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Meet the Rebels Who Bend the Rules and Play to Win Rejection -- who cares? Naysayers -- screw 'em. Entrepreneurship isn't just about business. it's about rebellion.

By Joe Robinson

This story appears in the October 2015 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

Trevor Paulhus
Abe Issa of Global Efficient Energy has had a few doors slammed in his face.

Abe Issa trudged up the walkway to another suburban front door, sweat sliding down his back in the blast furnace of a Fort Worth, Texas, summer. He had a pretty good idea of how he'd be received on the other side of the locked screen: "Not interested." "Don't need it." "Don't waste your time." Take your pick.

"Whenever I got rejected, it would sting," admits Issa, whose family immigrated to the U.S. when he was 5 to escape the civil war in Lebanon.

Everyone knows that door-to-door sales went out with the Fuller Brush man. And what Issa sells is even more of a challenge to the established order: In Texas, the heart of oil and gas country, he offers non-fossil-fuel energy solutions. His company, Global Efficient Energy, provides foam insulation, HVAC, LED lighting and solar products—the last a veritable heresy in these parts. Out of every 100 sales calls, he might wrangle three or four appointments to do a free audit to show homeowners the money they could save with more effective energy management.

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