How to ensure you're not going to succeed in business

There are so many successful people out there that perhaps you want to break the mold and be unsuccessful. Join the culture of abysmal failure. Bring failure to the pinnacle of perfection and demonstrate even to Great Britain how failure can be achieved with even more panache, style and confidence.

Basically, the way to fail with success is to rely upon the internet for almost everything. Keep that chair warm at all times. Keep those fingers glues to the keyboard. Keep posting online. Somebody's going to read it - eventually. Let's go through the various major online services.

• Twitter - whenever possible, do rely upon Twitter. There are 271 million Twitter users worldwide and a few bots too. Doing the maths, that's 271 million Twitter users out of 3 billion internet users or roughly 9% of internet users will use Twitter. Yahey - you're contacting 9% of the market. But hold up - that's 9% of the total market worldwide. Most likely your business is local. This means that if your locality has 500,000 people then you're likely Twittering to 9% of those 500,000 or about 45,000 people. That sounds good. It sounds even better when you realise that most of those Twitter users are teenagers or unemployed people with no money.
• Facebook - whenever possible, pay Mark Zuckerburg money to advertise on his website. He'll go broke if you don't and he'll be living on the streets out of a cardboard box. Facebook advertising is sure to get you website visits and the more you spend, the more visits you'll get,
• Foursquare - There are Foursquare users out there, even though most people have never ever heard of Foursquare. Might as well set up a Foursquare account and set up some magic discounts on Foursquare. It's bound to do something.
• Youtube - set up a youtube video. Do a selfie of yourself proclaiming how good you are, how good your products are and get some aunties, uncles, nieces and nephews involved to pretend to be happy customers. It will look so convincing. Film it on your mobile phone for that extra style.
• Blogging - choose a blog site and blog about your business. Somebody's bound to follow your blog and find what you say is interesting. They might even be local people.

Now, having set up all these online services and found out what a massive time soak they are, you need to hire somebody to manage all your online services. Don't worry that your online presence is getting less attention from local people than local people would care about a fart in a spacesuit on the International Space Station. The point is it's there and internet marketing is very powerful. Ignore the fact that internet marketing is so powerful that advertising revenue is dropping year after year and that people have become increasingly immune to all forms of advertising.

Now let's have a look at some other ways you can fail too. Just to make a nice, well-rounded failure. 

• Rely upon online sources for all your business advice. Because it's online, it must be true. What your competitors claim works must work because a competitor wouldn't possibly lie to you, would they?
• Mail shots - people love to receive advertising in the mail. I know all of mine goes unopened and unread into the trash but I'm the oddball.
• Marketing emails - don't you just love to read them? Don't you immediately rush out and buy everything that is advertised in the emails from breast enhancers to manhood enhancers?
• Newspaper advertising - it's always worth listening to newspaper advertising salesmen that tell you a months worth of advertising is $5,000 and after 6 months you will be swamped with customers. This will genuinely happen if you can put out just $30,000 in advertising.
• Vehicle signs - everybody reads vehicle signs. Remember how busy you are, calling all those people that advertise on the sides of their vehicles?
• Flyers - very useful and handy to distribute. Ignore the fact malls and businesses throw people out for passing out flyers. Ignore the fact that posting anything on walls and mailboxes is illegal. Ignore the fact that anybody finding your flyers will know immediately who has been littering the place.
• Business cards - very useful advertising tools. These should be as stunning as possible. Hire a designer to design a unique business card. People will keep the fancy ones for a few seconds longer than the boring cards. Press them into people's hands, two at a time. Here's one - give one to a friend.
• Chamber of Commerce. This is an excellent place to listen to the sound of people patting themselves on the back. Nobody has ever done any business resulting from a Chamber membership but you're going to be so different, aren't you?

Notice what's missing? People - we've blown all our budget to reach people but we've not actually connected to any people. Advertising online is like screaming into the Grand Canyon. All of this online stuff is a massive time soak. It's not free. It costs money. Here are the things that cost money:

• Staff time - to have staff tapping away on the keyboard (or your time even).
• Office space - to cater for staff dedicated to wasting time online.
• Electricity/Internet/Equipment - all tied up providing for this online nonsense.
• Insurance - to cover yourself and your employee.

Far better not to throw money, time and effort into the mythical world of internet lies. Better to spend time connecting to people that will buy your product.