How Mindset Affects Success In Digital Marketing

Do you have any idea how mindset affects success in your online business-building journey? Having the right mindset when you’re building a digital business has a direct impact to help you succeed. We are not discussing mindset just for the sake of using up time or sounding intellectual. The points that we are going to discuss here are 100% practical applications.

Why is this important for you to learn and apply?

Talking about what mindset an entrepreneur need is something that many business teachers neglect to talk about. This is perhaps more vital to your success than the actual business-building steps that you’re going to take.

Why?  Well, think about this…

Internet marketing gurus don’t tell you this?

The reason why the topic about how mindset affects your success is commonly overlooked is that nobody wants to tell you that your mental ability is responsible for your results and this refers mainly to the internet marketing gurus.

They want to tell you that a monkey with half a brain can be an internet marketer and all you have to do is buy their system.

This has led to an epidemic of newbies who fail because they were not given this piece of the puzzle.

So what is mindset?

Your mindset is made up of several components such as beliefs, attitudes, and thoughts. This affects how you interpret and respond to any given situation. Your ‘inner voice’ is a strong indicator of your mindset.

Merriam-Webster defines mindset as a mental attitude or inclination

There are infinite examples of mindset because everyone is different and they have their unique combination of mindset attributes.

Types of Mindset

But, here are some generalized types of mindsets that just help understand the concept. It is important to look at mindset as pairs of opposite types, for example:

• Short-term thinker vs Long term visionary

• Small thinker vs Big dreamer

• Passive follower vs Courageous leader

• Greedy and self-centered vs Generosity

• Envy and comparison vs Gratitude

• Pessimistic (Negative) vs Optimistic (Positive)

• Fearful vs Risk-taker

• Victim mentality vs Empowered overcomer

• Jaded and close-minded vs Lifelong learner

• Shy and distrustful vs Assertive go-getter

3 Critical Mindset That Affects Success In Digital Marketing

Out of all these different mindsets, these 3 specific mindset affects an entrepreneur. These are important to an internet marketer because they will have a direct impact on your business’s success.

The 3 critical mindsets are :

1. Growth vs Fixed
2. Employee vs Business Owner
3. Consumer vs Marketer

Let’s take a look at them now.

Growth vs Fixed

(a) At some point in building the business, you will become frustrated. That’s a guarantee. However, the question is will you give up or will you take the challenge as an opportunity to grow. You see, the fixed mindset avoids challenges while the growth mentality embraces them.  

(b) When coming across obstacles, the fixed mindset gives up easily while the growth mindset persists in the face of challenges.

• Now there will be obstacles that tempt you to give up when building your information marketing business. For some, it may be technical issues. Others may face health, family, or some other personal challenges in their life.

• So, what will you do when that obstacle rears its ugly head? There is nothing virtually significant or worthwhile that you’ve accomplished in life without the temptation to quit.

• This is often the difference between someone who builds a successful online business and someone who fails to do so.

• Now, of course, you can still fail with a growth mindset but when you do, you will come out of it much quicker.

Employee vs Business Owner

(a) For some people, this is going to be difficult to change because the employee mindset has been ingrained for so many years.

• The employee gets paid for time and works for some else while the business owner leverages on other people’s time so that they don’t have to do all the work and then they can scale their business larger.

(b) However, the type of mindset that affects success is behaving and thinking like a business owner.

• One reason why is that you don’t want to get trapped back into trading your time for money. You may find that if you work X amount of hours, you will make X amount of money but if that is how you are approaching your business then you are missing out on the factor of leverage.

• You probably want to outsource some of the things that you may not want to do like certain technical stuff or even creating pieces of content for someone else. In the beginning, it may be worthwhile to learn those things yourself. However, you’d still want to adopt a business owner mindset so that you can free yourself from the certain time-consuming task at hand.

• If you want to create a situation when you no longer want to work then you need to have a business owner mindset. For example, let’s say you write for money, over time you can employ ghostwriters to write for you and employee marketing staff to promote your business. In that way, you will transition into managing your business through other people’s time and effort.

Consumer vs Marketer

• While you are building an online business, remember that of one the most important roles that you have to take up is that of a marketer!

• A marketer is someone who sells and many aspiring online entrepreneurs don’t want to be a salesperson because generally, the term salesperson carries a negative connotation.

• If you have such a negative perception then you need to make adjustments in your mindset because selling is a critical ingredient to the success of any business.

Nobody makes money until somebody sells something.

That’s a fact! Have you come across any profitable business that is not selling anything?

The success of your online business depends directly on you selling something.  That’s where the money comes from. Whether you’re selling an info product, promoting something as an affiliate, collecting leads, or even just attracting traffic to get them to click ads, you are selling something. That’s why you need to think like a marketer.

Do you know how to think like a marketer?

If you are not sure about that, here are some questions that can help you see if you have the marketer mindset.

If you are a true marketer you will always have opportunities to make money.

4 ways you can develop the right mindset?

(1) Listen to yourself

• Pay attention to your inner dialogue, that is your own thoughts and how you talk to yourself. In my experience, this is a huge indicator of your mindset.

(2) Practice what you tell yourself

• Understand what it means to have a Growth Mindset (abundance mindset) and practice it through your inner dialogue in the situations you encounter daily. Be aware of what you are saying to yourself. Is it positive or is it negative?

• If you don’t understand the Growth mindset, study it. There are countless books on this subject. The original book was called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck. Other recommended books would be Switch On Your Brain and Think, Learn, and Succeed.

(3) Behave like a business owner

• Understand what it means to have a business owner mindset and practice it especially as you take each step in this business-building process.

• I would recommend you read the classic Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki. It breaks down the difference between an employee, self-employed, business owner, and investor.

• By the way, the investor mindset will also be necessary for you if you want to keep and grow the money you acquire.

(4) Think like a marketer

• Understand what it means to have a marketer’s mindset and practice it daily as you encounter marketing all around you.  

• Become aware of all the marketing messages that you experience daily and which ones are working versus the ones which aren’t. Observe the advertising methods used by a company and how much did they spend on ads.

• If you are buying something, think about why are you buying it and how it make you feel.  What would you have done differently if you were the salesperson?  

• Soon you will start seeing opportunities all around you.  If you don’t come from a sales and marketing background, you can check out some of the classic books like How to Win Friends and Influence People, Secrets of Closing The Sale, How to Master the Art of Selling, and How to Sell Anything to Anybody.

Conclusion

To fuel your progress in becoming a successful online marketer, you now know the 3 critical type of mindset that affects your success. You want to be ready to face any obstacles that might fall in front of you and find a solution for them as a business owner who is also a competent marketer.

This is not going to be an overnight change but if you consistently take daily steps to build these traits then you will be a savvy, forward-thinking, and successful online business owner.

What type of mindset do you have or would like to have? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.