That may seem like an odd title, why would people hate success? Especially when you take into account that we often, as a society, don’t want to cap salaries and other forms of compensation for the ‘Elite earners’ within America because of our own dream of achieving such levels of success; if we capped them, what would happen if we ever made it to that position? The dream is what allows a capitalistic society to keep chugging, and I would argue that this is inherently a good thing.
However, even with everyone chasing the dream of a particular lifestyle there is a large majority that has tried and run into frustration along the way… clearly they don’t understand the theory of ‘the dip‘. These particular individuals unfortunately would rather spend their time and energy trying to take down those who are visibly successful in their own right which is driven out of pure emotion and no logic at all. What these individuals don’t realize though is that instead of furthering their own position they are actually just creating a negative ecosystem and completely burning any personal brand they might have had for often times a quick buck.
What is an example of this type of behavior? Imagine all the ‘authority’ figures within your industry, now think of all the times you have seen someone else posting about how their business model is a ‘scam’, ‘rip-off’ or just plain wrong. These sometimes have validity but more often than not they are only ways to get a small spike in traffic from people who are most likely going to flame you in the comments and disagree with everything you say.
So what does someone get for trying to talk down towards authority figures, as well as up and comers? Maybe a few thousand hits on their website and a ruined persona within the digital space. Translations? They crumple any respect their audience/sphere of influence might have had for them for $10-$20. Congratulations! Not only have you lost the respect of many people who would have given you the benefit of the doubt and listened at least once, but now you have butted heads with someone who could have likely really helped you in your market sector for the amount of taking someone out to a modest lunch.
Are you working your own startup, or considered an authority within your industry (a real one, not just one of the millions of self proclaimed gurus on Twitter who don’t actually know anything beyond theories)? If you fall into either of these categories, you are going to run into these types of people without fail. Don’t fret though, not everybody has to like you. In fact, a lot of times those who are trying to destroy your image or validity are just attempting to get 5 seconds of attention, a quick buck and/or get you to ‘recognize’ them as a real competitor.
Who do you deal with this?
Since anything worth doing, is worth doing right; and given the fact that you will absolutely have people challenge who you are, what you are doing as well as your past you need to be ready to do one of two things.
1. Completely ignore these attention whores and stick to your guns. If you have chosen to do something, you should follow through with it and focus on your core customers and how to improve their experience without regard to the squeaky wheels on the bus. If you are producing quality content, services etc. your audience isn’t going to stop listening to you or coming to your products, sites etc. just because someone they don’t know is complaining.
In most cases this is the most preferred method of dealing with these types of people. Stick to what works and let the fly-by-night complainers come and go. If you focus on your customers and the process then you will always be fine.
2. Generate a response, but in the response make sure you address the negative press with key facts that are organized logically as to reaffirm your position and build your brand & credibility in a way that is only reinforced by any additional negative feedback. The key to success with this one is making sure to keep emotionally heated responses out of the mix because that is exactly what the attention hungry anti-successful live off of, let them starve.
Hopefully you are able to apply this to your unique situation when you come across it, because it is impossible with the connectivity in which the Internet affords today to NOT come across these types of people. Just make sure that whatever you are doing is calculated, measurable and presented logically. If you do this you will not only reinforce your existing audience, but you will likely pick up any stragglers who are sitting in your competitions camp 
