There are SO MANY business myths out there that just need to be broken I thought we should start some here.

You hear people say things like "there is no such thing as bad publicity." Lord how idiotic is that? A myth that gets repeated and repeated and suddenly it becomes a "fact" everyone knows. Then it takes hold and hurts people who believe it.

How many times have people said they do free shows to book more shows? All you get is more free shows. "Do it for the exposure, it will be good for your business". Man if you want to know what exposure will do for you Google the Donner Party. What happens from exposure is you die and your friends eat you.

OH OH how about "we'll lose money on each one, but will make it up in volume." AS IF a mathematical formula exists for such a thing!

We see it all the time in life. "Stick your head in the sand like an Ostrich, even though there has never been ONE documented case of an Ostrich doing so! Or that Eagles go through a painful molting process and the beaks get brittle! OH MAN NO! The beak is like your finger nails. They don't take months to molt. It is NOT painful. OH WAIT the frog in boiling water myth! How goofy. Frogs jump out of hot water.

Back to business people BOOK ON PRICE ALONE! No they don't.

So break free of some of this nonsense. Get past the myths that so many propegate in business and life.

Haha. "Build it and they will come!"

Wow that one is expensive!

Quote of the Day!

To add to the metaphor, they took what was perceived as a shortcut! The Hastings Cutoff as it is known. It was new and unproven and a disaster for them.

I have seen shortcuts and "fake it till you make it" nonsense promoted here and every time it is encouraged by people I think of this.

I've actually done the "Fake it 'til you make it" route in my day job. But there's a matter of "Sure I can run a Learning Management System!" (As I'm pulling up the user's guide).

Not so easy to fake a double lift or try to reference a cheat sheet while doing a routine.

If you're going live with something, you can't fake it....

I thought others would chime in more so I held off on a few more, but since no on else is offering anything, here are soem more that I regularly encounter...

- The customer is always right
- Entrepreneurs are born not made
- Running my own business will give me more free time
- You must live in Los Angeles or New York to succeed
- With hard work things can happen overnight
- The smartest, most talented people have the most success
- If the kids love you the parents will too

The thing with these myths is that in being SO wrong, they are quite expensive. That is why it is so important to break free of them.

If it was just about an opinion or if they were just wrong and not harmful it wouldn't grind on me so much. The fact is that these myths AND worse yet the propagation of them is responsible for so much lost money it is sad. Add to that the ridiculous culture of encouraging every silly idea that anyone has and it is a witches brew for failure. Not all ideas are worthwhile, not all ideas should be encouraged and not all ideas are equal. If there is a lesson in busting business myths this is it.

Clinging to them because they make you feel good or they are the easy answer helps nobody. Propping up others bad ideas because it makes you feel good to encourage other people is only helping you and not them. In the end it doesn't matter to those who do the encouraging because they have no stake in the outcome. They get to "feel good" about themselves. That is the juice for them. In reality that is disguised as them being good people and wanting to help and blah blah blah. It does WAY more harm than good. It should be more about those you want to help than about how you feel helping.

I DO know "The customer is always right" one is truncated. The actual phrase is; "The customer is always right, in matters of taste." In other words, if he wants to wear stripes and checks, you don't talk them out of it!

Ed you are RIGHT!

It is a sentiment my father used to sum up as "for the people that like that kind of thing, that's the kind of thing them people like".

Great example. Marshall Field was fond of the quote you correctly elaborated.