How do you deal with fantasists on the forum?

[Twokids]

How do you deal with fantasists on the forum?

What I mean is people posting ( usually in the Introductions Forum ) introductions that show that they haven’t a clue about the way business works – or worse try to fool you that they run a huge business empire when their website shows that they can’t even spell let alone arrange multi-million pound deals?

Don’t get me wrong - I admire ambition and drive, what I don’t admire is naivety, laziness and the preposition to try and fool us on this forum with grandiose ‘Walter Mitty’ type statements like ‘ XYZ Corp is a multinational company’ etc etc when it is blinding obvious that all they own is a web site address and a copy of Adobe Photo Shop.


I suspect that they live in a fantasy world and they have picked up the idea that being ‘in business’ is the way to get rich quick. Therefore they expect to come on this forum, tell everyone how clever they are and sit back to wait for Richard Branson to contact them and offer them 50% ownership of a £10 million business.


A common factor is that they have no idea of what business they want to be in – they just want to be ‘In Business’ and spend most of their spare time browsing the Aston Martin website in preparation fro the time Richard calls…

I don’t want to be cruel to them – but I do start asking them some pointed questions about their expectations. If nothing else to try and make them put some thought into it and channel their ambition into something useful – like thinking through a business idea and doing some research.

Usually they don’t reply and they soon disappear from the UKBF never to be seen again.

How do you deal with it?

Jim

 

[SillyJokes]

I don’t want to be cruel to them

That's my job. And trust me, they don't like it one bit.

Why squash ambition? Just let it gently fade away.

 

[Twokids]

That's my job. And trust me, they don't like it one bit.

Why squash ambition? Just let it gently fade away.

and I must say you do it very well SJ! :lol:


That's the narrow path I try to tread - I don't want to squash ambition, but I want to encourage realism as well.

A little tale about ambition.

Years ago we employed some psychometric testers to help us in recruitment campaign.

I noticed that they marked the candidates as 'Outstanding' 'Good' 'Poor' and 'Ambitious'.

When I asked them what they meant by 'Ambitious' they said that from the test they had deduced that the 'Ambitious' one's had basically tried to cheat to get the job by ticking all the boxes they thought we would like to see ticked by a perfect candidate.

I thought the Ambitious ones showed spirit and gumption actually - but they had let themselves down but not realisiing that false answers would be weeded out! :wink:

 

[SillyJokes]

Sounds like HR speak.

Well, we all started somewhere and sometimes the questions only sound stupid because some of us have the benefit of experience.

I hope that some, if not all those who ask them go on to get the answers they need here and can eventually start a successful business.

Afterall, our schools are not set up to produce entrepenuers, they simply churn out workers and it takes a lot of gumption and bare faced cheek to rise above this programming.

However the failed business rates seem to support the view that many people would be better off not trying.

Ouch.

 

[Twokids]

Oops I've been moved to the 'Feedback and Help' section - I thought it was a good general question actually but there you go...

Once again you have hit the nail on the head SJ - naybe I should make a distiction between the naive ( which is everyone at some point in our lives ) and the brash/unthinking/lazy ones ( come to think of it I was like that once too ).

Oh the confidence of youth!

Jim

 

[Cornish Steve]

Afterall, our schools are not set up to produce entrepenuers, they simply churn out workers and it takes a lot of gumption and bare faced cheek to rise above this programming.

This is so true, and it's really sad. What will it take for schools (and universities, for that matter) to produce risk-taking, dream-chasing, economy-driving entrepreneurs?

 

[Rob Holmes]

Afterall, our schools are not set up to produce entrepenuers, they simply churn out workers and it takes a lot of gumption and bare faced cheek to rise above this programming.

Have you read Rich Dad Poor Dad ?

(I found it a cracking read)

Rob

 

[SmallBizSoftware]

Once again guys, you are trying to axt as judge and jury and squash anyone who doesn't fit your view of what is 'normal'.

It's a bloody good job that the ludites were not mods (bit oximoronic I know) as the industrial revolution could have been guaged as a fanatical idea and kept from happening.

Sure there appears to be some right no hopers posting here and if they drift into obscurity so what. Let's not stiffle innovation, would we have said Trevor Bayliss was a fantasist or that guy who invented the Dyson (and was turned down by over 15 banks in the process of trying to get funding!)

My website http://www.smallbizsoftware.co.uk might not be perfect and I use it as much to learn about the process as to deliver the result.

In short, no to any form of censorship or elitism, let everyone post and damn themselves if the grammar, language or content doesn't press the right buttons.

/rant (edit to correct spelling)

 

[daveashton]

I just wish people could rate the replies and then it would solve the problem.

There on here who just shoot everything down and hence you spend all day justify your comments only for the moderators to remove the whole thing which wastes everyone’s time.

So to answer your question.
Being a dreamer is not a crime, providing bad advice is just bad business, deliberately putting a company in a bad light to detrimentally effect their business is slander.

 

[Ozzy]

SmallBizSoftware has the right approach in my opinion, let the "dreamers" make their posts, and I wish them well. Its the nature of a public forum that it can attract people that have nothing better to do, but it also attracts valuable and geniune people. We get a good mix of all sorts here from all works of live and all sorts of personalities (some good and some not so) and that is what also makes the world go round