Entrepreneur Resources Your source for small business information
From blogs written by freelancers just trying to make a quick buck, to entrepreneurs selling any old course without a proven history of their own time in the corporate world, to successful individuals selling you on a highly specific formula that may only have worked in one time and place with an inordinate amount of luck – sometimes it’s important to be very mindful about the advice you’re being given, and where it’s coming from.
For example, a good actor with a famous movie parent could give you worthwhile advice about acting, but applying the template of their life to yours might just be a little less useful, because, after all, your scenarios and advantages are dissimilar. It’s good to learn and be open-minded, but sometimes a too-open mind can become filled with inoperable information.
Put simply – the internet, and broader business culture at large, are plagued with bad advice. How can you wade through it and find the good stuff? In this post, we’ll explore that topic with care:
Try To Avoid Emotive Reasoning
While emotions are certainly a valuable resource for marketing your value to consumers, and of course, a business should always be mindful of its impact and remain values-led, you should steer clear of thought leaders using emotions to motivate you. That’s because while it’s easy to feel motivated, passionate, even fearful of failure, these emotions don’t lead to cool-headed business decisions. However, online influencers and business “guides” will tend to rely on emotive presentations in order to make their point and sustain engagement. Be very careful of those techniques, and try to look underneath at the substance being delivered. Sometimes, you’ll find there is none.
Look To Sources With Stated Mission Aims & Proven Experience
Anyone can go online and talk through their “experience” and perspective they claim is hard-won. But it’s much healthier to focus on those with values, stated mission aims, and yes, proven experience in certain fields. If you want to learn ROIC practice over theory, for example, you might read proven articles from Margin of Maybe. If you’re hoping to improve sustainability, look to figureheads in your industry actually making robust progress with transparency at its core. This way, you can veer far away from the “insights” given by people who fail to offer anything new.
Let History Guide You
The opinions and robust guidance offered by online influencers or business figures are really based on past ventures. But you can see the source of those ventures yourself. For example, how did Dominoes Pizza really claw back its reputation after a heavy degradation in the mid 2000’s? How did Blackberry survive after the advent of the iPhone? How did the latest Apple vs. Epic lawsuit go? Why is the US planning to ban TikTok if ByteDance can’t find a buyer in a year? Letting history guide you and learning business insights from real stories allows you to curate your own interpretation, as opposed to having this fed to you by people you might not trust.
With this advice, you’ll be certain to avoid bad business advice on the internet, by vetting your sources, and most of all, trusting yourself.
