We are obsessed with doing things FAST. With the advancement in technology, things are naturally getting faster and a lot of the time, it’s a great thing.

We’re able to achieve a lot more in a shorter space of time.

But there are some serious downsides to this too.

As a result, we’ve all gotten a lot more impatient. We get annoyed when a video has to buffer for three seconds, or someone takes ages to reply to an email, or if we get put on hold with a customer service team.

That’s why AI is so popular – you can stick an automated chatbox on your site and it will be able to answer many customer questions instantly, saving both parties lots of time!

So, speed can be great and naturally, as an entrepreneur, I’m always looking for ways to save time.

However, the incessant quest for speed can also be severely detrimental to your business.

When I speak to founders now, they’re all concentrating on “growth”. And of course, you need goals and ambitions and we all want to grow our businesses.

BUT, there’s a pace of growth that’s healthy and there’s one that’s not.

My issue is with these supposed business experts who are just churning out consistent content and how to scale fast and their “cheat codes” for business success. They haven’t even achieved anything themselves, but are claiming that they know how to scale fast.

It’s the reason why buying social media followers has now come back with a bang. It used to be a thing about 10 years ago, but people became wise to it, but now it’s back again.

Due to the rise of the “personal brand”, many people are spending their time trying to look popular and influential, all so they can sell a course at the end of it.

I am seeing more and more of these “business influencers” (or whatever you want to call them) jumping onto new social platforms, buying a ton of followers and then showing how quickly they scaled their accounts and then charge thousands of dollars to help you do the same.

It’s the biggest scam and SHOULD be obvious, but due to the insane need for speed, people are falling for it.

So, let’s look first at WHY this rapid growth is so attractive to entrepreneurs.

Well, think about it – which headline is going to be more attractive?

“Business reaches £5M in revenue in just the first year of trading!!” or “Business makes a slow and consistent profit for 12% each year for the last 10 years”.

The latter sounds boring and, in a way, kinda poor. Like actually this isn’t a good business. And there’s something wrong with that.

Because that first business just named a big revenue figure, but doesn’t even talk about profit. They could easily be hitting £5M in revenue and be bleeding money and be in millions in debt! But £5M still sounds like such a juicy figure!!

We live in a world where people think bigger is better… (most of the time anyway!) and so people fudge numbers to make themselves look bigger than they are.

It’s the whole “fake it til you make it” phenomenon and it’s now back bigger than ever.

All the “success” stories you hear are about people who have sold their businesses for whopping great figures, but the reality is that the numbers are nowhere near what they say they are. Plus, the owners don’t get this right away and so it misleads people reading them.

And then all the companies which land major investment are because of their “scalability” and signs of growth.

So, now the world is obsessed with growth and people all think that this is the only way to go.

But let’s look at how this need for speed affects other areas of business for a minute.

I think the most prominent area where this is obvious is the world of digital marketing. People expect INSTANT results.

I’ve been running an agency for over a decade now and we offer a ton of digital marketing services. I think the most common question we get asked is: “How quickly will we see results?”

Everything is urgent and we need to see results RIGHT AWAY. In reality, there’s rarely a time when things are urgent.

We have clients begging us to make some arbitrary deadline, and when we do, they take weeks to get back to us as they’re “super busy”, which meant the work wasn’t urgent at all!

It’s utterly infuriating.

But when it comes to digital marketing, the insane need for speed has led to really unscrupulous practices.

Let’s discuss social media, as that’s the one where the most shady stuff happens.

After all, social media is all forward-facing and so everyone can see the “results” with their own eyes.

Why do you think purchasing followers was such a big trend a few years ago. Well, I’ve got some sad news for you – that trend is back… with a bang!!!!

It’s now gotten worse in that you can also buy engagement too. So, you can purchase views for your reels and tiktoks, likes on your posts, comments, shares etc. You can literally fake your entire social media presence and make yourself look popular.

And people do this.

It takes sooooo much time and costs a hell of a lot of money, BUT the sad thing is, it works, and they always have a plan to get their money back.

All these people are selling a digital product.

Whether it’s a course, a PDF, templates etc., they’re selling a low ticket offer and they just need to look like they have a big following so people believe the product is good.

Imagine this: you’re scrolling through Instagram and someone claims that this £39 PDF will change your life as it will generate you tons of sales. You have 500+ people on the comments saying they want to buy it or that they already have and it’s amazing, and you think “Wow, this MUST actually be good”.

These 500+ comments could be fake.

But then 10 random real people turn over their hard-earned cash and that person is making £390 per post. They do this each day… or even several times a day… and they’re laughing all the way to the bank.

The idea is that you keep the ticket price low enough that it’s not worth people’s time to complain if the product is crap.

There are more people doing this now than ever.

And it gets worse.

There are people teaching you to do this. And that’s how they make their money!

So, they teach you how to make digital products and sell them online, because they’re supposedly making thousands in their sleep.

They sell you their course for just $997 on how to do this because you will make this back in your first week!

It’s almost like some weird Ponzi scheme!!!

Yes, I know this used to be a thing like 10 years ago when people didn’t really understand digital marketing and people weren’t aware you could fake things, but now it’s back and it’s worse.

Because with the use of AI, you can automate all the engagement, you can churn out digital products in minutes and you can fake anything to make yourself look successful.

And people are once again, not aware that all this happens.

Some of the supposed top creators on each platform are now heading to other platforms to exploit the unknown.

For example, they’re creating X (Twitter) accounts and buying followers and engagement until they get to a decent number.

They then claim that they know the sure-fire way to grow and sell a course on how to grow to X followers in Y amount of time. And people lap it up because they’re OBSESSED with speed and growth.

So, how do we protect ourselves from all this?

Well, I like to think of myself as the tortoise – slow and steady wins the race. Doing things right, rather than just fast.

I was watching a video from a creator the other day who created a course, and he actually said that reading books is stupid, so is getting higher education, instead you should buy his course because speed is all that matters. Those methods are far too slow and he will help you succeed in weeks rather than months or years.

Now, I can see why this is attractive to many people. Why wait for success? Earn your millions now. What’s the point of doing things right when there’s a cheat code?!

The problem is, it’s all bullsh*t.

Let me just give you some examples of some of the famous business figures who were obsessed with growing at all costs.

Let’s start with Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos. She claimed that she could revolutionise blood testing with a device that could run multiple tests with a single drop of blood.

It’s absolutely no wonder why she got significant investments from all over the place as this would be revolutionary. But the problem is, she rushed to try and scale and didn’t do enough testing or work on the technology properly.

So, she lied about it all. She pretended the tech actually worked when it didn’t and lied about how much the company was scaling so it looked impressive for investors.

The company was dissolved and Elizabeth is now in jail.

Let’s take another famous one… also made into a documentary! I’m yet to watch either of these but I hear they’re both really good.

Adam Neumann co-founded WeWork with a strong vision of transforming office spaces into community-driven environments. They expanded super fast worldwide and raised billions investment.

I swear they were opening a new office what felt like every single week. They were a great space to work in though and we gave away 6-figures of our own money to have a WeWork office and the team loved it.

The problem is, he was scaling soooooo fast that it just wasn’t practical. Neuman’s ambitious expansion plans led to a crazy overevaluation of the company’s worth – they weren’t actually even profitable and they lost all their investor money!

Their IPO failed miserably in 2019, which exposed WeWork’s financial instability and led to Adam’s resignation. They filed for bankruptcy a few years later, but just about a month ago, they had their debt slashed to $4 billion and now hope to downsize to get out of bankruptcy.

Yup, SLASHED to $4 billion. Imagine that being your debt.

All because they were obsessed with growing and becoming the fastest-growing company in their category.

It’s a really similar story with Uber; Travis Kalanick was obsessed with growing as fast as possible and making sure he outdid any competitor at any cost.

As a result, he created a toxic culture in his team which saw numerous allegations of harassment and discrimination within the company. They became known for mistreating their drivers and even had legal cases against them due to this.

Kalanick resigned as CEO in 2017 due to all the negative PR and lack of faith in him as a leader.
So, what do all these cases have in common?

Yes, they were all obsessed with growth as they considered that the same as “success”. So they did what they could do achieve this.

But they also took shortcuts, cheated and did things unethically (and illegally in some cases!)

If you become obsessed with speed and growth, then three things are bound to happen:

You will compromise on quality

The best products or services did not come from rushing. Speed usually leads to mistakes being made, shortcuts being taken and you lead to an inferior product/service.

There will be financial instability

Most companies cannot handle that much growth. Unless you have airtight processes, something will go wrong when you scale that quickly.

If you listen to the No Bullsh*t Talks podcast, most of the business owners who grew quickly all said that it was a huge nightmare and things fell apart, because they were not prepared for growth.

Do it slowly and have things in place and it will be a different story.

Cash flow problems are inevitable with fast growth.

Employee burnout and culture strain

It’s usually the employees who suffer the most as the CEOs often get them to work long hours and under a lot of pressure to meet intense deadlines.

The competitiveness of growing quickly causes a toxic culture and mistreatment of others.

These three factors are seen in pretty much all the cases where companies were obsessed with growing fast.

So what can we do?! Humans are naturally attracted to speed and growth – it’s that dopamine release we get and so we naturally love quick rewards. This is known as the principle of instant gratification. The anticipation of a quick payoff activates the brain’s reward centres making us feel good and reinforces the desire of rapid results.

Check out my previous episode on the happiness bullsh*t for more information on this.

We also have a natural tendency to compare ourselves to others. Rapid success is often seen as a status symbol, providing social validation and a sense of superiority. Classic peer pressure.

Check out the episode I did on comparanoia bullsh*t for more info on this!

You see how it all ties in with each other?

OK, so what CAN we do to avoid this speed and growth trap?!

Well, slow the hell down for a start!!!!

It’s easier said than done of course. You’re listening to someone who does more than 12 average people and I’m telling people to slow down? Pot kettle much!

But I guess the difference is that I’m not obsessed with speed. I love doing lots of different things, but I’m not looking for shortcuts or ways to scale quickly. Instead, I want to always do things the right way.

If you don’t want to inevitably lead to burnout and constantly feel inferior when comparing yourselves to others, I have three tips for you that may help:

1. Focus on the long-term goal

Go back to your WHY. Why are you doing this in the first place? Is it to make a quick buck and get on the front cover of Forbes magazine? If so, then you’re probably listening to the wrong podcast.

My guess is that you actually want to run a successful business that will provide nicely for you and your family and give you a better lifestyle as a result.

Each time you’re working on something, think about this goal and your ideal future. What actions will help you get closer to this in the long-term.

Sure, something may work as a quick fix or a “hack”, but is it going to help you with your long-term goal.

For example, you can spend a month buying followers on social media, look popular and some of your posts go viral. But all you’ve done is dilute your reach to your actual target audience, waste lots of time and money and not made any progress towards building your client base.

Always focus on the long-term.

2. Learn how to be patient and resilient

This one is definitely easier said than done. Entrepreneurship is tough, no matter what people say. There are no easy ways to do things and there are no good shortcuts. People will keep promising you that there are, but there are not.

Look at the most successful businesses in the world. How long did it take Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg to be where they are today? Whether you’re a fan of these guys or not, there’s no doubt that they have led successful businesses.

And they were NOT a quick win. In fact, they were failing over and over again.

But they’re STILL here now and still one of the top companies in the world.

So, you need to learn to be patient and do things consistently in the right way and things will eventually pay off.

There will be tough times and lots of rejection, but this will help you build up your resilience so you can take on anything.

This resilience will help you also build confidence and ignore the others who are cheating their way through business. That’s not for you.

The last thing I’d say is that you need to redefine success. Success does not mean money. It doesn’t mean growth either. Stop using rapid metrics to define success. Perhaps switch to quality indicators such as customer satisfaction and product excellence. Things that will keep you in business and keep you going much longer.

Plus, personal success doesn’t have to mean selling your business or meeting a revenue target. It may mean getting to work only a certain amount of hours in the week and spending the rest of the time with your family.

Or it could mean creating a happy environment for people to work and help others achieve their dreams.

Success is personal to you and I think if you learn how to redefine it, then it will do wonders for your self-esteem and your mental health.

I think I’ve now been inspired to do an episode on success!! So watch this space, I will probably bring one out in a couple of weeks on this topic.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode and it maybe put you at ease that sometimes less is more!

Now, maybe delete a few things off your to-do list and take a break this weekend.

I certainly am going to!

Until next time – keep sniffing out that bullsh*t!