule, we try to keep the text on the slide to no more than a short heading plus 3 bullet points. We use photography and iconography as visual cues to support the story, without having to spell out every insight with words,” she said.

David concurs based on his experience as well. “The best ones have always been if you've got slides up on the screen or doing a zoom, know your basic things. It's common sense now these days, but a lot of people still get it wrong, which is not to have too many words on a page. Try to have more pictures that convey what you're saying on screen so that they're not reading something word by word, but they're getting the gist of what you're saying by the imagery that's on there.”

Jeremy summarises it in two words – “Be concise.”

4. Let your personality shine through

The third tip Renata has in making an impactful presentation is to “Let your personality shine through.” 

She expounds, “The one thing that all great communicators have in common is the ability to let their personality shine through. Your presentation should be no different. Bringing fun, humour and your own personal touch to your presentation will build credibility and warmth with your audience.”

5. Put some fun in your presentation

Speaking of fun, David shares that it can make a presentation more memorable to the audience. He reveals, “I try to make all my presentations a bit fun, such as having a meme or a gif that people can relate to or that could get a bit of a smile from the audience. It can be risky if it doesn't come off, but when it does, it has a real impact.”

He further added, “People will remember you as the one that made them smile and the one that made them feel good about the topic that you're talking about. Depending on what you're talking about, it could be a relatively boring or stale topic, so you want to lighten it up and have a bit of fun with it.”

6. Give good key takeaways

Lastly, adding a summary at the end of the presentation will make it easier for your audience to recall and digest everything that you’ve said. According to David, “Give people some really good key takeaways. It doesn't matter what you're presenting or what you're explaining, there's always something that people can learn. I found that doing a summary makes it easy for people to get key takeaways. I put them on one slide and allow myself to put a little bit of text there so that people can know what I'm talking about and they can write it down or screenshot it. I think that helps create a presentation that is impactful and engaging.”

Moreover, take time to practice and hone your skills. Take the opportunity to present when it comes knocking at your door. Better if you record your presentations and review them later on so that you can see how you can further improve your presentation skills.

Ross and David Fastuca: a family (partnership) that works

Working with family is something that one must avoid at all cost, some people warned this duo. But for cousins Ross Fastuca and David Fastuca, Locomote’s Chief Information Officer and Chief Marketing Officer, respectively, it is something that has thrived very well for them. For 16 years of working together in various ventures and businesses, Ross and David have shown that they are a formidable figure when it comes to building a company and steering it to success.

“David and I have always done business together since we were kids,” Ross remarked. “But I think we did it at such a young age that we probably learned through the years how to completely argue and be very candid and then not take offence to it. That's how we work together. We banter so much because we know it comes from a place of care. It doesn't come from ego.”

As business partners, they have established how to make the partnership work. There is no question when it comes to the delineation of roles. As David puts it, “that’s pretty easy because we both have different skill sets. My skill set is design and marketing, whereas Ross is more on the product management and technical side. I mean, we do give each other advice and give each other opinions on what each person is doing. So, we never had that issue of who does what.”

“With business decisions, we just agree either violently or not violently. When it comes to skill set, yes, we’re different. But with business decisions, I don't think we ever made a decision that wasn’t mutually agreed. It’s either we mutually agree or yell at each other for two hours until somebody quits. And it's not a win either. We just go, oh yeah, you're right,” Ross clarified.

From design to fashion to entertainment, and now, travel and information technology (IT), the duo has dipped their fingers into different industries. They have started off with businesses that provided services until they found more comfort in product-based endeavours. It seemed that David and Ross have been doing business their whole lives. Both have their close-knit family to thank for when it comes to setting the stage for their entrepreneurial debut.

Their grandfather’s coming over to Australia was a typical Italian migration story. The entire family – Ross’ father, David’s dad, who passed away when David was about three years old, and five other siblings – grew as new generations of Fastucas came into the picture. When David had a christening for his daughter, the party that was composed of their immediate family already totalled to 80. And it is still growing.

Ross grew up with his dad working from six in the morning until nine in the evening, which happened much throughout his childhood and for about 25 years. His father started a milk bar in Werribee. “We lived at the back of it while David lived down the street. So, we grew up like right next to each other, went to the same school, went to the same primary school, same secondary school, same higher education. We're basically like brothers,” Ross attests.

Their parents and all their uncles had small businesses. “I can't think of an uncle that doesn't have his own business,” Ross commented.  Although they weren’t poor, they lived basic lives and worked very hard to earn a living. That had a great impact on David and Ross because even as kids, they were doing something to make money. Ross remembered that time when his dad would give him a box of chocolate to sell at school instead of giving him money by doing chores. On the other hand, David recalled how they were working after school and during weekends, doing things from the kitchen table at Ross’ mum’s house.

Starting things and putting their ideas into something tangible were not always smooth-sailing for them. Ross described how they did things during those days. “To be honest, at the very start, when we started doing pretty much everything that we've done, we had no idea how to do any of it. We just took on opportunities as they came along and then learned them by brute force. It's not like learned and then do it. We got the opportunity and then learned based on whatever that opportunity was. At that time, we were doing so many different random things.”

One time, David was able to lock a project for a family friend. From there, his desire of starting his venture started taking root. He had business cards printed out, made up a name for his enterprise, and pretended he ran his own company. He told Ross about it, who exclaimed, “That’s not how you start a business!” Eventually, Ross, at 19, and David, at 16, teamed together to put up their first design agency. At that young age, nothing scared the two of them from diving into the entrepreneurial waters and testing the extent of their capacity. “We looked at it at that time as something as what’s the worst that could happen?” David explained. “At that age, we were so young. We just tried anything. We didn't truly care,” Ross added.

“My dad used to tell me and David that there’s no such thing as a word “can't”. So, I was brought up with that mentality that if you want to do something, just do it,” Ross intimated. Despite their exposure to entrepreneurship at an early age, the Fastuca cousins also encountered roadblocks and stumbled on obstructions throughout their entrepreneurial journey.

One particular misfortune was a business deal that got nipped in the bud. “We came up with a brilliant idea that we pitched to an investor. The investor said yes. They loved it. They were going to give $500,000 to start the project,” David recounted. However, the investor got embroiled in an embezzlement situation. “It was crippling at that stage. It was our first big project. It was something that would have made us say, ‘Yes, we made it. We're going to build something.’ And then the next day, we got nothing,” David continued.

For them, the greatest challenge is the build mode. Ross finds it as the most stressful stage when it comes to having your own business. While they were out trying to build something, they also had to worry about getting the right funding, making sure their business model works and growing their team.

David shares the same pressures with Ross, too. “A lot of stress is on ensuring that you’re building the right thing. It’s a good kind of stress, as opposed to not having enough money to pay off staff,” David opined. To which, Ross expounds,“One of the biggest stresses is when you have a bunch of employees in your company. Especially as a technology company, you need funding. You don't make a lot of money in the first few years of the company. The biggest stress is making sure that you have enough money to pay people because they are relying on you to live. So, you need to be on top of your game to make sure that you can fund what you're doing and that you don't leave people out in the lurch.”

How they built their venture Locomote was interesting. The duo got introduced to a travel consultant that led them to a large mining company. As they sat down with this company, they discovered the problems in the travel booking segment. “They explained to us how they manage their travel and I couldn't believe that people would manage anything that way. It was so old and antiquated and disjointed,” Ross related. They went out and talked to other corporations of different sizes to figure out if they, too, have the same problems. And they did.

They then put their heads together, came up with a solution and presented their ideas through a PowerPoint presentation. “We went back to this big mining company and said, ‘This is what we think will solve your problem. If we build it, will you use it?’ And we got them to agree. We got them to sign a contract to have it free for the first 12 months and then pay for it after that. We did that before we even had anything. We didn't have any funding or anything to build this product.”

Good thing that one of their partners introduced them to Travelport, which pays an incentive to travel companies that transact through their platform. To overcome their stumbling block, they went to Travelport and asked, “If we can get this big company to put all their bookings through Travelport, will you pay as an incentive to fund this thing that we want to build?” Although the idea of a small company convincing a giant mining company seemed ridiculous at that time, Travelport agreed to it. Things fell into place. David and Ross got the funding they needed to build their product, which became successful. In the end, they sold Locomote to Travelport. It went full circle. Building Locomote and selling it was the most amazing thing that has happened to the Fastuca partners. And it all started with just a PowerPoint presentation.

In retrospect, Ross recognised that surrounding himself with mentors – people who were already ahead of their game – earlier in his entrepreneurial journey would have made things a lot easier for him.  “Find some mentors who have accomplished things that you want to accomplish.” That is the one thing Ross wants to do if he could just press the reset button. That is the same thing he would tell his younger self if he could travel back in time.

David concurred with Ross. He realised it’s a good thing that they have each other. According to David, “Find people who are going to be blunt, upfront and honest. We've been lucky that we've been each other's sort of that person. Having someone that tells you the truth is rare and hard to find.”

Lady luck must truly have been looking kindly on them because they have found like-minded individuals in the bosom of EO Melbourne. “It was really good timing for us to surround ourselves (with like-minded people) and to put our network and meet other people,” David enthused. Through EO, he learned to give less advice and give more experience. To this, Ross added, “Certainly, for me, it's a good sounding board. You learn a lot from it. It's like having your mentors but a little bit more practical.”

Ross and David like to be around people who have the same passion and persistence as they do. These are two qualities they believe entrepreneurs should have. “If you don't have persistence or passion, it will never work,” quipped Ross.

That is why David likens their entrepreneurial journey to someone digging for diamonds and not stopping until he hits the treasure. In contrast, a man who stops digging might just be a few inches away from the diamonds. But he wouldn’t know that because he already quit. He said, “If you believe in what you're doing and have the passion for it, then do not give up. There were times when we could have given up.  Just keep pushing through the hard times because you never know when you're in the corner of hitting that success.”

For Ross, the journey is something that is comparable to chaos. While most people think of it as a straight line from one end to another, the reality is that the line has many twists and turns.  “It's like the line goes all over the place. There’s craziness. It goes up and down, backward and forward, and then it goes to the end. It’s like the craziest rollercoaster you can ever imagine. You think it's all going to collapse. And then, it becomes amazing. You like to do it over and over again. When it's amazing, enjoy it. When it's about to collapse, try to work it out and keep it together.”

Now, the Fastucas are looking positively to the future, especially that Locomote is gearing for global expansion. It now has a presence in the U.K., Singapore and Japan and they are eyeing the U.S., Malaysia and South Africa as their next targets. David and Ross are no longer shareholders in the company but are still very much involved in the business. “We have an attachment to Locomote, having sunk five years of our lives into it completely, and sacrificed a lot of things to make it happen,” Ross shared.

But beyond business, Ross and David have some personal plans as well. Last year, they joined Project Gen Z and its team of entrepreneurs to Cambodia to teach the next generation on how to be entrepreneurs. They ran some workshops there that inspired the children to dream big and achieve things. It is something that the cousins plan to be involved in as they will be going back to Cambodia this year to continue what they have started.

In work, in volunteerism, and in life, David and Ross are partners till the end. “We're one family. We just do everything together. We invest together. We invest in property together. We invest in our business together,” Ross pointed out. “And it isn't just at work. I mean, inside and outside work and life, in general, we spend a lot of time. So right now, literally, I can throw a tennis ball to David’s house. Our wives are very close. I've got a son and another baby on the way. David has three kids. Our kids play and jump into the pool together.”

As they say, “a family that plays together, stays together.” But for the Fastuca cousins, a family that plays and works together succeeds together. David and Ross are truly fortunate to have each other in their entrepreneurial journey. Indeed, they have proven that blood is thicker than water.

More about Ross and David on their Linkedin profiles, Ross Fastuca and David Fastuca. Check the Locomote website here http://www.locomote.com/.