What Do You Do When Your Business Disappears Overnight? | Noemi Beres

Most business owners worry about competition, economic downturns, or making the wrong decision.

Few ever imagine waking up one day to discover their entire industry has effectively shut down.

In Episode #38 of Bounce Back in Business & Life, host Frank Zaccari sits down with entrepreneur and podcasting expert Noemi Beres to discuss what happened when the travel agency she spent years building was devastated by the global pandemic.

After investing years of effort into growing a successful travel business, COVID-19 brought everything to a halt. Faced with the loss of her business and personal challenges at the same time, Noemi had a choice: stay stuck in what was lost or build something new.

She chose to start over.

Today, Noemi is the Co-Owner of Podcast Connections, helping entrepreneurs, authors, and experts share their stories, grow their businesses, and create meaningful relationships through podcast interviews.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• How to respond when circumstances beyond your control change everything 
• Why resilience is more than simply surviving difficult times 
• The mindset required to start over after significant loss 
• How relationships and connections create new opportunities 
• Why some people remain stuck while others reinvent themselves 
• The lessons entrepreneurs can learn from navigating uncertainty 

As Noemi shares, setbacks don't have to define your future. Sometimes the end of one chapter creates the opportunity for something even greater.

If you've ever faced a major business setback, personal loss, or unexpected life change, this conversation will remind you that while you may not control what happens to you, you always control what happens next.

Connect with Noemi Beres

🌐 Website - podcastconnections.co

🔗 LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/noemiberes/

Listen, subscribe, and share.

Because getting knocked down is part of life.

Getting back up is a choice.

#BounceBackInBusinessAndLife #Resilience #Entrepreneurship #Leadership #BusinessGrowth #SmallBusiness #PodcastGuesting #BusinessOwner #PersonalGrowth #SuccessMindset #OvercomingAdversity

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Have you ever felt stuck in pain, loss, or failure? Wondering how to rise when life knocks you down again? Then Bounce Back is for you. So gather your resilience, hold tight to hope, and get ready to reimagine what's possible in your life. So here's your host, Frank Sakari.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Welcome to Bounce Back in Business in Life. Let me ask you a question. What happened when everything you've built? Everything you poured your heart and soul into is suddenly taken away. No one expects to wake up one morning and discover a business that you poured your heart and soul into that you've built is suddenly gone. That's exactly what happened to today's guest. Naomi Barris spent over a decade growing a very successful travel agency. She was reinvesting profits, she was doing everything right, expanding operations, she was building momentum. And then 2020 came. In a matter of weeks, everything changed. Everything. Everything you built is gone. What do you do next? That's your story. Naomi, welcome to Bounce Back in Business and Life.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Thank you so much, Frank, for inviting me today. It's an absolute pleasure and honor to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

We're excited to have you. Share with the listeners a little bit about your background, where you were born, where you came from, how you got to where you are.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it I have a colorful, you know, life. I was born and raised in Hungary in Central Europe. But I always wanted to travel. I always wanted to live in a different country, learn new languages. That's what I did even when I was 16. You know, I became an exchange student with American Field Service AFS, and I ended up living in Denmark for a year, going to a Danish school, learning the language, the culture, and I loved it. And then when I had to go back to Hungary to continue my studies, I was completely shocked, gobsmacked. I didn't feel right where I was, and I knew when I finished high school and then when I finished university that I have to travel again. I have to live in a different country. So, you know, the trouble bug was in my body. Going back to my story, what you just uh shared with the audience, I remember, like even at age six, seven, I was playing travel agency at home, and my mom and dad was just looking through the keyhose and everything, and oh, she's doing it again, like you know, the travel agency stuff. So basically, I manifested that kind of lifestyle for myself even when I was a little girl. And there you go. We lived in Ireland with my husband, and then we started our first business back in 2007, and I had no idea about online travel-related business. I had no idea about sales or marketing, but I knew I want to work in that industry because it always interested me. So that was basically the push, the kind of the force in me that I need to follow my heart instead of my brain and become an entrepreneur and working in the travel industry for many, many years up till 2020. And then again, yeah, the pandemic hit, the pandemic happened, as you said.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

Yes, it did. And what a shocker. Now, when we spoke before on on top of the 2020 travesty, you had a personal tragedy in 2019. Do you want to share that with the people?

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Yes, I would love to share that because I think the more open and vulnerable we are in this space, it can really help people to align with our message. Unfortunately, my dad was diagnosed with cancer in 2017, and he was given like a few months to leave, but thankfully he stayed with us for two more years, and he passed away in 2019 on my son's seventh birthday, so which was which was a huge shock to the family. We knew it was coming because it was terminal, but still it's always a shock, like no matter what, like if your closest relative passes away. Plus, I am an only child, so it's not easy to support your mother and being there for everyone and trying to heal yourself in the meantime, which is not easy because you just go, go, go, go when everything was upside down and I pushed it through. But then, of course, when you push it through, it always comes back to you. We do that so many times that we try to, you know, swipe everything under the carpet or put everything into the closet, but it's just not working, and that happened to me as well. And I also lost my grandma to an accident a few months later after my dad passed away. It was a lot going on in my family, and then of course lost a business too. So, in the grieving, there are so many different types of you know grieving that we can experience during our life. Well, I experienced all of those in 2019 and 2020. But thankfully, being an artist, being a mixed media collage artist helped me to go back to my roots, go back to my art, and with the help of my collage making, I started to heal myself and to help myself.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

Grief is is an interesting animal because it doesn't go in a logical pattern. And you, as I was talking to you before, we were talking about Dr. Melissa Hughes, and I was talking to her, and she had said you can't avoid it. You can try to delay it, which I did, but it's going to come. And it's different for everybody. When uh the first announcement of COVID, let's go back to COVID for a second, and they told us the quarantine is going to be two weeks. All right, two weeks is all gonna be over, it'll be gone. When did you realize that it's not gonna be two weeks?

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Somehow felt it because everything stopped. We were familiar with the travel news, and all the flights stopped, everything stopped. Plus, we live on a small island when you can only travel by air. And when you realize that, like, okay, everything is shutting down here, the whole world is shutting down. We need to do something. As an entrepreneur, you always think about the future and you always think about this quick, quick. What can we do? Like you have to figure out something like quickly. We we don't have team meetings, like endless team meetings our organizations have, and like you know, you sit down and you think, okay, let's do this. I mean, especially when it comes to you know paying school for the school, paying for bills and everything, just like the normal life everybody is having. And you realize after two weeks, like no income is coming in. This is not a good sign. You know, you have to act quick. So we acted pretty quick. And thankfully, we had a mentor from Ireland who helped us basically to start a podcast booking agency back in 2020, and that was in April, and we just celebrated our sixth birthday of the company. And oh boy, it was a long and very interesting journey for me because you know, I didn't work in this industry, it was completely different. I was doing online marketing, social media, content creation. I had nothing to do with podcasts.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

It's interesting. I worked in major corporations and smaller corporations, and I love the point you said when you're an entrepreneur, you turn around and nobody's there. When I first left the corporate sector, someone asked me, Well, how are you doing? And I was a small business owner, and I said, you know, two weeks ago I had 100 people, and all I had to do was turn around and say, Here, do this. So now I turn around and say, Do this. There's nobody there. You gotta do it, you've got to make it. So, how did this idea for a podcast connection? This is a big switch. How did this come about?

SPEAKER_01 8:32

It was because our mentor he started basically a course on how to run a podcast booking agency. And this guy lives in Ireland and is a very successful entrepreneur, and it was a very easy business model. Basically, you start a podcast booking agency, you find clients, and then voila, you find podcast interviews for them. It sounds so easy, I know, on paper. And out of the hundred and something people who applied to complete this course, a few completed, and I think now out of the hundred and something, there are like two, three of us who are still in the business, but that's the usual number. I think we were lucky with this whole new system because it was completely new, but thankfully it was pretty easy to start, especially if you've been an entrepreneur for many, many years. You can just adjust to a new business model. And I always loved learning new things. Probably that's one of the advantages. And also communication was kind of always my forte. When you put those two together, it wasn't that hard. But of course, getting clients, getting clients on board from Europe, working with the US market in a culture that I didn't even know before and I wasn't familiar with, that was a whole new experience.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

And then it's uh people come to me sometimes to be on a podcast. And how do you help them become a guest?

SPEAKER_01 10:04

That's a great question. Because some people are already speakers, you know, they are doing speaking gigs, but being a podcast guest is a different experience for sure. Because when you are behind a mic, you don't have the crowd in front of you, you can't really use that kind of body language that much instead of being on a stage. So it was a completely new experience for many people. And of course, you need to learn it and you need to practice it. And I think like everything else, you need to build up those podcast guesting muscles, you need to start listening to podcasts more the merrier. Figuring out what your niche is in the podcasting world, it's really important. And once you start to listen to those podcasts, you will figure out what kind of podcasts there are good for you. Because there are lots of them, like millions of podcasts out there. But I always tell people that quality before quantity, you can't just share your energy and knowledge with all kinds of podcasts. There are good and bad podcasts. You need to figure out which are the good ones because your name will be kind of attached to these spaces, and it's really important to find the right ones for your voice.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

When you approach someone, or someone approaches you, what makes an ideal podcast guest? What are you looking for?

SPEAKER_01 11:27

I'm looking for people who, first of all, have a business, an established business. They already know that podcast guesting is a marketing strategy, it is a relationship marketing strategy. It won't give you instant results, and they understand that. Second, they need to have a clear message and story they want to share on podcast. That's really important. Because once you have a story, and that's how people can align with your message, because story sells, it's really important. And third part is being open and vulnerable. It's also crucial when it comes to podcast guesting because we can share the 75-step framework with anyone, but nobody is really interested in that. But once you being open and vulnerable with people and sharing your story, it makes a huge difference. You know, I shared with my struggles, with my personal struggles, with my trauma, with my anxiety, what I went through. I think that's really important to share that with the world because when it comes to being an entrepreneur, it's not everything rainbows and butterflies. It's a lot of stuff happening in our life, and it's not an easy ride. But we can come through those challenges, but still takes time, effort, energy, money, and it's not a four-hour work week.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

No, it's definitely not. So when someone comes to you and you decide, okay, yeah, this guy or this woman has how we can work with them. Now, how do you try to match them? Because as you said, there's like a million podcasts.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Yeah. You really need to get to know the guest and the hosts. For me, it's really important to get on a strategy call once they sign up with us. This is an hour-long conversation where we go through their bios, their topics, their talking points, what kind of podcast they are aligned with their message, aligned with them. It's very important to get to know them inside out because that's how we can represent them. On the other side, with the podcast hosts, we always try to establish a very human, warm, close relationship with every single podcast host we've been working with. I think that's somehow takes us out of the crowd, and that's what makes us unique. Because what I've heard from people, most of the podcast booking agencies, they don't really reach out to podcast hosts, like, hey, I would love to know more about you. Who's your ideal guest? They just want to pitch you, they just want to sell their people, and the more the merrier, the faster. But for me, the small boutique agency style approach is important because that's what I believe in.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Now, your company's your tagline, I love this tagline. Enriching people's lives through connections. Why are connections so important? You did it in the travel world, you're doing it now. Why is it so important?

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Because the whole big wide world is a whole big community. And that's how we connect, that's how we can support each other, that's how we can add value to each other's lives. Without connection, there's nothing left. That's how the world works. And if I can do just a tiny bit of peace, you know, in the broadcasting world, it's kind of magical when you do that. And it's so amazing when you see these business relationships blooming, friendships blooming, and connections happening. It's it's fascinating. And people thank you for that, and they're happy that you connected them. Because at the end of the day, when you get on a podcast, when you're a guest, you're an entrepreneur, and most of the time the host is an entrepreneur as well. You can do anything together. You know, so many possibilities out there if you do it wisely. So it's all about connection. And as I mentioned earlier, podcast guesting is a relationship marketing strategy. So it's all about relationships and connections.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

I'll get a lot of uh messages from people that I know, and they'll say, uh, Frank, here's this person, here's one sentence about Frank, one sentence about the person, and now I leave it up to the two of you. I get a lot of those. And what I like about what you do, because I have used several of your guests, is you give a statement would this be of value? Here's the individual's background, here is and then here are key points that this individual talks about, and here are topics of interest. So you don't have to sit there and try to recreate it yourself as a host and say, okay, well, this makes sense. Okay, we can fine-tune this this way, or we can fine-tune it that way. In my case, it gets the brain started to move. Okay, how do we make this into a story that people are going to want to hear? I think you hit it right on the head. Is when I started doing live radio, they wanted me to do a business show. And I said, Business shows are the single most boring thing on the planet. Who cares about ROI? Who cares? Right? How did you get there? That's what people want to know. I gave a talk recently, and it was we celebrate the beginning of an operation, right? Oh, look at this wonderful thing, and we celebrate the end when they get out and they sell it and they make millions of dollars or whatever the case is. We never talk about the middle, the journey. That's where the magic happens. That's what people want to know. Is that what you're finding?

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Exactly. Because the middle part is the longest part. And we have to make the most of it. It's so important because if it doesn't bring you joy, like working with those people, so why on earth are you doing that job? What's the point of the whole thing? And that's why I think business and leading my life, you know, in a heart-centered way. When you give love to people and serve people, everything comes back tenfold to you. And I truly believe in that. And I keep seeing that with so many people, especially in the go-giver community where I belong. And I always give a shout out to Bob, Bob Berg, and the go-giver community because that's how we connect and that's how we serve each other.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

One of the things I found, and I'm finding it as I get to know you better, is when you go out and do something and expect something in return, you're coming across kind of sleazy. And people can sense that immediately. This person's out for themselves, they're not out for anything else. But when you come across as you do, okay, I can help you. This may be a value. What do you think about this? And then you engage yourself into the system and they see she's got it together, she understands. I think that's the biggest component is they have to understand you and they have to understand what you're attempting to do. Then that trust comes. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Correct, absolutely. And you know, the funny thing is, Frank, that so many times when I have a conversation with someone, just a you know, usual chat, they always ask me, what can I do for you? And you know, like, what do you want? Like, I can help you with and tell them, like, you know, I just wanted to connect, don't have anything on my agenda. I don't want to sell you anything, I just want to genuinely get to know you. That's it. And they're surprised because there's always gender behind everything people doing nowadays, and when you don't do that, they're surprised or even shocked.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

Yes, but like what are you saying?

SPEAKER_01 18:57

You don't want anything from me? It's like, no, I just want to get to know you, learn more about you because that's how we connect. Again, going back again, connections, building relationships. That's how we do it, not selling that after the first five minutes.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

Right. So you have the meeting. Now, do you see people watching? Okay, I hear what she says, sounds good. I'm gonna watch. I'm gonna take a little wait and see and see if if this is for real. Is that something you deal with?

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Like they don't make a decision straight away, you mean, or where they're thinking, give an example.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

When I used to take over companies, small companies, and they were failing. And I'd come in and I'd say, Okay, isn't this wonderful? And people would say, Oh yeah, that's wonderful. But then they never really got fully engaged because they wanted to see is he for real? Is what he said really gonna happen? Is the first sign of something going wrong? Is he gonna go back to the old way? And then when you show a consistency of behavior, then they say, All right, okay, let's give this a shot.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Yeah, exactly. That's how they get to know, like, and trust you. And it's a process, it takes time. And I don't like that when you know people force that, like, okay, so did you make up your mind? Or can we just start like you know, like tomorrow? And then I love to give time and space for people to make their own decisions so they don't feel like kind of urged or pushed into something they're not ready yet. And I think it's about listening to them, like asking more questions during these conversations than talking, because I think that's one of the biggest mistakes with salespeople, usually, that like you don't ask enough questions and you don't listen to them. You don't know their pain points, you have no idea what they're about. And uh ask those questions, those are crucial. And once you answered all their questions, they won't have any doubts to join you or to work with us.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

I found that there's logic and there's emotion. So if you're just on logic, logic, logic, you don't sell anything to anybody. People buy once you touch the emotion, once you touch something that is relatable to them. Now, how does that work when you're talking to a business person who may want to get on a podcast? Because I'm sure that's why they come to you. I like to get more exposure.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Exactly. The funny thing is, Frank, that usually the time they reach us, they are kind of super clear about they want to get on those podcasts. I'm getting very good referrals, so I'm so lucky with them. And they usually come from many publishers and so on. They want to, you know, promote their books. So they don't really question things. I'm pretty lucky with that. I don't really have to convince them to work with us. That's a good side. And when you're super clear about like what's the goal, and you ask about like what's their goal with podcast guesting and how we can reach those goals in the next couple of months, and I understand that. They understand it so we can work together. And of course, it needs to have that energy between us. One of my clients recently wrote a book, it's an amazing book. And he wrote about it that if you would invite a person to a family dinner and introduce them to your family, that's a great potential client. But if you you don't want to do that, it's not a client for you. So that's also important when it comes to you know working together. Because if the synergy is not there, it will never work.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

No, it absolutely doesn't. That's wild. Well, I love this conversation. We probably continue on for hours. But what last words do you want to leave with the listeners around the world? What do you want them to remember?

SPEAKER_01 22:44

So, whatever you do in life or business, I think one of the most important things is consistency. Because even it comes to podcast guesting, when it comes to being an entrepreneur, it's about showing up every day on bad days, on good days, on whatever days. It is just kind of keep going, whatever happens. I think that's really important. And of course, being persistent, because that's also part of being an entrepreneur and running an agency or running a company. And taking the small steps approach, whatever you do, just give yourself the patience and grace to slow down, take it easy, and focus on the journey. Because, as you said, the middle part is the most important. And I always have this quote on my desk and a small card that I look at it every day, and it says, every day is a new life to a wise person. That's how I try to live by when it comes to life, entrepreneurship.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

I love that. Each day presents a series of challenges, but it's more what's your approach going into the day. Correct?

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

If you come in and you're negative, not a lot of good stuff's gonna happen. But if you're opening and positive. How do people get a hold of you? Because they're gonna want to talk to you after this.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

You can get a hold of me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. So you type my name in, Noemi Beres, and you find me with a tiny microphone signed next to my name, and I'm happy to connect if you reach out. Also, we have a website which is podcastconnections plural dot co. And you can get in touch with us and happy to help.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

And we will put that in the uh the notes, folks, when this uh when this comes out and you'll be able to get a hold of her. Now, as I said, we're just about out of time. I want to thank Naomi again for showing us that you can rebuild your life, you can rebuild your business after a devastating loss, and it's a matter of just stay positive and keep moving forward. So let me end you with this. None of us are in this alone, and the secret to walking in the water is to know where the rocks are. And today Naomi showed us where many, many of those rocks are. Together, through this podcast, we're gonna find more rocks and we're gonna bounce back better than ever. If you like this, share it with a friend. Please subscribe. Naomi again, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Thank you so much, Frank.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

So that's it for today's episode of Bounce Back. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will win a chance the grand prize drawing to win a ten thousand dollar private VIP day with Frank himself. Be sure to head on over to Bouncebackpodcast.com and pick up a free copy of Frank's gift. And join us on the next episode.