This is a tough economy. Jobs in some sectors are down 45%, and there’s talk of the downturn being as keenly felt as the Great Depression, a time when some families ate rats and people were forced to use their own hair to fashion makeshift home furnishings.
Luckily, there’s another way – a path that could lead to unimaginable riches. To discover if this new life is for you, answer the following questions:
- Is nobody willing to hire you?
- Are your skills unnecessary luxuries at a time when companies need to tighten their belts and focus on their core businesses?
- Do you have an unnecessary sense of entitlement?
- Is nobody willing to hire you?
If you answered “yes” to any of these, then son, you could be an ENTREPRENEUR.
Here’s how to get started:
1. Invent something to sell.
Don’t worry, you don’t actually have to be an inventor to invent something. It doesn’t even have to be new at all. Just copy something you like, call it something different, and get rid of the difficult bits that don’t make sense or will be difficult to do. Hooray! You’ve invented something!
For example:
Coca Cola is a multi billion dollar international business. It’s one of the most recognizable brands in the world. You want to have an internationally-recognized global brand! But wait: Coke’s recipe is secret and they have copyrights and patents to cover their product, as well as an international network of bottling plants, distribution mechanisms and partner companies.
Don’t worry. Simply mix some carbonated water with a little sugar and cinnamon, shove it into a recycled glass bottle, and call it Artisan Water. Find a store that’s willing to try selling it, charge $4 a bottle, et voila! Export some to a neighboring country like Wales or Canada, and you have your own multinational drinks business! You’ll be giving diabetes to children and oppressing emerging economies in no time.
2. Behave like an innovative businessperson.
The important thing to remember about ENTREPRENEURS is that they don’t need to follow the same rules as ordinary businesspeople. Please don’t worry about business plans, judicious financial strategy or creating a robust corporate infrastructure. Those things are boring and stop you from INNOVATING and TOUCHING BASE. INNOVATING and TOUCHING BASE are the main activities of the ENTREPRENEUR.
Businesspeople create pitches and strategies based on complex financial projections, which are painstaking, time consuming and ultimately useless, as they present a small subset of the possible outcomes of your activity in your chosen market. Talk about pissing into the wind!
- INNOVATING requires creating new ideas and directions. Try to be as INNOVATIVE as possible. That means creating as many new ideas and directions as you can! The more products and directions you come up with, the more INNOVATIVE your company will be!
- TOUCHING BASE means talking to people in a variety of settings about your business. You need not have any tangible outcomes or quantifiable goals – simply TOUCHING BASE is enough. Try TOUCHING BASE at the pub, over lunch, at sporting events, and at the beach!
Model yourself after: GORDON RAMSAY, ALAN SUGAR or DONALD TRUMP. Reality television is a true reflection of how to run a business. Repeat after me: “you’re fired!”
3. Profit! (From your employees, mostly.)
We both know you’re an unemployable, barely-literate chancer. Don’t worry: you need never reveal your shortcomings or foibles to the outside world. Simply hire some knowledgeable yet gullible employees and take credit for everything they do!
Advantages:
- Your employees feel like they’re being listened to and their input is being acted upon, because essentially you’re repackaging their ideas as your own.
- You appear to be an intelligent, INNOVATIVE ENTREPRENEUR, and people will therefore be more willing to TOUCH BASE with you.
Disadvantages:
- If those employees discover what you’re doing, you’re screwed, unless you can find new, even more gullible employees who will be grateful to be part of such an INNOVATIVE business run by a bona fide genuine ENTREPRENEUR.
- If someone asks you a question without the support of your employees, you will make barely-intelligible sentences that consist of buzzwords and key phrases arbitrarily strung together in a way that you think probably sounds impressive but in reality makes people wonder if you’re a regular ketamine user. [NB: there is a proven method to overcome this issue. Bolster your vocabulary with overcomplicated synonyms for common terms, like ACTUALIZE, LEVERAGE and ACTION, and nobody will suspect you don’t have the faintest clue what you’re talking about.]
Actualize!
Follow these simple steps – sorry, I mean action them - and you’ll be an INNOVATIVE ENTREPRENEUR. Can you make it in this tough economy? Hey, probably not. But at least you’ll have a fun couple of months TOUCHING BASE and feeling awesome about yourself.
