The Anti Success Guide To Business

Kirsten Macdonald
4 min readFeb 4, 2020
Image credit: Twenty20

Sick of the fluffy lectures by snake oil experts slinging their finest know-how wares at the market of discontent? Welcome to the five steps to ultimate business failure.

  1. Keep looking to the left and right- focus all of your undivided attention on what Debbie and Jane are doing, what they have, and how quickly they did it. Please make a note of the millions they made and continue to examine yourself in the mirror and demand to know why you can’t have that too.

If this doesn’t yield results for you, it might be time to direct your focus on your end game and the steps needed to get there. Build on your strengths, work on on your weaknesses and for goodness sake- BREATHE. Looking forwards and focussing on your unique offering is paramount.

Remember: Perception is infinite; personal energy resources are not.

Photo credit: @this_beautifuljourney

2. Never set a budget and always outsource on the cheap, you know those that don’t spend money have all the money! You can get bargain basement content and products that might not be the most exceptional quality, but if you sell enough of them- there’s money to be made right?

Negative Ghostrider.

Here’s the thing; take the $4 coffee from each day next week, and you’ve got yourself at least $20 to spend on social media advertising. Do it right, employ keywords to assist people in action and payment, and you got yourself leads. This leads to sales. $20 may turn into $200. $200 can turn into $20,000 and look out Dick and Pete; here I come!

Quality equals integrity and integrity is a priceless treasure.

Photo credit @freemanp

3. Do not reciprocate. Only losers try and give you affiliations or reach out on digital media, especially when they are small. Only aim for the big players. It’s all about you and don’t you forget it. Business is a dog eat dog world, why should you go out of your way for a nobody?

Well here’s the hot tip of the day; you never know the hand you shake or the digital shout out you give may be connected to the heart and mouth of the person who will remark about you to someone else. This makes you remarkable. They may also be the next big thing, and they will remember you.

Kindness and reciprocation don’t cost you a cent and may bring a return more significant than you expect.

Photo credit: @MichaelModePhotog

4. Never make plans. Live by the seat of your pants and on the creative edge. Because big players play hard and you have it all in your head, right?

You are selling, you know the game, who needs planning? You got a list, a diary and you are good to go.

Most likely- no. Your business will fail faster than a wig in a fan factory friend. Plans are success in motion; a plan is a plan is a plan. You are manifesting, actioning and stimulating your creative business engineering brain. Ideas lead to more ideas and good plans lead to organisational strategies and success.

As a wise person once said; a goal without a plan is just a wish.

Photo credit @pascalkrumm

5. Please stop listening to mentors who tell you that working hard is the way to success. Everyone knows money is easy to make when you just know-how. There are so many experts out there who made seven figures in just six months.

Well, dear reader, here is the thing, they probably made it selling programs to people telling them how to make seven figures in under six months. Unicorn businesses are called this because they’re rare. As rare as Rockinghorse poop.

Want more business? Work for it, work at it and keep going. Celebrate the small successes on the way, and take the word fail and turn it into “lesson for future reference.”

Sometimes when we are having this human experience, we learn best when we work out what NOT to do. Chips without gravy is just, well, a potato. Learn to make gravy, people!

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time, we fall.

Confucious

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Kirsten Macdonald

Author, business woman, editor at Ponderings Magazine and digital educator, seasoned with a dark sense of humour — a ponderer spilling ink with gusto.