Liz Mosley: I was emboldened effectively, like I had this confidence that I didn't have before because I'd created myself a win win situation and I wasn't as afraid of the rejection anymore. And so maybe I came across less desperate or something, but I think that confidence like impacted how I came across when I was pitching for things.

Chris Do: Let's just jump into it.

Liz Mosley: Okay.

Chris Do: Set the stage for all of us and don't leave out any of the juicy details.

Liz Mosley: Okay. Well, basically two years ago I was at Adobe Max and I came past your stand and I bought your book.

Chris Do: Thank you.

Liz Mosley: And I think that, you know, that evening I, you know, did the classic thing. I did a, an Instagram story. I shared the book that I bought. I tagged you in it. And around the same time you had been chatting with Lucy Werner, who is a friend of mine, and you had invited her to be on your podcast. So I post this Instagram story and you replied, you know, very polite saying, thank you for the share. And so I was like, Ooh, okay.

He sent me a DM. If I reply now, he's probably going to see it. Cause it'll be like, you know, in the priority bit of his inbox. So I thought on a whim and sort of emboldened by you just asking Lucy to be on your podcast. I was like, I'm going to invite him to be on my podcast. So I sent you a message and I was like, Oh, Hey Chris, I've got this podcast.

Would you be interested in being a guest? And so you messaged me back. really quickly and said, how many downloads does it have? So I messaged you, told you the number of downloads and you're like, okay, it's a bit small for what I'm aiming for at the moment. But you know, this is, this is the kind of number get back to me, you know, when you get to that point.

Chris Do: What a jerk, right? I mean, come on!

Liz Mosley: No, but this is the thing that's, what I find so funny about this story is it was actually, like, the nicest rejection, really, that I could have received, because it wasn't a forever no, it was very polite, you know, you explained your reasons why, like, it was really good. But I still had all these, like, emotions about it, and I think that was what was so so interesting to me.

So my initial reaction was like embarrassment. Oh, I shouldn't have asked him. I think there was like a bit of shame. Like this is on reflecting about it after the fact, but I think there was like a bit of shame in there, you know, like, Oh, who was I to ask Chris Do to be on my podcast? You know, all that, all of the kinds of things that just come up automatically when you feel those sort of like raw emotions. Anyway, so I was like, I mean, it's fine. Again, it wasn't, and it's not even like it was a humiliating rejection. Cause it's not like nobody, nobody else knew that I DM'd you to ask you. So that was all fine. And I just sort of like sat with that for a while, but it was really intriguing to me.

I think how my response just did not seem to. Marry up to the rejection that I'd received. Right. So it like, you know, like I've already said, it was a really nice rejection. It wasn't a forever. No, all this kind of stuff. And I was like, why did I have such a strong, you know, emotional reaction to it? Not emotion.

It's not like I was sitting there crying, but you know, like I was processing, I was like processing these feelings that I had about it. And I think what was interesting to me was that my brain really quickly went to, okay, I'm not going to do that again because this doesn't feel good. And so, as I was kind of over the coming months, I started to think about that.

And I was like, if that is my response to such a nice reaction, what is like my, sorry, such a nice rejection. What is my fear of rejection like holding me back from? I, I immediately went to, I'm not going to do that again. You know, I went into self preservation mode. Like these feelings didn't feel good. I don't want to feel that again.

So I'm not going to do this again. And then it just kind of like dawned on me. all the ways that this was probably holding me back in my career, in my business. And so one of the things that I have found since starting my own business is that I've had to, I guess, like confront a lot of aspects about myself, what I'm like, you know, the positives and the negatives.

And one of the things that I have learned is that I'm quite good if I set myself a challenge or I like gamify something. And so I was like, okay, I know what I'm going to do. I've heard of a few people doing this before. I'm going to set myself a rejection challenge. So I was like, I'm going to try and get a hundred rejections in a professional capacity in six months.

And I'd seen like people do this on TikTok. On TikTok, they kind of do it in a weird way where it's not to do with work. And they'll just like go up to random people in the street and be like, will you sing a duet with me? And the person will be like, no, thanks. Um, and there's also a really good. Ted Talk by a guy, I'm probably gonna say his name wrong, but Jia Jiang. And he did a talk, What I Learned From 100 Days of Rejection. And then a friend of mine, who's an illustrator, had done something a few years previously where she, you know, did a similar challenge. So I was like, great, I'm going to do this challenge. And so I started it and I started documenting it. And I you know, everything's content, right?

So I started sharing about it on social media, and people were interested. A lot of people were quite confused, like, why on earth would I be going out pursuing rejection? And it's honestly had a profound impact on my life and my career, and My mindset and it's been amazing and it's all thanks to you saying no to being on my podcast.

Chris Do: So in summary, you're saying even my no's are powerful in coaching.

Liz Mosley: Yeah, totally.

Chris Do: That's what I'm getting from this. Okay, people need to know I'm kidding around because I'm like, oh my God, the ego on this guy is just ridiculous. So, Liz, for people who don't know who you are. Please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Liz Mosley: Okay. Um, I am a graphic designer. I'm based in the UK. I now sort of specialize in branding for small businesses. And I'm also a podcast host and my podcast is called Building Your Brand. And I think everything that I currently do sits of the umbrella of helping small businesses with their branding and their marketing. So whether that's I do it for them, like do their branding for them, or they learn something from my podcast, or I also do a lot of partnering with Adobe, doing Adobe Lives, you know, like educational content, that kind of thing.

And so, yeah, that's everything sits under that umbrella.

Chris Do: Not that I have to defend myself, but I'm just going to tell our audiences in case they're like, you know what, you frigging jerk, Chris. Why would you do this to people? Here's something you need to know. I used to say yes to almost every person who asked me to be on a podcast.

And then I started to realize, A, I have no time for work. All I'm doing is doing podcast interviews. And different podcasters bring different levels of production, experience and questions. And I was finding, my gosh, there's a lot of inexperienced people are not going to produce a good podcast. I'm going to get all of 44 views.

Is that a really good use of my time? One of the things I tell people about our mission to, to teach a billion people how to make a living doing what they love means I have to consistently think and act according to that really big mission. Am I going to reach a billion people, 42 people at a time? Probably not. There's not enough time in the day for me to do that. So I have to kind of be a little bit more selective as to where I go and be a guest on. It just came out of that. And so that helped me at least set some kind of benchmark in my mind in terms of, Hey, if you've done the work. Then I'll do the work with you.

And every once in a while, somebody asks me, I'm like, uh, you caught me in a weak moment, and I let my guard down, and then of course we get on, dogs are barking, it's just like, internet connection is poor, they're not prepared to do this, and I was thinking, yeah, that's why I have to have some kind of gate.

But I love that there's a whole other side to the story. So many times in our lives, we meet people, we can say something that feels pretty inconsequential to us. And what we don't know is there's a whole other universe of a story. There's a multiverse of events that's happening. And every once in a while, we're very fortunate to hear what happens on the other side.

So I want to dive a little bit deeper with you about what you learned, this exact process of embracing rejection as a form of growing. So growth through rejection. Who would subject themselves to that? Well, I know at least one person, , you know, and it's this concept, uh uh, it's fairly modern concept. It's called rejection therapy.

And I don't know if you know this, but the originator of this concept was I think a guy in Australia, who made the rejection therapy deck and then the person that you mentioned, who I can't pronounce his name either, bought this from him and then built something much bigger through the TED talk. And then now it's become its own thing, but I do remember the originator of this.

And I think those videos have been stripped off the internet now for whatever reason. And so here we are, you're inspired, you're like, you know what, this sucks. I feel bad. Why am I feeling bad? And how do I overcome this? How do I become desensitized to rejection? So let's take it from there. I mean, you're dealing with and processing lots of things. First of all, you're like, those videos on TikTok where people do silly things like, will you sing a song with me, have nothing to do with their career. So tell me the setup, how you would engineer this such that it was related to what you do?

Liz Mosley: So I, well, one of the things that was really interesting to me was that the minute I made the decision, my mindset shifted completely. And I wasn't expecting it to be that fast. So I basically set myself some parameters, I set a time parameter of six months. I set a number that I wanted to reach and I set, I guess the boundary that it was going to be work related and not personal life related because I wasn't really interested in that.

It was very much about pursuing things that I wanted to in my career. And I think, I mean, this is a whole other back story, but since having kids and starting my own career, I've, uh, my own business, I've become very ambitious. And this is only in the last sort of six years prior to that. I wasn't very ambitious at all.

So that's, so that's quite interesting. And I think feeds into, you know, why this kind of came at the right time for me. So I started off on the challenge. I like, I did a bit of research before I started. So I made, I wanted to make sure that I had 100 of things that I wanted to pitch for, you know, that I could actually keep this going.

So I made a long list of things at that particular time, like growing my podcast was a really Um, big part of it for me. So a lot of them were getting sponsors for the podcast. I thought the sponsors were going to tip me over the edge easily. You know, I thought I would fire out loads of emails and get loads of rejections.

Um, a lot of them was guests as well for the podcast. So those, those took up a lot of the list. There was, um, you know, speaking opportunities awards. I wanted to enter. So I made this really long list and was like, okay, I can, I've definitely got enough to work with here. And then the next thing I started doing was trying to find who I needed to contact for all of those things.

So that was like a big one. And I tried to like batch, almost like batch the different activities. So, you know, I made the list and then I started before I even approached anyone started to try find all the contact details, almost like in one go. So I, at the time had LinkedIn premium. And I was like, perfect.

I can, you know, this is going to help me find the names of the people that I need to contact. Um, I'd heard someone talk about how you can often guess a person's email address. So if you know the company they work for and their name, then you can Google what the sort of naming convention, you know, the email convention is of that company.

So if I couldn't find their exact email, you know, like I wrote a list of what I thought it might be because that might work out for me. Um, so that was like my next step. And then I just started going for it. And most of the time, I, you know, would spend not loads of time because I wanted this, you know, like not take over my life, but I would spend a decent amount of time constructing what I thought was a really good pitch.

I felt like I had some good intel on that in that because I have a podcast, I get so many pitches for that. And they range from the absolutely incredible to the. Absolutely abysmal. And so I felt like I'd learned a lot about what I like in a pitch and that really informed how I then pitched to others.

But also sometimes I would just, quite like what I did with you, I would quite spontaneously pitch someone. So if an opportunity arose where I was like, okay, this is my moment, I've got to go for it now, you know, I'd quickly write a DM or quickly write an email while I was feeling inspired. And I just started sending them out to see what would happen.

Chris Do: So your challenge was to pitch to a hundred people to sponsor your podcast, is that?

Liz Mosley: Oh, no, they weren't all, um, podcast sponsorship. Like, that was just some of the ideas of things that I would pitch for. You know, like, I thought that that one would probably get me a whole load of projections. Because at that point, my podcast, you know, wasn't that big or anything.

Uh, the hilarious story with that specific area of pitching is that, um, I had a list, almost like an order of who I would, my dream, you know, podcast sponsors. And at the top of the list was Flodesk. And one day, they emailed me completely out of the blue. I mean, it was an email that had gone out to a few different people, but it didn't seem like it was a mass email that had gone out to their whole mailing list, being like, oh, you're one of our top affiliates. Here's, you know, like some information about what's coming up. And I was like, oh, okay, this is my in. They've, you know, they've identified me as one of their top affiliates. And so that was one of the ones that was a bit more spontaneous for me where I replied and I was like, Oh, thanks for letting me know.

I'm one of your top affiliates. You know, I've been thinking for a while. It would be great. You know, the Flodesk would be the perfect fit for my podcast. Um, what do you think? And they replied and were like, yeah, we've listened to your podcast. Send us your deck. We think we'd be a great fit. Um, just tell us the terms kind of thing and I couldn't believe it because basically the first company that I pitched to my dream company to be a podcast sponsor said yes.

So then I was like, Oh, okay, hang on. This isn't going to play out quite how I expected it to play out. And so that yeah, that was amazing. And I, well, I don't want to give too many spoilers away before the end of the episode, but basically I actually failed my rejection challenge because people kept saying, well, no, like people kept saying yes.

And I guess, like, I, I've got like numbers that I can share, but what was interesting is I didn't get anywhere near pitching for a hundred things and yeah, it was interesting how many people said yes. And I think what was interesting about it is because I, I was emboldened effectively, like I had this confidence that I didn't have before because I'd create myself a win win situation and I wasn't as afraid of the rejection anymore and so maybe, you know, like maybe I came across less desperate or something but I think that confidence like impacted how I came across when I was pitching for things.

Chris Do: This is your Neo moment, you know this, right?

Liz Mosley: Yeah, yeah.

Chris Do: When you realize you're in the Matrix, and there's these agents you've been running from, like when, when Carrie Ann Moss says, when you see an agent, you run Neo, and you're Neo, and you're in that corridor, and you're like fighting this person, and all of a sudden it just clicks, you realize you are the one.

The chosen one.

Liz Mosley: Yeah.

Chris Do: The one who's going to rewrite the rules of the world. And then the punch is like, you can just see them. Everything's moving in slow motion and you're blocking and then you block one handed and then now you can stop bullets with your hands and you can resuscitate people just by thinking about it.

It's just Neo. And so they're like, I've never seen this before. I'm just talking about the matrix one. Forget about two, three and resurrection and reboots and all that kind of stuff. Just the first one. So when you realize... When you went to the depths of the feelings that you had in terms of like, God, this sucks.

Chris said, no. And now what I'm doing with my life, I'm a total failure object, you know? And then you're like, no, you know what? This didn't hurt that

bad. And I never want to feel this way again. So it's like you flicking the bullets away. They cannot do you harm anymore. So you're almost invincible now.

Liz Mosley: Yeah, like most of the rejections that I had in this whole process have been either like very polite and nice or I've been ghosted and I like some people really hate that that doesn't actually bother me because you know, that's fine. You know, that's one, you know, one form of rejection. I did have one what that was quite a rude response. And it was from someone, you know, who I looked up to someone that was like, very well known. No, I'm not dropping the name. I'm not. I'll tell you later. No, I'm not going to say it. But, but it was like, basically the mistake that I made. So most of the time when I was pitching, I haven't mentioned the challenge at all. In this one, I was like, I need to think, I almost need to think of a hook that's going to get this guy to open my email in the first place. And so I mentioned the rejection challenge and it turned out he thought it was a terrible idea and he didn't like the concept at all. And so his, like, his reply was just like a bit snarky, really.

And, and that one, that one did hit me, right? That one did hurt. And this was very early on in the process. And threw me a bit because then I was like, Oh my goodness, this guy thinks that what I'm doing is terrible. Um, okay, maybe I've done the wrong thing. Maybe I shouldn't be doing, you know, it started me questioning what I decided to do.

But what was amazing about it was how much quicker I recovered than I ever would have done before. So like before, that sort of email would have sent me into a spiral and it would have taken me quite a long time to sort of get out of that spiral. And this time I sort of mulled it over for like an hour and was a bit like, Oh, that was a bit harsh.

And then I was like, you know what? I know that this is working for me. You know, like this is such, this is a personal project and it's doing amazing things for me. So actually it's okay if this guy doesn't like what I'm doing. You know, that's not, although I'm a bit sort of like gutted that he doesn't like the idea or he doesn't think it's a good thing to do.

I'm okay. I'm fine. I can still carry on with this. It can still be like a valid and a legitimate thing to do. because it's working for me. And I, you know, I started it as a very personal thing. And what was really interesting to me, and I hadn't really considered is what the impact would be of sharing it.

So I shared about it because I was like, you know, everything's content, all that jazz. And The number of messages I've had from people saying, I saw you talking about your rejection challenge. It inspired me. I pitched for this and they said, yes, and now it's happening. Thank you so much. And I think like sometimes we underestimate, you know, in the same way that you're not, you had no idea that you're no, like the impact and the ripples it had for me, you know, like I didn't realize what. the ripples would be for other people, me sharing this process of what I was going through. And that was like so encouraging and so amazing. And, you know, like incredible stories, you know, like people pitching to speak at things that they never would have done normally. And I think what it made me realize is so much of us have this attitude of I want to do my work, and I want other people to notice it.

And that's the only legitimate way of me getting opportunities, you know, if other people notice how good I am and then get in touch with me. And I think that, and this might be a cultural thing, you know, I'm from the UK. Like the Brits have a particular way about them, I think some of it might be cultural, but I just think there's this real reluctance to go out and ask for what we want and just say, you know, this is what I want, please can I have it?

And yeah, sometimes people will be like, no. But sometimes people will say yes. And I think the other thing that's interesting is like when they say no, it's usually not anything to do with me. So for example, you know, I pitched to be on a podcast and it's actually, they've just had someone else on recently talking about that exact topic, or like, I may be just not quite the right fit for their audience, but it doesn't mean that what I'm saying isn't good.

And I think You know, that was another huge lesson for myself, is we start to allow rejections to, you know, to tell a story about ourselves. We construct this narrative in our heads. Well, so and so said no to this, so this must mean I am X, Y, Z. And again, like, this whole process helped me to nick that in the butt so much earlier, so I could be like, okay, I see the thought pattern here.

This isn't just because they've said, no, it doesn't mean this. It could be many other things that have resulted in this rejection. Um, and actually that's fine. Now I can just park it, move on and move on to the next thing because I've got this whole long list of things, you know, that I'd love to do.

Chris Do: Time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.

Want to make the most of the opportunities coming your way this year? I'd like to invite you to join me inside the Futur Pro membership. You're ace in the hole for 2024 with expert guidance and a supportive community. The Futur Pro membership was created as your ultimate business lifeline and we have years of testimonials from members to prove it. Check it out at the futur.com/pro.

Welcome back to our conversation.

Can we talk shop a little bit?

Liz Mosley: Yeah, let's talk.

Chris Do: Okay. I'm going to ask you a couple of questions. Feel free to answer or not. It based on your level of comfort here. Uh, so you reached out to a couple of companies. I love this thing that you're an affiliate. A top affiliate. So there's an implied relationship, even though it's probably a mass email, you're like, Hey, I'm a top affiliate. Would you be interested in going this other step? Uh, I'm just gonna ask you currently, how many downloads do you get?

Liz Mosley: My top episodes just over a thousand.

Chris Do: Okay.

Liz Mosley: And I would say that I'm averaging between three and 4,000 downloads a month.

Chris Do: Okay.

Liz Mosley: Um, and I publish an episode weekly.

Chris Do: How did you determine how much to charge? Because this is always a challenge, right?

Liz Mosley: Great question. And I think what's so hard about this is that this information isn't available anywhere, right? You can't, well, I mean, some people will share it, but it's really hard to go online and find, oh, this, you know, this number of downloads, this is what you should charge. A podcast that I listen to is a UK based podcast called Doing It for the Kids, and it's for freelance parents, basically. And the one of the hosts of that podcast called Frankie, I'm in a membership that she runs and I messaged her asking her about it because they'd had some great podcasts and she was so generous, like she sent me her slide deck, I could see how much she charged, I could see all her stats, like she sent me the deck that she was sent out to sponsors.

And I was actually really blown away by how generous that was because without flinching she just emailed it over to me and I now have made it my philosophy that if people email me and ask me I'm going to pay it forward and I'm just going to give them the information because actually. That's quite rare like people don't often aren't willing to give that information out because you know it's their sort of like stats and their downloads and everything anyway that really helped me because I could see from that what her downloads are and what she was charging and so I basically just worked it out from that and mine mine is like quite a bit lower than what she's charging and eventually I just went with something that I felt comfortable with.

It's like, okay, this is worth it for me. Like, for me, a big thing was I pay for my podcast to be edited, and I wanted to get a place where my podcast was effectively cost neutral. You know, like, I wasn't spending money on it. Like, I didn't mind at this stage that I wasn't making money from it, but I didn't want it to be costing me money.

So that was another big determiner for me was like, okay, this is how much my podcast editor costs. I want to make at least that. And that's kind of how I worked it out. And then I put together a deck. And interestingly, Flodesk did negotiate the cost with me. But they let me use my affiliate link in all the episodes.

So I had the potential. So like the cost that they ended up paying was less than what I originally, you know, said to them. But I could put my affiliate link in and make money from. the affiliates. And also I knew that once I had a company of that caliber as a sponsor, then that goes into my deck of past sponsors and that is going to help me going forward.

And it totally has been the case. You know, I think once you have an in, then the sort of like ball starts rolling. And you have information that you can give other sponsors, you know, well, this is what I did for Flowdesk kind of thing.

Chris Do: Getting your first anything's hardest, being your first subscriber, getting your first sponsor, getting your first client. Then you start to figure out systems and you can leverage the experience that you gained from that first experience to then onboard new opportunities. But. You didn't answer my question.

Liz Mosley: Oh, sorry, what was your question?

Chris Do: It's okay, I'm going to come back to it. Which is, a person who has, say, 4,000 downloads a month, what can they expect to ask for a sponsor to pay?

Liz Mosley: Okay, you want the exact amount. I would, I mean, some people will probably think that this is too low, but I, what's worked for me has been between $100-$200 per episode. Per episode. So I've just had a new sponsor recently and it's $200. Flodesks was, I think 120 maybe. Okay. I can't remember the exact figure.

Chris Do: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I think there are general guidelines based on your demographic and what they call, like, uh, cost per thousand CPM. Yeah. And they're, they're pretty bright and generic. And when you. When you find out those numbers are, you're gonna cry because it's, it seems like it's pennies per, per download.

Liz Mosley: Yeah.

Chris Do: It kind of literally is.

Liz Mosley: Yeah.

Chris Do: So the best kinds of partnerships that you can get from sponsors is the ones that feel most aligned with the content that you're creating.

Liz Mosley: Mm.

Chris Do: So I'm trying to do the math here. We get. Um, on average about 20,000 downloads per episode. And so if I multiply what you do per episode, which is about a thousand, so I could ask for maybe two grand an episode?

Would that work?

Liz Mosley: There we go.

Chris Do: So here's what I'm going to do. I've been thinking about this while you're talking. If you're enjoying this episode right now, everybody, there's an opportunity for you to work with a hungry audience who's interested in growing their business. Please let me know who you are, because we'd love to have you as a sponsor, especially if what you do is aligned with serving the creative community and their entrepreneurial goals. There.

Liz Mosley: Another thing.

Chris Do: Yeah,

Liz Mosley: you said it. You put it out there. Who knows what's going to happen? Who knows? I think also one of the things as well is. This is not related to the rejection challenge, but before I approached anyone like Flodesk, I knew that I wanted to get sponsorship. And so I started to, I started off by offering small businesses in my mailing list, the ability to sponsor one episode for like a really affordable amount.

And that, what that did was. I guess I train my audience, my listeners, to expect and be comfortable with adverts before I got to the point where I was asking people like Flodesk. And even to the point that if I didn't have a sponsor that episode, I would still put in the sponsored segment and I would promote something that I wanted to promote or share an affiliate link.

And I mean, that, this, that isn't really related, but I think sometimes you just got to start doing the thing that you want to do. You know, even if you haven't quite got to the stage where the company that you want to ask is sponsoring your podcast.

Chris Do: Well, I think this is such a fascinating thing in that you're, you take what most people would consider like a kind of kick in the pants. You're like, wait a minute, I'm going to turn this into opportunity and you're doing things that I've not even done. We do make some money through sponsorships, but it's through an automated sales network. So it's about, I don't want people to think we're like a crying poverty here. I think we do about 3, 000 a month, but that's using two different ads within our in our podcast, but if we learned, if we were brave enough, like yourself to actually reach out to folks and to begin it from a place like a real relationship. So you've given me a couple ideas already. Amazing. I'm gonna share with our audience because

Liz Mosley: Yeah.

Chris Do: You know what you're like, who cares about rejection or podcasting, Chris? Well, here's what I'm thinking. Number one, you all have a website so you generate some level of traffic. And if you are pretty consistent at blogging like we are, we write blog posts all the time. We get. Decent amount of views. There's this whole space that we don't use on our blog for affiliate links. So I'm going to reach out to my team right now and say, hey, populate these things with affiliate links to people we'd like to work with.

I'm pretty certain when the article is aligned with the affiliate link, we're going to convert. I know another guy and he talks about this, his name is Jacob. He does a million dollars a year in affiliate link links and he just employs full time writers all the time. And he, he's able to make money that way.

Liz Mosley: Did you do, you did an episode with him, did you? I listened to that one.

Chris Do: Yes, I did.

Liz Mosley: Yeah. I listened to that episode. And I think that's, yeah, that's the thing. Also, I think it's finding, like, being an affiliate for companies that you use and are excited about. Because, like, the reason that Flodesk was top of my list was because I had already talked about them so many times in my episodes because I love using them.

And so I knew that it was going to be a really comfortable, easy fit for my audience because they already know that I love using them. And I think again, that helps and that makes it work all around for everybody. You know, that works for the brand because they know that you are into them and you use them.

And it works for the audience because again, they know that this is like a genuine fit. And they, and what was really nice is like, people were like, Oh, yes, I'm really excited for you because we know how much you love flodesk.

Chris Do: Right. So here, here's me. I'm going to do this again. Right. Apple. Uh, Adobe, excuse me, uh, all the companies we love like Rode, Blackmagic, uh, uh, Canon, uh, Lumix, uh, Sony, call, call me somebody, somebody call me cause we, we, we love you.

We, we spend money on your products and if you're listening to this, if you work for any one of these companies, please reach out.

Liz Mosley: Yeah,

Chris Do: let's just put that out there. Okay. So number one, we're gonna add affiliate links. We're gonna start to sell or make money for the people that we then hope to take some of that money back. And by seeing or moving the needle for them, it's like, Hey, we, we start with, uh, an active generosity.

Liz Mosley: Mm.

Chris Do: And then if it were to start to take off, then I'm gonna follow your game plan. I'm gonna reach out to 'em and said, Hey, I noticed that we're, we're moving units for you. Should we. Consider you guys sponsoring the podcast and this could lead to a lot of other opportunities. I love that. But here's the other thing I've been thinking about since you've been talking about it. You said, without naming names, someone said something not so nice to you about this experiment that you were on. And I just got off a sales coaching call on Instagram Live and I was thinking, I think this would make a great opener.

I'm going to freestyle this based on what I infer that you've done, okay? It will start something like this. To DM people this, and I have to write the letter and put more thought into this, but here goes. A hearing "No" sucks. It's why I'm embarking on a personal journey to get 100 no's. There's a high probability that what I'm about to offer you isn't a good fit for you, but on the off chance that it might be, allow me to, and then I'll fill in the blank.

Liz Mosley: Yeah.

Chris Do: And that's it.

Liz Mosley: Amazing.

Chris Do: And I think that would kind of be a little bit of a pattern interruption. And it's okay if they say no. We're saying, I'm here to accept no's. And on the off chance that it's not a no, this is a win for me.

Liz Mosley: And I would be so much more receptive to a cold DM like that where you're basically giving me a permission, you're giving me permission to say no, that would make me way more interested in what you are offering than like the cold DMs I get are like grim, like so not good.

Chris Do: They're so aggressive.

Liz Mosley: Yeah, I think so.

Chris Do: I mean, is that what you did?

Liz Mosley: I didn't do cold DMs. I mean, I did cold emails. So, it's kind of what I did, but I didn't, I didn't phrase it like that. Like, I really like that. I think I would, I mean, mainly because after I sent that email where I mentioned the challenge, I didn't want to overtly mention the challenge going forward.

I did often, give them an out, you know, like I wrote it in a way where I was like, it's okay if you say no, or if this isn't the right fit, because I was totally okay with that as an option as well. And I think, again, that probably meant that my style of emailing them, I mean, I don't think it ever would have been aggressive, but it was like less full on, you know, like it, um, It comes across differently when I think you're less desperate for it, basically.

Chris Do: A hundred percent. And I've, I've, I've talked about this before. Notice how like when you're a single person, no one wants to talk to you. No one. They're like, get away from me, creep. Right? Or just cause you smell of desperation. You reek of it, actually. And the minute you're in a relationship, people that you're attracted to is like, Hey, so what's going on?

So a couple of different, it's like, wait, what is going on? I'm not different. I'm the same scrub you gave zero looks to before, zero considerations, but all of a sudden now, and it was just like, Oh my gosh. So, you walk a little bit differently. You conduct yourself a little differently and your language is, changes.

So, how does this relate to like business, okay? So, if you're a freelancer and your, your pipeline is full and you've got a healthy runway, you got money in the bank, all of a sudden you're going to be much more attractive. And it's not that you, you're literally doing something different, but your, your aura, your ethos and how you move in the world changes and people can sense that. And desperation is very repulsive, everybody.

Liz Mosley: And this is why I failed the challenge, because what happened was, and interestingly, right from the start, I'd made a list of podcasts I wanted to pitch for, and I am not particularly woo, but, um, like they started. pitching me to be on their podcast. And I was like, hang on a minute, you're on my list.

Now I can't count you as a rejection because you've pitched me. But I was like, actually, this is amazing because just by this process, I guess I was like more confident, more visible. They started to approach me and I basically gave a talk about this. I was a closing keynote at a conference. You know, I have been on podcasts talking about this, like the whole thing has spiraled beyond what started.

Chris Do: Wow.

Liz Mosley: And like, and eventually I had to stop. I had to really slow down pitching for things because I couldn't keep up with actually delivering , like what I had pitched for. But then I think sort of coming back to what you, you know, your, your explanation at the beginning as to why you said no to me. I had, I've had a bit of a lesson about it recently. The mindset shift for me also meant that last year I really said yes to a lot of things. Like in particular things that were pitched to me because I was in this whole mode of like, you know, getting out there, being visible, grabbing all the opportunities that have come my way.

And then sort of at the start of this year, doing some reflection, I have realized that for that particular time, you know, that was great. But now I think I need to be a lot more strategic about what I do. And so I need to be more focused in what I pitch for and why I said yes to because what I was finding, and it's very similar to what you described, it was like, Oh, someone's asked me to give a talk in their membership.

It's like, yeah, great. I'll do it. And then it's like, actually 10 people saw this and I'm not sure what impact it had for my business. And again, like, I don't want to sound like a jerk, but it's just like, we've only got a certain number of hours a day. And, you know, if we want to, you know, I, I basically did too much last year and the way the whole year felt to me was a bit off and so I was like, okay, well now I'm going to take what I've learned from that process and I'm going to refine it and I'm going to be more strategic this year.

And yes, I take the mindset shift and I'm going to go and ask for what I want, but I'm going to be more selective about what I ask for. And so I think that's been the like next level of the learning process for me.

Chris Do: Okay, I want you all, wherever you're listening to this podcast to imagine the soundtrack from the Lion King, the Circle of Life for copyright reasons. I can't use it, but maybe my sound editors and designers can do something like that. I want you to imagine the monkey who holds up like little Simba Simba. Yeah. Circle of life, like how the cub Liz. become full circle of this like first being on the other end of a soft rejection, a very gentle rejection, I believe. And now coming around like she's the one rejecting people now saying, uh, yeah, it just can't really do that. And I hope you understand. And so this is like two mirrors looking at each other where it's like goes into infinity. If we cross paths, the universe will explode. We just can't do that. Right. Now, Liz, I have to tell you something. There is yet another, other side to their story.

Liz Mosley: Okay

Chris Do: So I said it's very rare that we get to have this kind of chance encounter with someone and we just think it's just a blip on the radar and then time passes and you find out what has happened, what's transpired. And that's, I think sometimes why we're oddly curious, like, how did those people from high school turn out? You just look, captain of the football team, whatever, it's like, oh, okay, that's how that turned out. Well, on my side of it. When you asked, I was like, I rewrote the response like five times, like, no, I can't.

And then I'm like, you know what, this is not right. And I feel so guilt ridden, like, oh, I know what this is like, so I'm just trying to get started here. And so then I'm like, let me just try and say it this way. And you were super cool. Like, okay, totally understand. And then I was just like, feeling so guilty afterwards because I'm like, she's so cool.

And then that night I cried myself to sleep.

Liz Mosley: No, you're joking.

Chris Do: I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding on this whole story.

I was practicing my improv skills to see how, how deep I could pull that hook. None of this happened. It's just like a blip in the radar for me. Unfortunately, I, I, I'm sorry, everybody. Sorry if this has happened to you. I have to say no to like a thousand things a day. And oftentimes I just block and delete. That's my default. Action. Okay. Now, now. I just want to point out something that one moment according to the letter that you wrote was the catalyst for a lot of things happening. You're able to embrace this new mindset. You become much stronger, more resilient. Uh, you didn't let the idea of rejection overwhelm you with fear and stop you from moving forward.

You're able to get sponsors, which I haven't been able to do. You got amazing guests to come on your podcast and look, you survived. Yeah. You survived. So, you know, all I want to say to you at this point is, you're welcome.

Liz Mosley: Thank you. No, but seriously, and that's, well, that's the thing. When I pitched, I found the form on your website and I was like, you know what, I'm gonna pitch to be on his podcast because I was like, this would be such a nice full like circle ending to the story.

Um, and that was inspired by, I did the closing keynote at this conference about this experience and the guy who organized. Um, the conferences guy called Paul was like, either you have to get Chris on your podcast or you have to be on here. You know, like somehow there needs to be some conclusion to this story.

And, you know, when I was like writing the pitch to be on your podcast, like it just made me realize. how, yeah, exactly like you say, that one blip of a moment from someone else can be the catalyst or something. And you had no idea until I wrote the email and sent the pitch in. And I just think that's so cool.

Chris Do: This is a never ending story. This is, you're like a world builder, this is Inception. I'm not sure which level of the dream I'm in right now. Because think about it, everybody. I mean, really, I mean, I know I'm making movie references left and right, but never ending story. And now we're on Inception. First, we're talking about the Matrix.

We're all, we're everywhere here. Lion King. Okay, this one moment creates this new timeline. And Liz could have chosen lots of different paths. And she chose to embrace this. And then she's telling this story over and over and people are embracing this as just like hey, we want to be part of this movement with you.

And then you are able to, I don't want to say leverage or monetize this, but you've taken the story and you've told it in another way. And then that person says, well, you have to complete the art. But this is not the end of the story I'm telling you right now because now you're on the podcast and then 10, 20,000 people will listen to this and it'll create a new timeline. So you'll have a new story to tell and then we'll have to do the 10 year anniversary.

Liz Mosley: I know.

Chris Do: You're an old lady at this point, your children are like running around crazy. And then you're like, hey, here's what happened after that. It's a never ending story.

Liz Mosley: So a couple of things about being on your podcast. First, it taught me another good lesson because I pitched for it in August and I didn't hear from your podcast producer until December. That was another big lesson for me. It was like, sometimes you just have to be patient. And I had another one this week. I pitched, I pitched, so my dream, one of my dream podcast guests alongside you is, I mean,

Chris Do: come on, you're about to insult me.

Liz Mosley: Is Jessica Hische. Do you know Jessica Hische? She's an amazing,

Chris Do: she is.

Liz Mosley: Yeah. So I have loved her work for the longest time. And a similar thing happened like last, I think it was March last year. I shared a story that tagged her in it and she replied and said, thank you. And I was like, I'm going to do it again.

I'm going to ask her. And she was like, yes, email me your pitch. And I emailed it to her and I didn't hear anything. And I was like, that's fine. You know, I, I had a bit of hope because she'd given me permission to pitch her, but I, you know, I, I knew that like, similarly to you, I knew that she would be getting a lot of pitches and that she'd have to be selective about what she did, but then I got an email this week from her and it was, it was an email to, it wasn't to me personally, it was like, you're getting this email because you have messaged me about, you know, me being a guest on your podcast.

I kind of lost track of all my emails. Here's a calendar book in a slot to record. And I was like, no way. And so I booked in a time to record. And that was like nearly a year after the fact. And so again, like, and what's really fun is now I documented all of my pitches, all of my rejections, and I'm now going back to ones at the start and they're turning into acceptances.

And. Like, bringing it back to what we were just talking about, about me being on your podcast. Like, it is so much better for me to be on your podcast than for you to be on my podcast. Um, for me, you know, like from a purely, purely sort of selfish perspective. And again, like, that's a different, I'm really glad that that person was like, well, you should ask to be on his, because that was like something that I hadn't really considered. And like you say, it's, it's just, this story is just going to keep going round and round.

Chris Do: So, I hate to point out something to you.

Liz Mosley: Uh oh.

Chris Do: Yeah, I know. You failed.

Liz Mosley: I did fail.

Chris Do: You failed in your mission to get 100 rejections because what you chalked up as a rejection was just a yes waiting to be birthed.

Liz Mosley: Yeah.

Chris Do: So you're an absolute failure. I want you to process that.

Liz Mosley: I'm an absolute failure. But you know what? I'm okay with it because the whole point of this wasn't actually about completing the challenge. It was about the exposure therapy of getting rejections, which I have had. And I've like moved through those emotions and I've processed them. And also, you know, there was always the hope that through doing this. I was going to get yeses as well, which I did. And so, I was going to be a winner, whatever happened, basically.

Chris Do: Yeah, okay. Liz, thank you for sharing your story. It's been awesome having you as a guest and helping me to find closure on something I've been staying up late and thinking about all these months later.

My guest has been Liz Mosley, and she's a freelance graphic designer based out of the UK. She has an amazing podcast called Building Your Brand. If you'd like to sponsor, please reach out to her. I'm sure she could use it. And she used this moment, uh, that many of us would be like wounded from and turned it into this powerful thing.

A story, a talk, sponsors, and just motivation and, and a renewed sense of confidence by trying to get a hundred rejections in her business. And she's It's been, it's been a load of fun chatting with you. I love your personality and the story is just, it's so cool. And I just can't wait for us to do this again on whatever format.

Liz Mosley: Amazing. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It's been great chatting to you.

Chris Do: Thank you so much.

Liz Mosley: I'm Liz Mosley and you are listening to the Futur

Chris Do: thanks for joining us. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get a new insightful episode from us every week.

The Futur Podcast is hosted by Chris Do. Thank you to Anthony Barrow for editing and mixing this episode and thank you to Adam Sanborn for our intro music. If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by reviewing and rating our show on Apple Podcasts. It will help us grow the show. And make future episodes that much better.

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