Revenue Claims BS

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but they’re now getting a free shout out, so hey, Zoopla.

But the point is, is that it’s a little rude when you ask about someone’s finances.

And I think that most people do think it’s rude.

But recently I’ve noticed this ridiculous trend within entrepreneurship, and it’s all about how like shouting about how much money you earn, or more accurately, about how much money you want people to think you earn.

It’s OK.

It’s a little bit different because if someone tells you how much money they earn and you don’t ask them like it’s it’s probably slightly but still right.

When has it become normalized to brag about how much money you earn?

Like imagine going to party and be like hi, I’m Tom and I earn £3,000,000 a year you but hi Tom, you’re a Dick.

It’s not a good look like.

But somehow this trend in entrepreneurship is everywhere, and it’s all about talking about how much money you earn, and it’s driving all the conversations.

Like, I know that we’re living in this cost of living crisis like that, and money is difficult for most people, but this mad trend of flexing your income is absolutely wild.

You know what, It’s weird.

I just made that comment about the cost of living crisis and if that should justify the bargain.

But if anything, it would make people less likely to talk about what they earn, right?

If they’re struggling.

But I guess The thing is, people aren’t actually being honest.

I mean, let’s face it, how often are people honest on social media anyway?

Like truly honest.

They usually show people what they want them to see and not the whole true picture.

So when entrepreneurs are struggling, they don’t actually admit it because that apparently looks weak.

Like honestly, the amount of times that I’ve been told that it looks weak because I put about my struggles and the ups and downs on business, because there are downs, there’s a lot of downs and the backs to, to go up, you often need to go down.

And you know, I just paint the whole picture and I was told that it looks weak and people aren’t going well to do business with me.

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But you know, This is why entrepreneurs don’t put it on there.

Instead, they just, you know, when during tough times, they just live off the old results, they put all their old wins and things like clients on social media instead, or they Photoshop new ones, which is what’s happening now.

So I guess this brings me on to the latest trend, right?

Bragging about how much money you’re earning.

So I want to take a look at why this is such a popular strategy at the moment.

I guess the, the well, I guess the main problem is it’s just why it’s made it so popular is that humans are drawn to status.

Like we naturally respect those of the higher status and assume they’re better.

Like, regardless of how they got that status, right, this is just how we are.

And it like this attraction to status is deeply rooted back in our evolutionary history, right?

Because after all, people with a higher status back in the day often had better access to resources such as like food, shelter and protection.

And this then it increases their chances of survival.

So despite the fact that we’re no longer living in times like these and we’re more than capable of surviving with what we have, the instinct is still there to want more and to seek this higher status instead now of survival.

It’s more about recognition and influence and getting like, you know, using your status to get all the nice things in life, whether it’s for survival or not, right?

And so in this day and age, money is one of the most obvious indicators of status.

So by showing that you have a lot of money, you’re declaring to the world that you have a higher status and in return, like you hope to be admired and respected or perhaps even envied by others.

And so the psychology of our money is really interesting to us.

We often equate financial success with personal success.

I mean, I did the episode on this a few weeks ago called Success Bullshit.

And you should take a take a listen to that because it talks about how success has has become synonymous with money now.

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And like, so when someone claims to have made a lot of money, you think, OK, they must be successful and you automatically assume that this person has done something right, whether in business or in life.

And so somehow these people with money become more attractive, not necessarily sexually more attractive, obviously to a lot of people that is also the case, but just in a way where you want to try and get to know that person more.

People hit that follow button on social media, right?

When you see someone’s more successful or has more money because you want to know more about them and usually to aspire to be like them because everyone has their own money goals.

So if you’re kind of following and looking up to someone who’s been there and done that, then you know, you’re thinking, right, well, what if I can replicate the things that they did?

Then maybe I can be where they are and I could earn a lot of money too.

And this is what a lot of people think.

And so, you know, having a social media following is basically a currency these days.

People can leverage brand deals, get sponsorships and, and you know, even jobs, I’ve seen jobs advertised like a minimum follower requirement, which is kind of ridiculous.

And, and so you can get all these opportunities based on the number of followers we have.

And This is why now so many people manipulate them.

So look as if they have influence because it genuinely is worth something.

Like you must have seen that, that question that goes around social media all the time, Like would you rather have £1,000,000 or a million followers?

And to me, this question is absolutely ludicrous because I’m like, well, I’ll take a billion pounds, thank you right now in my bank account because you know the time aspects of money.

And well, with that £1,000,000, I could build up a million followers and I could have the time to build up lots of different things.

But they’re like, wow, a million followers is the most loyal following.

And I was like, well, you didn’t say loyal.

Lots of people have a million followers and wouldn’t buy a single thing of that person.

So it’s a whole different thing.

But to brands, they just see reach and they think that, you know, if you get a million followers then you’re going to make sales.

Now I’ve seen this all the time when people try to pick influencers, they don’t even get that actually 999,000 of those people are not the target audience.

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So it’s just a waste.

You’d rather go the micro influencer.

But people just get attracted to these big numbers, which is ridiculous.

And so maybe it all comes down to that really with this, with this, with this revenue claims, because they just want to build a social media following because this is considered to be more valuable than £1,000,000 these days, which is nuts, right?

Because if you build the social media following, then you look like a leader in your field and then you get social validation and you’re more likely to be given these opportunities.

So it makes kind of sense.

But then how do you build more of the social media following?

There’s obviously lots of legit strategies for this, but a quick one and one that’s called that’s that’s getting a lot of traction at the moment is you talk about how much money you earn on social media or you lie about how much money you earn on social media, you inflate it for a while until it becomes true, IE you fake it till you make it.

And, you know, social media is the best place for this nonsense because it allows people to craft and present an idealized value version of themselves.

And entrepreneurs love to do this.

They could easily share screenshots of results, success stories and financial achievements, whether they’re true or not.

But most people don’t spend the time to research whether they’re true, and they’re just instantly believe it.

And most people just scrolling through it.

And if you’re consistently sharing success stories in your head, subconsciously you’re just like, oh, that person must be really successful.

So when I was Googling this, I was, you know, researching this topic.

I was Googling a lot of creator posts where they were craving.

They made thousands and thousands of pounds a month in sales right from their courses and stuff like that.

Like generally it wasn’t screenshots of I’m making money while I sleep.

Look at all this coming in.

They had like videos and screenshots of strike payments just coming through so fast.

So when I decided to Google all all this stuff, I found so many websites where you can actually generate all these screenshots with a click of a button.

Like they will create reels and Tik Toks for you where all these notifications are payments…

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and Stripe come up on on your phone with all this supposed money coming in.

So the fact that people have dedicated time to create websites with this functionality shows you just how many people are looking to create this.

They’re not real, they’re fake.

And there are websites where you can get templates of fake bank accounts, P&L statements and payment notifications.

It’s honestly crazy.

But even when people are earning a decent amount of money, they still manipulate the situation to make it look as though they earn way more money than they’re actually getting.

So the question is, when is enough going to be enough?

Because it’s just got nuts.

For example, the Classic is claiming to be £1,000,000 company.

Now how this works is they calculate something called their run rate.

So they don’t ever actually have £1,000,000 in the bank.

I’m in this very rare.

Anyway, yeah, probably have to be a lot more than just £1,000,000 companies to have £1,000,000 in the bank.

But you know, or even have £1,000,000 turnover, they don’t even have that.

But that should be the definition of when you say, oh, we hit £1,000,000.

Instead what they do is they make 83,000 lbs one month and then they multiply that by 12 and suddenly they’re like we made £1,000,000.

It’s honestly very, very silly now not to these people.

It’s not even like they just had an 83 K month.

They actually wait and they, you know, delay payments and mess with their cash flow just so they can get all that money in one month and they can screenshot that and brag about it to the world and claim to be £1,000,000 business.

Like if you’re seriously just going to go to those levels, you may as well just Photoshop it.

I mean, I’d rather not mess with the cash flow.

It’s ridiculous.

And the problem is these big ass claims are often met with tons of praise and affirmation from followers, right?

It creates this insane echo chamber because God forbid anyone was to disagree with one of these creators, it would cause an uproar.

So you have all these followers blindly believing or the revenue claims…

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or their fake comments to make it look like lots of people are clear with them.

Trust me, this actually happens.

You may want to check out my episode on personal banding if you don’t believe me.

But yeah, you have all these followers blindly believing the claims and therefore, like this echo chamber was created and other people genuinely do believe it too, which is kind of crazy.

And you’re probably thinking, well, why don’t people actually verify the numbers and check for themselves?

Because you can see how fake it is and because you know you can put all the pieces together.

Things that usually add up.

And it’s really obvious.

But confirmation bias also plays a massive role on social media.

Because many people want to believe that their favourite creators are super successful.

Otherwise why did you follow them in the 1st place?

And largely also because you know if you’ve been following them, you’re hoping to follow their footsteps.

So if their success is fake, then you’re never going to amount to anything either.

And obviously that’s not true, but that’s how a lot of people think.

And so it’s a shame, really.

So they kind of want them to do well, and that’s that confirmation bias.

And there’s also authority bias, right?

Which makes us more likely to trust people who appear successful.

And as we said earlier, money is synonymous, resistant success, and those with success gain more authority.

So we have a really vicious cycle here.

And also, at the end of the day, the people making the big revenue claims are not targeting the most experienced customers because generally the experienced entrepreneurs can see through that bullshit there, instead aiming at those who are newer to the game and won’t know how to verify those earnings or validate their claims.

They’re usually also more impressionable too, right?

Because you know, they’re, they’re new and, and they’re sort of like, oh, this is what it is.

And this person’s got a big follow away.

This person has an influence in this industry.

I will follow them and believe them.

Why would they lie so they can get away with those not so humble brags?

So again, it doesn’t really batter in itself that there are loads of people just lying about how much money they make and making themselves look more successful than they are.

Instead, it’s about the impact that it has on other people.

And I’ve talked about this a lot, and this is what my concerns are, is as what it’s actually doing to the world of entrepreneurship.

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First of all, it creates this massively unrealistic expectation for other entrepreneurs.

They see these huge numbers and expect to be earning the same amount of money, especially because a lot of these guys say how easy it is.

And this sort of contact on social media is what has encouraged this wave of entrepreneurship, which is amazing, right?

I want to see more young entrepreneurs.

But it’s also seen so many people quit earlier because it’s not as easy as they expected it to be.

And there’s far too much over emphasis now on the quick wins because it doesn’t, it sounds sexy on social media, right?

With like, you know, I went from zero to hero in, in, in 30 days.

If you’d think about to all the trends that go viral, like the Cheat Sheets, the hacks that get rich in 90 days and things like that, even if it’s all a lie, people are attracted to it because it’s like, oh, what if this happens to me?

I can have this instant fix.

Just think how many times have you clicked on a post that says how I went from zero to 100 K followers in just three months.

I could do that too in 3 minutes if I purchase them.

Like honestly like it’s all very silly but it’s so addictive to so many people.

Getting those quick results is like a dopamine hit and people are seeking this hit out over and over again and this is what ends up leading to unethical behaviour and the temptations of fake the success so they can look successful in order to win another client.

If that reminds me of this kid, right?

And he kept cold emailing me.

I’ve no idea who he is, I never met him, but he was obviously just cold emailing loads of businesses.

He’s 20 years old and he builds a website that claims that he did the branding for Harrods even though it’s been around since before he’s born.

He does marketing strategy for Ferrari, British Airway and all these majorly ridiculous brands.

He, he even put a couple of our clients on there, which I thought was funny, but he’s clearly never worked for any of them.

So he cold emails me with the subject urgent and big letters and capital things.

And I’m like, Oh my God, what?

You know, I’m thinking, oh, it’s a client and we’ve messed something up.

Like I don’t know this game, what’s going on.

And then in it he says I can help you redesign your website.

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I was actually fuming because like, if I’m in the middle of my day and you know, it’s my fault and leaving e-mail notifications on, so you know, I’ll take some accountability for this, but I’m in the middle of my day and I see the e-mail going urgent.

I’m like, Oh my God, I’m going to respond to this.

And I’m panicking thinking, what have we done?

And I was like, Nah, that ain’t good.

So I wrote, actually wrote back, which I never do.

I wrote back with with a saying to him, putting an e-mail subject that says urgent when it’s not is never going to make a first impression.

Like please rethink your strategy because it’s not good.

I got back the most biggest barrage of abuse.

I was like what the hell?

And then I was like, OK, you know, probably don’t say this, but also slagging off, you know, future customers is probably not also a good luck either.

He was then like, Oh well, I don’t really need your business anyway because I’ve got all these amazing clients and actually like my e-mail campaign did so well.

I had 63 people respond to it and I’ve run a generated 18K in business and all that.

It was the biggest load of dribble I’d ever seen.

I mean, if you’re doing branding work for Harvard’s, then you’re probably not going to be cold emailing a bunch of small businesses, are you?

But like, also, that’s not a lot of money per lead, is it?

Like if that’s your portfolio, then wow, you’re severely undercharging 18K across 63 people.

I mean, yeah, no, the guy just made it all up, right?

And when I called him out, he got very defensive.

And Ivan said, look, our clients are on that list, so I know you’re not legit.

And he went quiet from the insulting emails.

But then a week later, I got another cold e-mail again.

So he learned and didn’t make it but make it say urgent in the subject.

But he wasn’t really smart enough to delete me from the ad Bad list.

So, yeah, I mean, this guy was trying to validate himself with social proof by claiming that he makes a lot of money, sells a lot to big clients in the hope that someone believed it, get got impressed by it, and then he could actually finally make a real sale.

So I guess it’s the fake it to make it strategy again.

But to me it just feels like fraud.

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You’re, you know, like, and that’s what these fake revenue claims are too.

It’s fraud.

You’re lying about who you are, what you’re capable of, and you’re already, you know, like having a dishonest relationship with your customer from the get go.

Now people call it marketing, but that’s why marketing has such a bad reputation.

It’s not marketing to me, it’s fraud.

You’re lying to your customers.

And all it does is cause anxiety and stress in other entrepreneurs.

Like there’s this insatiable need to compare yourself to others and what you do.

And when you do that, it feel you feel inadequate or insecure.

And you may want to go look at my other episode called paranoia on this because this I talk about this and I call it paranoia because you end up feeling really paranoid by comparing yourself to the people.

And like this comparison like can even cause you to push yourself so much, right?

Because you want to be like these people earning these sort of months and months of money and you’re thinking while they started later than me, I should be getting more.

I’m older, I’ve got more better qualifications.

And you do all these comparison and there’s just so much pressure to keep up with the success of others, even if it’s fake.

And then this pressure, you know, you put yourself under this pressure and then it leads to poor decision making, you know, financial strain, burnout, anxiety and stress.

And before you need know it right, you have a whole load of health issues on top of your financial issues.

And you may think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not.

This is what I see all the time and This is why it annoys me so much.

And This is why I call out the bullshit.

I’ve worked with so many entrepreneurs who have such low self esteem and develop and process syndrome because they don’t think they live up to the success.

And I’m putting success in air quotes right now.

You know the success of others.

It hinders confidence and growth, and once you team that up with the constant pressure to succeed financially…

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and the feelings of inadequacy, you likely end up with depression and burnout.

All because some idiots are choosing to lie about how much they earn on social media.

And this is what the effect does, which is why it really irritates me.

I wish that other entrepreneurs would have some respects for their, you know, the colleagues or you know, compatriots will have you want to describe it.

You know who are also in this boat because from perhaps that you’re lying about your, your social media or your forever new claims because you feel insecure too.

But it doesn’t mean that you should make other people feel insecure as well.

So what can we do to stop ourselves getting offended by all this?

Well, you know, I’ve, I’ve been there too.

So I’m, I’m telling you from experience, we all need to cultivate some self-awareness and recognize the triggers first of all.

So when you are spending time on social media from now on, start paying attention to what triggers those feelings of inadequacy or the urge to compare yourself to others.

Because once you’re aware, you can start to do something about it.

For example, you can start to curate your environment by cleaning out your feed on whatever platform you’re using.

Limit yourself to that toxic content, unfollow those accounts or constantly talking about wealth and also, you know, spreading bullshit.

Instead, seek out content that actually inspires you, aligns with your values.

I know I’ve had to do this a lot lately as even top creators who I once admired have recently, I would say, sold out because I don’t even know if they think they have to create content like this now to succeed.

And I again, inverted commas, but it’s just not right.

For example, one creator I used to really admire, I used to listen to all his podcasts, consume his YouTube content.

And I thought he was really quite down to earth.

And that’s what made me like him.

Like he’s cutting Zen felt really real.

But I guess good editing.

But recently, all his podcasts about how to get to 100 million, like, you know, in earnings, and he seems to have forgotten who his audience are.

And all his interview questions to his guests seem super selfish.

Like he’s just not interested in making contact with the audience anymore.

He’s just doing it for himself…

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to get to £100 million in revenue.

I mean, he’s apparently on 10 million a year, so he’s not exactly poor.

But he just keeps asking all these questions about how do I get from 10 to 100 million?

And I’m like, wait, do you understand who’s listening to your podcast?

Like no one’s on 10 million.

Who’s listening to your podcast?

Like, so I was talking about how to get from 10,000 to 100,100 thousand to a million.

Like those are more relevant to the ones who are listening.

So yeah, I’ve had to stop listening to his content and, and followed him, sadly.

And my entire LinkedIn feed has to be cleared out too, because it is just so full of drivel.

Like everyone is now gaming LinkedIn because that’s the place to be.

And I’ve been posting LinkedIn content for years and I just still, you know, write all my own content and just post original stuff.

And everyone’s there now doing all these fake stories, Cheat Sheets, and it’s just, it’s just a load of crap.

But I’ve been spending the last few weeks unfollowing people every day off every social media channel.

But it’s taken me so long because of all these restrictions they have, right?

They have these limits and they’ll ban you because it looks like you’re, I don’t know, doing something to the to the system if you’re unfollowing or doing lots of mass action.

So I’m LED there that every day manually unfollowing people off each platform until I’ve I’m finally clear of all the stuff because, you know, instead of motivating me, these accounts are that making me feel pretty crap about myself and I just don’t need that.

So I’d say that definitely do that.

But another exercise is that I think we know could be really helpful is to redefine success.

And I did an essay on this as well a few weeks ago, Success bullshit.

I talked about what the different definitions are success are and how they can impact like how you go about things.

I think if you create your own definition of success and work towards that, that no one else can really affect your path because their definition will be different to yours anyway, right?

So if you truly know your values and you stick to them, you should never be affected by what others say or do.

And I say never.

And I say like, that should never happen, but it’s way easier said than done, right?

But it’s just so important to know that these people are not making anywhere near as much money as they are claiming to be making.

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And if they were, they wouldn’t be spending so much time on social media, right?

So if you’ve realised that you’ve been following some people lately because they claim to be earning a certain amount of money, have a think and see if that’s actually true and see if their content is actually healthy to digest or if it’s warping your brain.

And actually do some research and ask for genuine testimonials.

Because when I’ve questioned the results of these guys or big claims, they get very defensive and claim that they don’t need to prove their worth.

A lot of the creators actually just block you.

They can’t deal with any comment that isn’t in their favour.

Like if you look at their their profiles, it’s just got a bunch of those people who are in pods or agreeing with what they’re saying.

And then a bunch of other people just agree because they want to get in with them.

And anyone who disagrees is blocked.

And that’s not healthy.

That’s not what successful entrepreneurs do.

They can handle debate.

They can handle a respectful conversation that doesn’t always agree with them.

So the problem is, you know, this whole buzzword again with the buzz term of I don’t need to prove my word has gotten very out of hand because it, it started off as the right thing were people who are being disrespected in, in, you know, corporate setting.

And you know, they are like being overworked and you know, but it’s now translated into people who don’t have an experience, who don’t know what they’re doing.

And I’m just making all these bullshit claims.

And I’m saying I don’t need to prove my worth.

The problem is, you really do.

Like if you’re sending me services and I’m really paying good money for them, that’s exactly what you need to do.

Again, it’s just another classic social media buzz term that’s causing people to be obnoxious pricks, right?

To be honest though, that’s been done for this episode before.

I get really ranty again so I’m going to have to catch you all next week, but until then, keep sniffing out the bullshit.

Revenue Claims BS

Revenue Claims Bullsh*t

In This Episode...

Revenue Claims BS

Revenue Claims Bullsh*t

In This Episode...

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