Entrepreneurship today is full of shiny promises, fake success stories, and strategies that sound good but are total bullshit.

So today I’m calling out the biggest ones of 2025 so far, and I’m helping you focus on what actually works.

Hello and welcome to Sniffing Out the Bullshit, a podcast for ambitious entrepreneurs who want help wading their way through the bullshit jungle of entrepreneurship and then the tools, skills, and mindsets that actually required for success.

I’m your host, Sabrina Chevannes the No Bullshit Entrepreneur.

So welcome back to season 2 of Sniffing at the Bullshit.

Now I’ve genuinely missed recording the show and I didn’t intend to take up like take so much of a break off, but life just kind of got life in like you know how it is.

And I was trying to be super disciplined in that.

I had to prioritise myself, my well-being and generally the things that like generate the most money, right?

So I can also live right.

So you know, however, I’m going to be introducing some exciting sponsors for this season, so making it all possible, which I’m super excited at.

So therefore, I can actually do more with the podcast so that I can help more people, which I’m really, really, really pleased about.

So let’s get stuck in and chat back today’s episode.

But I thought I’d absolutely have to start the season back by highlighting some of the biggest bits of bullshit in entrepreneurship right now.

And it’s an extra long episode compared to normal.

So I because I thought I’d like cover several topics in one and I guess I kind of got this inspiration because I had this LinkedIn post go viral on New Year’s Eve 2024 and just did not expect exit.

Actually New Year’s Eve, everyone’s like, no one’s going to be online.

Who’s going to actually be, you know, looking at LinkedIn today, turns out a lot of people and it’s summarized my top bits of bullshit of 2024.

And I realized that people are actually genuinely getting sick of all the bullshit.

For one, I felt like I was going crazy and I was the only one who hated the constant lies and the deception.

But no, there were actually several thousand of other people who are regularly reaching out to me now about it, which is great.

And so it makes me believe that we’re finally getting to an era where many people want honesty again.

That they want to meet quality people and build genuine relationships.

Now obviously not everyone does and there are still plenty of people who are happy to take shortcuts.

But do you know what?

This podcast is not for them.

This podcast is for those who want to build their businesses in a sustainable way.

And they want to understand which strategies are bullshit and which like.

And I guess you know which ones are what actually waste their time and their money rather than getting the magical results that people promise.

So my brand and my content is all about me being no bullshit, right?

So my entrepreneur members club is called N0BS, my agency, N0BS agency, no bullshit agency.

And obviously my podcasts living at the bullshit, no bullshit talks all about no bullshit.

And sometimes people misconstrue this, this like, I guess somewhat controversial, provocative brand, whatever you want to say.

They just misconstrue this for like, the negativity, but it’s not like it’s all about protecting yourself, protecting your energy and your business.

And it’s about doing what’s right and not what’s bullshit.

So let me talk about the current landscape of entrepreneurship.

It’s currently a complete mess out there in the world, and it’s more chaotic than ever.

Like, we’re in the middle of an economic crisis, which is not exactly new, but for some reason it feels messier than ever.

And obviously, I haven’t experienced all the other crashes in the history of economics, but I’ve read about them a great deal because to mention them in every business book possible.

And many economists do say that this one is different.

And I guess it’s because of the prevalence of it on social media, right?

We are constantly bombarded with the news about how bad the economy is and what’s going on.

Plus, with everyone’s lives being documented on social media claiming to be like smashing it alive, it’s putting so much pressure on everyone.

And then you add this with the unrealistic overnight success narratives, the obsession with AI and obviously the confusion of what it will do to us and the fact that people generally want to do less work.

There’s so much pressure to kind of make it that it’s actually now breeding really bad advice.

So I decided to put together the biggest pieces of bullshit that I keep hearing at the moment and let you in on what’s really going on.

I’ve been doing a lot of posts where I’ve been calling out big influence of bullshit lately and people actually have no clue that’s even happening, so I won’t bring a bit of realization to it.

So hopefully this episode will help like open up people’s eyes to what’s happening and perhaps protect themselves a little better.

So I’m going to start off with the thing that I’ve been seeing so much of is you can build a 7-figure business in just six months.

Now, so much of the content out there at the moment is geared towards making money.

And I get it, people will need money, but it’s all about making money and quickly, right?

So that’s why I picked this first because there’s just this general wave of bullshit entrepreneurship right now that’s utterly ridiculous.

So many people are starting their own businesses because I think it’s easy.

They are constantly shown reels and Tik Toks of young founders who are out living their best lives and supposedly making more money that they can even dream of.

And so this has led others to portray this lifestyle online as well and then sell courses on how easy it is to make this 7 figure business in just six months.

Like. And plus they always have this simple formula too, along with some templates which proves their success because after all, they did it.

They’re filming their Ads from their private jets while carrying the designer handbags and flexing their Rolexes.

But what you don’t realize is that the private jet is just a film set and the other stuff is rented or even fake.

And yes, people actually do this.

But don’t get me wrong, it’s so convincing when you see content like this.

Now these people are living the lives that you wish you were living and if only you knew how to get that life.

And here they are knowing all the secrets and they’re going to tell you the more.

But just 997.

Oh and do you know what they even have an offer too?

So now you can get it for 497 plus get all these freebies and so you can create ebooks and stuff.

What an absolute steal.

Like you can’t say no to that surely?

Because after all, if you invest just 497 and yourself, it will pay off a hundredfold because you’ll be earning 7 figures in just six months.

Now the problem is the courses are always full of generic crap.

I’ve seen them and some of them are just like purely written by ChatGPT, so they’re not worth 497 in the slightest.

So not only are you then blowing your money that actually could be invested in your business, you’re wasting your time on quick hacks that don’t even work.

And I can tell you now that absolutely no one has ever built a 7 figure business in just six months.

No one.

I’m pretty sure I can guarantee that because no matter what you’ve heard or evidence you’ve seen, the business is not 7 figures or it was not built in six months.

There are ways of making it look like this of course.

Like for example, you can generate 7 figures of revenue pretty quickly in certain industries, but how do we know what the expenses are?

Your 7 figure business could actually be bleeding money.

Now I presume that what you actually want is a profitable business, not one with just this large number turnover.

And that’s why I find it so ridiculous that so many people focus purely on this top line revenue.

But when that’s not the one that’s actually important, Yes, it’s relevant and yes, it attracts investors to know that you can make money, but can you keep the money because that’s what’s important.

And and then the time frame, six months.

Now, if you generally are building your business from scratch, and I mean real scratch, that it’s going to take you a couple of years before you even get your head around what you’re supposed to be in.

And so the only people who can get those ridiculous results in a short space of time are the ones who’ve already built businesses in the past.

They’ve had all the connections, they’ve got the prior knowledge and you know, they’re already set up.

For example, like if Richard Branson started a new business right now, he probably could do pretty well for himself in six months, but that’s because he’s had decades of experience and a huge personal brand already.

Like many people talk about going from zero to hero in a short space of time because at one point they did have zero sales, but they could also have been doing marketing and outreach for a year beforehand.

And just because their sales and boosted for the following six months doesn’t mean they did all that in six months.

The constant awareness beforehand actually also plays a part.

So nothing is ever as it seems just like the one e-mail that generated millions of hands or whatever that didn’t happen.

It’s the fact that that person has been seeing them for like months and years and like, you know, they’ve built up the trust.

It doesn’t just work off 1 e-mail.

So I want people to realize that all these big claims are there to sound impressive and they’re designed to make money off you.

They’re hoping that you are an easy mark thanks to this story.

So the next one I want to talk about is how AI will replace everything and you barely need to work.

So I don’t even want to start with AI, but it still completely dominates our space.

And I’m seeing such different opinions from like everyone every single day.

Like AI is essential for a business.

Anyone who’s using it will definitely get the advantage of other businesses or AI is coming for your jobs and AI is awful, is destroying our industry or the opposite.

I wouldn’t hire anyone who doesn’t use use AI because they’d be just dated.

Or then I wouldn’t hire anyone who does use AI because it means they’re lazy.

I mean, where do we even begin with this?

So let me tell you my take it all about first I’m going to have a coffee because oh, I’ve been talking.

Damn, that’s good, right?

So, well, we’re still scraping the surface of AI, right?

A majority of people don’t really care and but they don’t really understand its capabilities, right?

And they’re probably a bit scared of it because it’s also just the start of it too, right?

The thing is, machine learning has been a thing for decades, but people didn’t really know about it until ChatGPT was released.

And now suddenly when people say AI it’s synonymous with ChatGPT.

And look, I cannot stand the lame content that is churned out from ChatGPT in its voice form.

It’s made social media, blogs, emails so freaking dull to me.

Because let’s face it, the majority of people in this world are lazy.
Sorry to say, but they are.

And it doesn’t mean that I’m saying you’re lazy.

You’re the type of person that actually listens to self development podcasts and is constantly trying to educate yourself and how to grow your business.

So you’re definitely not lazy and you listen to content like this because you’re sick of the bullshit out there and you want to learn how to do things properly.

But unfortunately, most people are not like you.

They look for the shortcuts because they want the easy way.

And that’s fine.
We’re all looking for the easy way in many respects.

And I’m all up for things that save me time and money.

You’ve seen how much stuff I do, right?
So why wouldn’t I want a shortcut?

But the thing is, I’m not willing to take a shortcut and compromise on quality.

Now I’ve tried working with ChatGPT to create content and personally, I just find it cringe.

I don’t think, you know, that anyone can really capture my tone of voice though, so I may just be screwed in that respect.

Like I’ve had like plenty of supposed brand experts come to me and they’re like, oh, I 100% can get your tone of voice correct.

I promise.

Like people won’t even notice a difference and I can speak and it’ll basically be you.

And I’ve let them try because I’m curious.
I don’t, I want to give people a chance.

And they’re like 100%.

So Oh my God, it was awful.

They would like caricature me.

But like, I guess to some people I’m a bit extreme.

And so they force themselves to be controversial, like throwing swear words here and there because the brand of no bullshit.

But in reality, how often do you actually hear me swear?

And when I’m actually extreme, I just simply offer my opinion, which happens to be different to that of most of the people.

And so you know my thoughts about the likelihood they probably got AI to analyze my posts.

And that’s what it came out with, an exaggerated version of who I am, but totally inaccurate.

So let’s go back to this piece of bullshit about barely needing to work.

Because at the moment I see ads every single day from people selling prompts, these done for you assets.

And all of it’s just churned out by AI.

And the narrative at the moment is that you can run a business super easily now all by yourself with no overheads, because AI would do it all for you.

And let’s think about it.

You know, it’s, it’s, it’s not wrong because you can use ChatGPT to create all your written content.

You can use Canva and other creative AIs and loads of them now to generate your graphics.

You’ve got veed.io, which can even create AI avatars of yourself.

So you can be in videos without actually having to be in videos.

And you’ve got tools like Opus, which can create these viral clips of your video content and automatically load it onto social media channels, many chat chats in your DMS for you.

And then you’ve got like AI bots that comment on people’s posts and engage like you.

And there’s plenty of others.

I’m sure I just rattled off a few that I know.

And like, I see people using these regularly.

So, and that’s just social media, right?

And think about it, AI can create so many other things for you.

They can create beautiful e-mail templates.

They can write them for you and automate resents to those who don’t open.

And then you’ve got AIs that can edit your podcast episodes so clearly that it makes you sound like you’re in a studio when you could just be sitting in your bedroom or your clothes like me.

And don’t get me wrong, AI can help you with a tonne of stuff, but it can’t just do everything for you and you suddenly get instant results.

Now, even if you did get all that content out on a daily basis, how are you actually really connecting with your customers and understanding what they want unless you’re talking to them first hand?

So using purely AI is a fast route to mediocrity.

And I see all the time people complaining that they’re doing all the right things because they’re churning out a tonne of content, but then actually the content’s poor, It’s not personalized and there’s no genuine care behind it.

And if you want me to say the word authenticity, then fine, I’m going to say it.

But I feel like that word’s massively overused.

But yes, it’s lacking authenticity.

So I’d say you should embrace AI and look for ways it can streamline your processes.

But if you think that you will barely need to work when you’re running your own business, then you’re going to be in for a big shock.

And I’m going to talk next about personal branding because we just mentioned the buzzword authenticity.

So I feel like I need to jump into personal branding and mention the other word, vulnerability.

I’m people who follow my contact for a while.
They know how I feel about personal branding.

And while there’s a place where I think it’s done badly because there’s so many people trying to do it now.

But like all these supposed gurus have been popping up all the face and there’s apparently, you know, formulas to create powerful personal brands.

And guess what?

One of the key ingredients is vulnerability.

And I am sick of hearing that personal branding is basically this constant vulnerability dump.

So when I scroll for LinkedIn now, it seems to be this place where people are either bragging about how successful they are or they’re showing that they’re vulnerable with a sob story that quite possibly didn’t happen.

And so many people come to me asking for personal brand advice because they don’t want to show up like and tell everyone all the personal and private aspects of their lives on social media.

And that’s fair, right?

They just want to grow their business.

But yet so many experts say that in order to do this, you have to show your personal life because people pie from people and all that.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m a natural over sharer so this stuff comes easily to me and I actually want to share stuff like this.

I like to help others learn from my experiences.

But if it feels uncomfortable to you, then you just shouldn’t do it.

Full stop.

It’s not going to make or break your business.

Like think about the biggest, most successful business people that you know, are they putting their life like entire life and their personal things online?

Are they constantly showing vulnerability or crying on camera?

And actually I’m going to, you know, just pivot a little 2nd and think, can you pause for a moment and just reflect on who you picked there?

Because I said to think about the biggest and most successful people that you know, business people, you know, who came to your mind, what are they like and why do you consider them to be successful?

Is it because they’re rich?

Because your answers here will tell you more about how you define success and the type of business that you want, then many other things will be able to.

So just have a think about that.

But anyways, back to the vulnerability thing.

It’s great to show the human side of you, sure, but only if you think it’s relevant to your business.

Now I do it because everything I do is about teaching people the ups and downs of entrepreneurship.

I’m no bullshit.

And so I want to show the lows as well as the highs.

So it makes sense for me to disclose the messy parts because my brand is literally about that.

But for most people, it won’t be.

So just let it make sense to you, OK?

Next one I’m going to cover the you just need a high ticket offer to get volume, right?

So this is a new one I’ve been seeing lately.

I mean, it’s definitely always been a thing, but it’s really grown in prevalence lately.

And the low ticket offers have been pushed out for a long time, right?

Sell an ebook for $19.00 and sell loads of them.

Run ads, get thousands of customers, and you’ll just make money in your sleep because it’s only $19, right?

So people won’t even think twice about buying it.

And that’s what makes low ticket offers so simple.

Now, this has been the narrative for a while, but now people are realizing it’s not that simple.

And the money that they’re spending on ads eats away into their low ticket offers, right?

So people are now changing to high ticket offers and they’re saying the exact same thing.

I mean, now they’re saying you need to sell one of these and you’re already in profit.

They’re so they’re claiming that basically the same amount of work goes into it, but you get more money.
So it was like, it’s a no brainer to switch.

And so people are like, Oh my God, why didn’t I think of this before?

Instead of my $19.00 PDF I can sell a course for 997.

Therefore I only sell one instead of 50.

It’s so much simpler.
But is it of course not, right?

And think about it, people are somewhat correct when they said that people went Baton Island at $19.00.

But you’re certainly going to research the head out of the person if you’re going to split with $997.00, right?

So you know, therefore, if you’re sending a course with this much money, you need to ensure you have credibility.

And that means years of experience behind you, endless testimonials and real ones of that.

You have to be showing up on social media all the time to show you what you do and prove you’re knowledgeable.

You do sending out constant emails to people, giving away freebies to show an example of the quality of your work, doing webinars to get to know these people because no one is going to part with that amount of money unless they think they actually know you and they trust you.

And I could halve this money and it’s still the same, right?

No one’s going to do that.

So no, high ticket offers are not easier.

They could only be done by those who have been around for years.

And it’s fueled by this whole know your worth phenomenon where people are encouraging others to charge more because they need to know their worth, right?

And do you know what?

I’m all up for that and I need to listen to it sometimes because like.

Yeah, I I’m not great with that, but it also causes people to overcharge because they charge then what they think they’re worth, let alone what they’re actually worth, you know, So it’s a problem and unfortunately you can’t really jump all the steps in business.

You need to build on what you’ve got and generate trust before you sell to people.

And and then bands also a similar one, which is the whole, if you’re not making money, it’s just a mindset block fiasco.

I thought I’d throw this one in there because I’ve seen it come up so much lately.

There is an insane amount of content out there on mindset, meditation, mental fitness, manifestation, all of them.

But to me, I’ve heard this all my life.

It’s the classic parent thing to say of you can do anything you set your mind to.

And that’s true, but it’s the same thing only now it’s dressed up a lot more woo and motivational so that you kind of think that they’re sayings to be revolutionary.

But really, it’s just the same stuff you’ve probably heard all your life.

And you know what?
We’re in a bit of a crappy financial situation right now.

Like, and I’m not talking personally, I mean the world, everyone is struggling.

This is officially a crisis and the political landscape does not help matters anymore, right?

So naturally, people are not making as much money as they wish they were because people are not spending as much money as they usually do.

And plus, people are constantly wanting more money now because of social pressures.

And so they’re basically never going to earn as much money as they would like.

But this whole oh it’s a mindset block thing, it’s just bullshit.

Now don’t get me wrong, we could always do some work on our mindset and find ways to improve.

I mean this is kind of the point of this podcast right?

So that we sniff out the bullshit, we focus on the real stuff and we fix our mindset towards certain topic and start focusing on the things that matter.

However, mindset is not the only thing affecting our finances.

There are plenty of other factors which are common causes and are often overlooked.

For example, lack of strategy, poor processes, wrong people on the team, focusing on the wrong pieces of work, etcetera, etcetera.

These are issues I see in almost every single business.

And plus then there are factors that we can’t control such as the market.

So unfortunately, our mindset is not going to help these issues and not by itself anyway, because having the mindset may help us reframe our problems and then have the ability to address these issues, but it won’t just solve our money problems like that without actually actively looking for solutions.

And so much content right now is looking for like glossy solutions that sound nice and inspiring and, and it’s just designed to make it look easy.

Just fix your mindset and you’ll earn money.
I really, really wish it was that easy.

And do you know what?

On that note, I’m going to tie it into another piece of bullshit that I constantly hear and cannot stand, and that’s manifestation.

It’s not the concept of manifestation that I can’t stand because I actually think that works.

For example, I have a vision board, I set goals and I can’t remind myself of them and I work towards them.

But that’s exactly it.
I am constantly working towards them.

What I cannot stand are the people who say things like just write down the number you want to earn, put it on a post it and it will just happen for you.

Manifest your dream.

And so they post this content every day of them just creating a vision pussy vision board or sitting sitting there and just like visualizing their success.

And then one day they wake up.

It just happens.
I mean, I even saw this influencer.

Oh my God, it annoyed the hell at me.

She like basically said she’d visualize a new Range Rover for a week.

So she sat that down with it, like, you know, in front of a camera and videoed herself with her eyes closed, visualizing a new Range Rover.

And one day after a week, it just turned up in her drive and she had no idea how it even got there.

And people were lapping it up.

I could not believe it.

I mean, seriously, who believes that crap?

I mean, OK, I’m.

I’m not even going to.
Yeah, those are the people.

I can’t slap them.
However, the concepts of manifestation I like, but I like to call it manifest-action.

Cringe, I know.

But without the action, you’re not actually going to achieve your goals.

You can’t just write down your goal and it’s going to manifest itself.

The way that manifestation work should work at least is that you see the visual reminder over and over again and it reminds your brain to actually work on that thing.

You constantly then take steps to achieving that thing and then it will happen.

But manifestation without action does not work.

You actually need manifest-action.

And you know, I feel like there’s a common trend amongst the ones I’ve picked so far, which is basically trying people trying to do as little as possible.

And you know, I so I want to bring up another piece of bullshit that I can’t stand.

And it’s that you can apparently outsource your entire business immediately there.

And it’s coffee time.

And yeah, the content around entrepreneurship at the moment, it’s just trying to sell this dream, right?

And running a business is glamorous and you can get your dream life that you deserve.

But you know, you’ve been in the rat race for so long and you had a toxic boss, etcetera, etcetera.

But we all know that there’s so many moving parts for business.

So why do people think it’s really that easy?

But you know, outsourcing is the key.

Don’t do jobs that you don’t like, Just give it to someone else to do.

I mean, we’re already covered AI already and how many tasks you can supposedly get them to do it to do whatever it to do like, you know, but what about everything else?

Well, apparently now, thanks to the likes of like fibre, you can get anyone to do your job for just the fibre.

So it’s getting silly.

But you know, I actually do believe that delegation is a huge part of business and doing it right is a game changer.

Because after all, yes, you can do your all your admin, you can do your own bookkeeping and you can do your own social media management if you want to.

But should you?
That’s the real question.

So ask yourself, what’s your hourly rate?

Would you pay someone that same rate to do those tasks I just mentioned?
Because then if not, you probably should be outsourcing, at least theoretically, because this is absolutely the right strategy in the long run.

But it’s not necessarily practical right away because first of all, outsourcing costs money that you may not have.

And yes, if it’s less than you’re getting paid, then you should be making enough money.

But are you getting paid for the same amount of hours that you’re outsourcing?

So most people aren’t filling up their calendar with billable hours right from the get go, right?

And if you have a product business, you’re probably not selling all your products enough to cover the costs of outsourcing straight away.

And plus, people compare these direct numbers without taking into consideration anything else.

To sell your products and services, you’re going to need a lot of marketing and that means a marketing budget too.

And even if you’re doing things organically, you spend times on calls, you’re out networking, etcetera, etcetera, all these are non billable hours.

And so any hours you’re outsourcing during those times, it’s technically making a loss.

So it’s completely natural to want to do many things yourself when you’re just starting out.

And you know what, it’s also very sensible.

And yes, delegation is a massive skill because it’s also very hard for many business owners to relinquish control.

But when it’s done right, it’s amazing.

But the keyword there is right, and finding the right people is way harder than you expect.

Now, I’ve been running my own business for over 15 years now and I can safely say that the thing that I found the hardest, hands down, is finding good quality, reliable staff.

Because the best ones I’ve met are like the ones who are proactive, they’re strategic, they’re keen go getters, etcetera.

There’s all entrepreneurial traits.
And so they usually become entrepreneurs and they go off and do their own things.

So while delegation and outsourcing is great theoretically, it’s really not as easy as it looks because hiring the wrong person is actually insanely detrimental to your business.

And I would know because I’ve done it so many times, sadly.

But moving on because I don’t want to relive those mistakes right now.

And I’m going to go on to the next piece of all share, which I believe is just be visible and consistent.

And I’ve been covering this a lot in my sub stack lately, which you should totally check out by the way.

I we’ll put the link in the show notes.

And it’s my daily, yes, I said daily musings on entrepreneurship and the things I’m learning every single day.

It’s called 0 to something because I believe that we should be achieving something or learning something at least every single day, no matter how small it is.

So I’m documenting that.

And I recently took a month of social media because I was sick of the pressure of having to show up consistently and be visible.

And it’s probably the most common piece of advice in entrepreneurship at the moment, and definitely by content creators because there’s a little bit of truth to it.

But here’s why I think it’s bullshit.

Just be visible and consistent as a piece of advice.

Doesn’t factor in quality or targeting now.

Therefore people are just churning out content everyday, often using AI, not caring about the quality because they hope that one day it will just pay off because that’s what they’re told.

So they don’t spend any time actually getting to know their audience and instead it’s just a check box exercise.

Like for example, I must comment 50 day times a day on my people’s posts.
Classic piece of LinkedIn advice for sure.

Because people you need they.

Well people think that you need to be visible on the posts of top creators.

But my question is, are they your target audience?

Is their audience a target audience?

Because if not, you shouldn’t be engaging with them.

I don’t care how big they are.

Like if I showed up and designed to comment on Kim Kardashian’s post every single day, do you think I’d win any business with it?

Hell no.
Like I’d be wasting my time every single day because none of them are going to give a crap about what I’m up to or my insights.

And she sure as hell won’t.

So you’ve got to stop wasting your time with that.

I I think you should be consistent, but consistent consistently.

Like taking, you know, the time to get to know your audience, talking to the right people.

And I don’t mean every day necessarily, but that you’re constantly focused on the same people and no one else like, and you can define what time scale makes sense for you, doesn’t have to be every day, right?

And yes, you should be visible too, but that doesn’t mean all platforms all the time.

It means showing up where your audience are and stay in front of mind.

And I actually think e-mail marketing is the best way for this.

And it’s something I’ve decided to concentrate on more on this year.
It’s definitely underestimated.

It’s less glamorous than as people think because they don’t see the results like in an open way and they can’t go viral and stuff.

But I actually think it’s the most effective is still got the most best ROI and the best stats around them.

And you know, you can also be visible on DMS or events and just be there for people.

So be visible doesn’t mean posting three times a day on social media and showing off.

And it certainly doesn’t mean trying to go viral.

Which leads me to another piece of bullshit.

It’s the whole 1 viral post can change your life bullshit.

Now do you know what?

Like this could be true, right?

Because it just takes one post to completely blow up your profile and suddenly you’re in front of millions of people and your life’s changed.

But then this could also be a bad thing, right?

You could go viral for the wrong reasons.

And the reason why I think this is bullshit is because it’s caused people to focus on going viral.

Like it’s literally in people’s strategy.

I could see lines about how do we go viral?

I hear it meet us all the time and think about the posts, you know, which have been viral.

It’s usually for something ridiculous, like the person’s being mocked or slated or vilified, right.

Rarely do people go viral for something great they’ve done and the people suddenly go, oh, I really want work with you.

Like it’s also because you know, you, you people write a post and then moaning about something else doing something bad, in which case it doesn’t mean you know you’re going to get business out of it.

You’re just going to get a lot of unwanted attention.

Now for anyone who’s gone viral, you’ll, you’ll know and, and they can tell you that it’s actually incredibly stressful, but you get so much unwanted attention and you absolutely can’t keep up with all the comments.

You’ll get like a tonne of people who aren’t your target audience and people who just don’t get who you are and they’ll just turn up and give you their opinion, most of which isn’t great, and they’ll be in your comments and they’ll disappear again.

And so verbality is not necessarily a good thing.

And there are people, however, who have gone viral and it’s completely changed your life for good, which is amazing.

But how do they do it?
The problem is they can’t tell you because it’s usually luck and timing.

They will probably say it’s consistency and you know, they’re posting a lot and it all paid off.

But that’s not quite true.

But you know, it’s nice to have a, a story at the end of it and explain it and you know, give great advice about this.

But it’s you know what?

It’s likely that post could have gone viral if they didn’t post all the time before that.
You just don’t know all the factors behind it, unfortunately.

And The thing is, do you know what?

You’re always one thing away from the life changing for the better, whether that’s on social media or not.
It could be a chance encounter, someone stumbling across a piece you did years ago, a cold reach that actually landed.

Whatever it is though, there usually is a lot of luck and timing involved.

But what people are right about is that you definitely don’t get these opportunities unless you put yourself out there.

So if you do keep putting yourself out there, then eventually something great will happen.

But that doesn’t mean every day and it doesn’t mean you have to go viral.

And it certainly doesn’t mean that you should be trying to go viral as that never works.

So I, I want to do another one on this whole vanity thing.

And it’s the hot and it’s the getting from zero to X number of followers in Y time.

And it really freaking bugs me because it’s become a bit of a thing lately.

They were like Instagram accounts popping up every single day.

Like I got to 10K followers in 90 days using this simple formula.

And then lo and behold, they sell a course on how they can do it.

And a lot of these people, what they do, they literally just buy their followers so they can say they’ve got to that many people in a short space of time just so then they can sell this secret that doesn’t exist, but it makes some money.

And people believe it because they see that they have a lot of followers.

And so they believe that that absolutely what happened.

So they believe that if they can get followers, then they’ll get more business and they’ll gain credibility and they’ll feel popular and then they’ll be happy.

And that’s what they think’s going to happen.

But we all know the reality of that cycle.

And I even got some hate recently because I called out this stance on LinkedIn.

Like I saw this lady and she was, she was like I’m going to get to a 10K followers in just a few months just because like she had no reason for it.

She didn’t care who followed her, why or the quality of her content.

She just had this arbitrary goal.

And the kicker?
She actually worked at LinkedIn, the platform trying to promote quality content and encouraging their creators to produce great work.

She was working for them and she was just there looking for a pretty goal and popularity.

So I featured her in my bullshit the week.

I didn’t include her name, of course, because it was nothing to do with her, it’s to do with the bad practice I don’t believe in.

But then so many people knew who I was talking about because she was obviously very vocal about it and her minions came after me.

And The thing is, the people who are attracted by this kind of stuff are also wired a certain way.

They definitely don’t want to be told that they’re vain, but these metrics are called vanity metrics for a reason.

But these people were super duper offended and they felt personally attacked when I said that chasing this arbitrary follow crack count is for vanity.

But I wonder why?

So we need to stop thinking about these silly followings.

We need to concentrate on the quality.

Just think about it for a second.

How many clients or customers do you really need?

10, 20 a hundred.

Like if you want to be profitable, how many do we need?

Like it’s probably one of these numbers, but be a lot less.

So then why do you need 10,000 followers?

Because if we have just 1000 followers, that’s plenty.

And if you cannot convert 1% of your audience, and I’m sorry, the problem isn’t your number of followers, it’s probably the quality of your content and your messaging.

So that’s really where you should be starting because that’s more important.

But again, people don’t want to hear that the problem is them.

It’s much easier. So just blame it on the algorithm.

So I’m going to finish up with the biggest pills of bullshit because I feel like it kind of encapsulates everything and it dominates everything that I’ve been discussing it with so many people.

And now people say that you absolutely do need to fake it till you make it.

Now, after all, this podcast is called Sniffing out the Bullshit.

So this last one is so on brand because there were so many people who are now saying they have to give into the bullshit because that’s how you become successful.

And I actually sympathize with anyone who feels this way because it is super infuriating at the moment that everyone out there seems to be fake in success.

They’re lying to wing clients are worming their way into inner circles by brown nosing.

And you know what, if you go into like Netflix, it’s build a documentaries of con artists who’ve done pretty well for themselves like this, like the Tinder Swindler.

We’re inventing at it, right?

These are real people who’ve profited off their marks in a big way.

And you know what?

They may have got caught, but their punishment was pretty mild in comparison.

And now these two actually stay out there just living their lives.
I mean, wasn’t I don’t like on on Dancing with the stars recently?

They actually didn’t like rewarded for their deceit and dishonesty.

It’s nuts, right?
So naturally it makes people think that it could all be worth it just to cheat a little bit like, and is it really that bad to just fake results?

I mean, everyone else is doing it right.

And so the classic one at the moment within my circles is this whole like LinkedIn engagement pods.

The organic reach is massively down now and people are complaining that all their competitors are in these pods.

And so every single one of their posts go, they write, goes viral.

So now they want to join the pods because they claim it’s the only way that their business can compete.

Now, I see the temptation here.
You don’t want to get left behind.

But I also believe that when people zig, you should zag.

You should dare to be different.

But if you’re just copying what other people do, how are you ever going to stand out?

Now Sure, their posts look like they’re all going viral, but it’s just going to a lot of people within their pods.

And maybe there are more people seeing the post fine, but it doesn’t mean it’s the right people.

And plus, people are clocking onto this bullshit right now, so they know it’s not real.

And the thing for me, the kicker about cheating in this way is that how will you actually know what your customers really want?

Like if you care about your business, you care about your customers, right?

But how do you know which content your real audience like seeing?

Because all you’re going to see are the the ones that your pod people are saying.

Like, how do you know what actually resonates with them?

If you’re just seeing all the fake comments in your profile, you lose the biggest benefit of digital marketing, which is all the data about your true customers.

So the crazy thing is that people are talking about faking it till you make it.

At the same time, they’re talking about authenticity.

So the whole thing is just a sham.

But think about it please for a second because it’s way more stressful trying to put on a front and worrying that you’re going to get caught.

Like what if you start to do well and someone exposes the bullshit later on how you feel?

Then let all that hard work be for nothing.
Because remember, it takes years to build up a reputation but only a few minutes to tear it down.

So you’ve got to ask yourself whether it’s worth it.

Because at the end of the day, all these pieces of bullshit are designed to cut corners to running a legitimate business.

So when you try to find the cheats, you’re also just not learning anything.

And sure, there are some people who have benefited and found success in this way, but they are there and that success is short lived that you’ll always be able to win here and there, like you know, with some of these tactics.

But what’s the long term strategy?

And there’s a reason why phrases like slow and steady wins a race stand the test of time because they’re true Tunnel vision only gets you so far.

But if you want to be in business for several years and you’re planning your future, then you need to learn to do things properly.

You need a solid foundation and learn the fundamentals of business because each time you screw something up, it’s a lesson for next time.

You won’t earn loads of money immediately and you’re likely to struggle at the beginning, but that’s OK because you’ll be rewarded later on.

But if you try for the shortcut straight away, you’ll be left without any other foundational knowledge for how to do things properly, and then you’ll struggle to stay afloat.

I know this has been a super long episode compared to normal, but since I had a massive break I thought I’d bring you a valley packed episode and essentially give you a taste of what’s to come this season.

But I hope you’ve enjoyed it and it’s provided some comfort into what’s going on out there.

But if you’re ever not sure about piece of advice or whether something is bullshit then please do hit me up on social media.
My links are in the description.

I’m always happy to help, but until next time, please keep sniffing out the bullshit.