Get More Support by Admitting your Weaknesses Have you ever gotten a less-than-encouraging response to what you thought was your best idea yet? Rest assured, it's not always because your idea is useless! There are a few common factors behind rejections. For one thing, voicing an opinion that threatens to upset the status quo can be a threat to your business career and your network. A massive study conducted across nonprofit, service, retail and manufacturing companies revealed that the more frequently employees voiced their @Ideas and concerns to their superiors, the less likely they were to receive raises and promotions over a two-year period. This is quite a troubling trend! So, what can you do to get people on board with your ideas? Strangely enough, your best option is to tell people why they should not accept your proposals. Start by being open about the shortcomings of your projects; this will surprise your audience and show them that you're an honest person regardless of the situation. This is what entrepreneur couple @RufusGriscom and @AlisaVolkman did when presenting their online parenting magazine and blog network “Babble” to potential backers. To their audience's great surprise, Griscom was up-front and told them that their website's user engagement was lower than they'd expected, 40 percent of the news on the site was taken up by seemingly irrelevant celebrity gossip and their back end was in major need of an update. Though it sounds like they were shooting themselves in the foot, investors were charmed by their approach. They trusted them, and Babble brought in $3.3 million in funding before being acquired by Disney in 2011.