It’s not easy developing entrepreneurial mindset. Entrepreneurs take risks and do things most people aren’t prepared to do. They see failures only as stepping stones to success. An entrepreneurial mindset is one which looks for opportunity for making money in the service of others.
Where most would quit, entrepreneurs tend to have a strong desire to accomplish something meaningful. A good example of the entrepreneurial spirit is James Dyson, best known as the inventor of the dual cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner, or “Dyson”.
After five years and over 5000 prototypes, Dyson launched the “G-Force” cleaner in 1983. But no manufacturer or distributor would handle his product in the UK, due to the valuable market in replacement dust bags. At this point many would have quit. But Dyson launched it in Japan through catalogue sales. It won the 1991 International Design Fair Prize in Japan.
After his invention was rejected by the major manufacturers, Dyson set up his own manufacturing company, Dyson Ltd.
Dyson’s breakthrough in the UK market came more than ten years after the initial idea.
Developing Entrepreneurial Mindset
There are five dimensions in a mindset: self-efficacy, locus of control, beliefs about our capabilities, motivation, and level of resilience. Here’s some of the main aspects of those which fall into the entrepreneurial bracket:
Self Efficacy – Self efficacy is a person’s belief in their ability to succeed in a particular situation. As Henry Ford once said “Whether you believe you can or you can’t, you’re right”.
An internal locus of control – high achievers put themselves in the driving seat of life. They take responsibility for their lives. By contrast, those with an external locus of control look to blame others. They tend to believe in fate, luck and that others are in control, not themselves.
Growth Mindset – Entrepreneurs have a growth mindset. They believe they can grow and change as necessaryto create the outcomes they want. A fixed mindset is the belief that things are “set”; that your capabilities are inherent and can’t be changed. Neuroscience research attests to the growth mindset concept, that we can change, i.e. thinking and intelligence are not set in stone.
Intrinsic motivation – Intrinsic motivation is doing something for it’s own sake, rather than for the sake of reward. Those with intrinsic motivation have higher levels of engagement and psychological well being. Introducing an extrinsic reward undermines intrinsic motivation.
Resilience – entrepreneurs tend to have high levels of resilience and can therefore overcome difficulties more easily. Where others would likely quit, the entrepreneur persists. This can be due to a positive outlook and optimistic view, rather than a pessimistic one.
Mindset Habits Of Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs tend to have goals. They also continue to update and expand on their goals to maintain their focus over the longer term. Without a meaningful goal, it can be much more difficult to sustain a particular path over the longer term.
Learning to control your state of mind is a useful entrepreneurial skill too. This can be especially useful when facing adversity.
Time management is a skill which is useful to entrepreneurs too. You can’t really control time; only the activities you choose to do within a certain time period.
Entrepreneurs are good at seeing the bigger picture of what they want to create. This might mean creating long term plans for a decade and then focusing on the monthly, weekly and daily habits which support that outcome.
Entrepreneurs are aware of their speech. What you say is often the best indicator of how you think. So be careful of your thinking when alone, and your speaking when with others.
Successful entrepreneurs spend time with other entrepreneurial types. They know that they become the average of the people they surround themselves with.
A growth mindset and affiliate marketing should go hand in hand. For a long time I looked to affiliate marketing as a means to only make money. “Where’s the money?” I thought. But over time I’ve come to appreciate that there’s a great “gem” to be taken from working an affiliate marketing business. That gem is personal growth. I’d always been fascinated by psychology and self help books have been my constant companion for many years.
In my 20’s and 30’s panic set in. I was broke and desperate so I though this was the perfect time to start an online business! Ha ha! Of course I didn’t realise that the mindset I brought with me almost guaranteed failure. Being broke and desperate meant I tried all the free stuff and quit too soon.
Growth Mindset & Affiliate Marketing Course after Course
I couldn’t afford to pay for training and courses, and I didn’t have the time either! I needed money now – yesterday in fact. The debt was eating me up and I was desperately unhappy while being desperately poor too.
So I looked to the internet as a means to solve my problems. Of course there was “easy money” to be made – I knew this because the “guru’s” told me so! But after months of struggle I knew this couldn’t be so. “Perhaps I hadn’t found the right get rich quick scheme yet”, I thought to myself. So I would buy another one, and another, and another.
Being addicted to “make money online” courses was as addictive as self help books. They always promised but never seemed to deliver. So I would abandon the course I was on, and look for another one. One which worked this time!
But of course I never thought to look into my own mindset – filled with fear and dread, desperate, broke! That’s not a good state of mind to go to the doctors, let alone start a business. But I didn’t want a business, I just wanted quick cash from the internet!
Giving Not Getting
I had a poverty consciousness and wanted to “get” not give. I had nothing to give, or so I thought. Over the years things changed most dramatically for my affiliate business when I understood that I needed to be of value. I let go of getting and started trying to give first.
When you’ve struggled for a long time through it becomes part of who you are. I was definitely becoming more “me” centric as I became entrenched in my personal drama of struggle. But after learning from coaches mentors about learning to let go of my own personal needs and wants, that’s what I set about doing. I had built a list by this point and had a few thousand people on it.
So instead of sending messages such as “click here” get money, I changed my emails to a more educational angle. I talked about my struggles and what had helped me, rather than sending spammy messages with an “urgent click here” rhetoric!
Low and behold things changed. People started buying, not because my products had changed, but because my attitude had!
Growing Vs. Making Money
There’s no doubt that personal growth is linked to income potential. But if you’ve been in a frustrated energy for a while, it materialises into physical life in many ways. Money was most definitely one of them for me. When you’re in a desperate “energy” of never having enough, you simply create more of what you focus on: not having enough. If you have looked into the law of attraction, and The Secret – the Rhonda Bryne book, you’ll have seen this concept before.
A desperate shop keeper is a good example of how someone pushes money away by trying too hard to sell to his customers. As a customer, you came into his shop to look around. You get a vibe for the place to see if you’re comfortable. A pushy sales person comes up to you and won’t leave you alone. Do you buy something? For me the answer is always a no! Yet that is what I was effectively doing with my desperation to make online sales – pushing people away!
If you find yourself in a similar place, go back to learning and growing. Put yourself in a growth mindset where you see personal growth as the answer before the actual cash/sales. Join webinars and seminars, and network with other entrepreneurs. You can join a program through this website. Simply sign up using the form and you can access the free video series.
Many affiliate marketers fail to create the success they desire because the affiliate psychology isn’t geared for success. There’s many reasons why someone’s psychology gets in the way of their business. It could be a sense of entitlement, fear of success or a poor self image which doesn’t allow for growth. Or perhaps you’re repeating unconscious behaviour patterns which don’t support your business.
The technical problems associated with building an online business can be easily overcome; especially with available software which takes most of it out of the equation. It makes an online business very accessible to everyone. However, someone’s psychology isn’t as simple. The invisible enemy of an affiliate marketer is their affiliate psychology.
Affiliate Psychology – Time For Money
Most affiliates come upon affiliate marketing in a bid to escape some job or career role which doesn’t suit them. In a job or a career, you trade time for money and get paid for your time. You’re therefore accustomed to getting paid for turning up. An online business, or affiliate marketing is very different. You get paid for the results you create. So if you’ve been used to getting paid for your time, it’s an easy assumption to make that by sitting in front of your laptop, you’ll start earning money from it. It’s not a correct assumption, but an easy one!
“Here I am working on my internet business”, you say. But in reality, you’ve poured 7 cups of coffee and browsed the internet for a while, chatting with friends on social media. Here lies one of the main problems when transitioning into an online business: being a “busy fool”.
Time on the laptop should be given the utmost importance when you start out as an affiliate marketer. You’ll likely spend time doing tasks which aren’t getting you paid, too. Time management is a skill and knowing how to spend your time with affiliate marketing is a hugely important skill.
Of course this all depends on your situation. Maybe you work really hard because you’re desperate to leave your job and want your affiliate income to replace that of your career. Your “why” is very compelling and you’ll do anything to escape the 9 to 5.
Affiliate Psychology – Affiliate Mindset
If this is the case, it leads to another potential problem – rushing in too quickly. You’re desperate to succeed so you work really hard and for long hours – but you work hard at the wrong activities.
Again, you take the strategies which have worked in a job or career and apply it to your affiliate business. It doesn’t! You’re not impressing anyone and if you’re in the habit of doing so, you’ll likely take that habit with you to your affiliate business. The “work hard play hard” mentality can apply to an online business. But you’re wasting your time working at some activities if they aren’t moving your online business forward.
Affiliate Psychology – Playing A Technician’s Role In A Business
In the book The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber talks about this problem. As you transition into a business from the role of a technician in a company, it’s an easy mistake to make. You think you have a business, but you repeat your role as an employee and wonder why your business isn’t working. That’s because a business requires a different mindset to an employment. In an employment role you get paid to turn up and play a small role in a bigger picture. In a business, you must learn the role of the entrepreneur. You need to have a vision of where your business is going. You need to learn new strategies to drive your business forwards – marketing.
Are you playing a technician’s role still in your affiliate business? Do you favour activities according to how much you like them, or according to how they will grow your business?
Affiliate Mindset – Fear Of Success
Do you have a fear of success? “Of course not”, you say! But think for a minute how your life will look like once you have “made it” as an affiliate marketer. Where will you live? What will your typical day look like? Imagine making tens of thousands of dollars/pounds every month.
What will you do with your new found freedom? Is this hard to imagine? If so why is it? In many ways it’s difficult to imagine your perfect life because you have already identified with your struggle. Who are you to be so successful? Does money even matter? Your affiliate psychology determines the upper limit of your business and this also comes down to how you see yourself and how you relate to money.
If you have any issues with money and abundance, they will likely surface to sabotage your business in some way – even if it’s only to limit its growth. Have you noticed how when a successful actor reaches the pinnacle of their career and then self sabotages by getting into a fight? Or they get involved in drugs.
How can someone so successful, and which such a (perceived) wonderful life fall so bad? It’s the upper limit problem and it’s not uncommon. In “The Big Leap” Gay Hendricks talks about this in detail. It’s a great book if you’re interested in affiliate psychology and overcoming the upper limit problem.
Affiliate Mindset – Comfort Zones
If you’re a struggling affiliate it could be for several reasons. Perhaps you haven’t found the right help yet – get an affiliate mentor. You are promoting the wrong products and using a bad marketing strategy – use the SFM digital business system. Perhaps you’re losing focus or working too hard in the wrong areas. There’s many ways to do affiliate marketing and if you’ve been working for some time without results, it could be time to shift.
I worked for years in the wrong areas, doing the wrong things. Blogging was comfortable for me. I wanted to make money without spending anything. This was partly through necessity, but also because I had a poverty consciousness. I was afraid to spend money and trapped by only spending time in my comfort zone of writing content. Are you stuck in a comfort zone desperately trying to prove yourself right?
Wanting to be right about something is another mindset trap of the affiliate marketer. Do you want to be right or do you want your business to be profitable? Which do you want more? Investigate your affiliate mindset and you’ll discover that resistance to change will be based in fear. What actions are you avoiding to remain in your comfort zone?
Do You Have A Vision?
Having a vision for your future is a good way to look at what you want from your affiliate business. If you can’t see that far ahead, you may be too focused on the tiny details of your business. Work on your life, not just in your business. Ask yourself whether your business is working you, or whether you are working your business? Do you own the business or does it own you? A business is a tool to take you somewhere. If the business is only to help you feel better about yourself and keep busy, you may be thinking too small.
This is why many entrepreneurs have a vision board. A vision board is a notice board where you put up your dreams and aspirations which you want to create in your life – cars, houses, relationships, children etc. Whatever you want to create in your life, put it on your vision board. It will remind you why you’re working in your business and your reasons for doing what you’re doing.
Taking Responsibility
Are you putting the responsibility onto someone else outside of you? Are you plodding along expecting something external to save you? A victim mentality is another thing which will work against you in your own business. For a long time I was creating content (like this article) in a bid to build a six figure business from nothing! I was deluded and as much as I did, and as hard as I worked, this strategy was flawed. Google didn’t reward me, or at least not as much as I expected or hoped.
Are you taking full responsibility for all your outcomes in life? Who are you shuffling the responsibility towards? Your spouse, your parents, the internet? Once you get this, and accept full responsibility for your online business, you won’t accept failure and you’ll start making bigger steps towards the life you want.
If you’re in the habit of idling along, hoping things will eventually come your way, you may be in victim mode. Are you a passenger in the car of life or are you driving?
An attitude of entitlement seldom goes very far in a business like affiliate marketing. Affiliates get paid when they do the work and make sales. You can float about in a job without doing much work, at least for a while. But this kind of work ethic doesn’t work well in an industry where you’re paid on the basis of your results.
I’ve fallen into this camp too when I started learning affiliate marketing. I expected to get easy results – in part due to the advertising at the time when I got involved. Many marketers were pushing the idea that making money online was easy. You could just set up a push and play system and sit back raking in all the money. I fell for this complete lie and expected to earn money from little work. I did work, of course, but it wasn’t enough or at the right activities.
If you have an attitude of entitlement, you’ll easily give up too, or you’ll blame affiliate marketing instead of taking responsibility for your lack of results. I spat my dummy out a number of times when affiliate marketing wasn’t working for me too! Fortunately I was able to see my failures as stepping stones to success.
Poor Self image
A poor self image will always perpetuate results which reflect this back to you. If you have a poor self image and are building an affiliate business, your affiliate psychology can be a massive drain on your resources.
The reason self image is so important, in any aspect of your life, is that you take it with you wherever you go. It’s your constant companion. A poor self image will tell you that you can’t do it. It’ll tell you there’s no point in doing it anyway, and that you’re worthless even if you “make it”. But you’re much less likely to be successful in any business with a negative voice in your head 24/7.
