Now I am not an entrepreneur, it was just that in my experience, a lot of people I've met who claimed interest in business were bullshitters, and all these business courses and advice videos I see online, it's all bullshit.
People love to act wise and say things that sound smart, but the reality is just different. Therefore, whenever I see any kind of business or entrepreneurship advice, I turn my mind off.
Does anyone else feel like 99% of business advice is bullshit?
byu/Hopeful-Advantage227 inEntrepreneur
Posted by Hopeful-Advantage227
10 Comments
It’s just get rich quick scams combined with Facebook Ads for large reach
Yeah totally. Most of them are just saying things that would help them market what they’re trying to offer. No real advice- just marketing.
And sometimes I feel like some successful people wouldn’t share a piece of their mind that easily. If you’re a chef and you’ve got a winning recipe, would you share your secret ingredient?
Yep, I grew up very introverted and older people would tell me “you don’t want to do that for a living” or “those people have such and such degree or it takes X years, even decades of experience” “they were born into that”. They said it with such confidence I thought they knew things I did not. Now I know they are just full of it and looking back these were people who never accomplished anything or advanced in life.
I hate myself sometimes thinking of what I could have done if I just blindly did my own thing. Now I don’t listen to negativity anymore.
It’s basically all useless and driven my monetisation.
The fundamental problem is that, **even when the person giving the advice is 100 percent truthful**, it’s always hoplessly infected by survivorship bias.
For example, I like and agree with lot of the things Alex Hormozi says. However, the fact that certain techniques worked for him, says nothing about whether it will work for the average viewer. For all I know, 99/100 people did exactly the same thing as him and it didn’t work.
But we don’t here about them as they are busy back in a 9-5 instead of running a youtube or tiktok channel.
If it’s packaged as business advice it’s most likely bs
There’s no single way to do this For every person that says you need to get great at sales to be successful there’s some introverted nerd who’s got a successful business run from his bedroom
For every person that says you need to find something unique that’s never been done before, there’s people breaking into existing markets finding great success just by being a better option
You can find contradictory evidence to nearly every single piece of business advice
Good advice and learning is found in the specifics of your operation.
Just go out and hustle that only works..
It is, because if it’s coming from social media it’s usually from people who monetize your attention. It’s also the same type of “fee-good” content that has 0 value to you. You’re not going to get fit by watching people go to the gym. You’re not going to lose weight by listening to people saying they lost weight. And you’re not going to become an entrepreneur by watching other people brag about their wealth.
There’s a huge but subtle difference between actionable advice and inspirational advice. The first one makes you do something and get results as feedback, the other makes you feel good for a while then gets you right back into your miserable state of mind.
Action is key to everything. You take one step, get feedback, improve and take another. In time, these small steps lead to huge advances in your endeavor. That’s the only way to do it. Everything else is just “content”.
Honestly, the more investors and CEOs I meet with, the more I realize it’s all bullshit. Half the time these people giving money don’t even understand the business and then just say “oh you just need to pump sales” without even understanding what’s being sold. They just look at financials where the CEO is literally just trying to finesse it to seem the best. None of the conversation is actually about solving a problem in the world that people want to pay for.. It’s literally just pointing to another startup that got lucky and got paid and saying, “I have the same numbers as them! See I’m worth $100M”. Fucking dumb
I think if you’re in a similar business to the people you’re talking to then the advice / discussion points can be very informative. Ultimately it’s good getting different views , even some opposing views that challenge your own, in order for you to mentally test your ideas against theirs.
That said, most businesses are unique even if they are in a similar field – customer bases, location, etc can have a broad similarity but at a granular level it could be quite different. You should do what’s right for your business , you’re the one that’s got to live with the decision at the end of the day.
And you are free to take advice or ignore it, but I always feel that you should be receptive to hearing it.
I can understand why people feel like the OP
**A lot of advice out there is not very actionable-too broad, too vague, too ‘motivational’**
People want advice that will actually produce sales by tweaking what they are already doing to produce different results.
For instance, instead of saying, “hand out business cards” it would be better to say, give out business cards that MOTIVATE the recipient to want to REMEMBER you business.
**This can be a CUSTOMIZED freebie offer on the business card**
This can be a REFERENCE URL to an APP that the recipient can use daily that brings your business brand front and center.
For example, if you’re a grocery store, hand out coupons whose discounts can only be claimed if the recipient orders a RECIPE TRACKING / SHOPPING LIST BUILDING app – the prospect gets a discount initially but also becomes aware of when you put the INGREDIENTS of their meal plans on sale.
There are also similar tricks for dentists, lawyers, etc.
**In other words, the prospect can take ACTION NOW on your contact with them.**