Written by: Amanda Rose, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
I’m frequently approached by new entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs who have been trying to build their business for some time without much success. They ask what the “secret” to success is. I immediately sympathize with them because I struggled for years and years before my business took off.
I grew up struggling with depression and obesity. In my teens, I developed anorexia which nearly killed me and left me fighting for mental wellness for over a decade to follow.
I’d always had big dreams and big goals for my life. I was a dedicated student, and I always applied myself. I did great at school, but after college, I could not even get a job flipping burgers in the real world. I felt embarrassed, and I was also left wondering if I couldn’t succeed – the girl who was a valedictorian, on the honor role, and a Governor General Award recipient – what was wrong with me?
I graduated in 2008 into the recession, and it felt at the time like all my dreams had been stolen because of the downturn in the economy. My parents generously floated me financially for a year until I was finally able to land a part-time job making door-to-door sales, certainly not what I’d imagined for my life.
Over the next few years, I went from job to job, retail, then another sales job, until I finally hit burnout in 2013. I was working insane hours, we had a terrible manager take over, and I had enough. I turned in my notice in July of that year with very little savings in the bank and no idea what I was going to do with my life. I just knew that I could no longer work for anyone else.
I ended up signing up to join a Network Marketing Company, which had helped me lose 138lbs so that I could work from home and help people lose weight in a healthy way instead of going down the dark road I had gone down with eating disorders.
Even though I was excellent at sales, selling online was a completely different experience; people walk into a store intending to buy things, but people didn’t go on social media to buy. Bridging that gap, understanding how to sell well online was a major hurdle. I failed in every way possible, and I’m pretty sure I made up new ways to fail while I was at it!
In my first month as an entrepreneur, I made $60 and just $600 as my own boss for the rest of 2013. Despite the slow and grueling start, I was determined to succeed.
Failing was helping me learn. Every time something didn’t work, I would try something else, and inevitably through trying, I would discover methods that produced good results.
I spent most of my 20’s living below the poverty line as I was figuring out this whole entrepreneur thing. I had a very challenging time building a business. It can be very disheartening and hard to show up every day when it is a struggle, yet it was through persevering and a willingness to learn that eventually, things turned around.
Initially, as an entrepreneur, I was solely focused on strategy. I was convinced millionaires, and successful business owners just had a secret strategy I had to figure out. It seemed like trying to solve a riddle; at least, that is how I saw it. What I discovered was that the missing link was mindset work.
About years into building my business, my husband came home one day and handed me a piece of paper that said he’d been let go from his job. Now, at the time, I was only early, about $800-1000 a month through my online business, not nearly enough to have the mortgage, car payments, and daily living expenses all fall on my shoulders. At that moment, I knew I either had to figure out my money issues or figure out how to file for bankruptcy; I chose to figure out my money issues.
Honestly, it was at this time when I was overcoming the 6-inches between my own ears (my thoughts) that was the biggest game-changer in not only my business but in my life.
Initially, as an entrepreneur, I was solely focused on strategy. I was convinced millionaires and successful business owners just had a secret strategy I had to figure out. It seemed like trying to solve a riddle; at least, that is how I saw it. What I discovered was that the missing link was mindset work.
Within 6 months of shifting from solely focusing on strategy to plunging wholly into mindset work, we manifested over 6-figures. Now, I’m not saying mindset is the end-all-be-all you DO need to learn about strategy, but it is working on your mindset that will get you to take regular big-brave action on implementing those strategies and avoid self-sabotage.
My business took off in an entirely new direction at this stage, and while it was hard work, it felt like it was flowing rather than forced.
So, let’s dig into the 5-steps for you to implement to experience success within your own business!
Step 1: Mindset
While many entrepreneurs want to dismiss mindset as “woo-woo,” the science backs it up. Whether we look at it from a Psychological or Quantum Physics point-of-view, our thoughts create our realities.
Example: If you are thinking, “Oh, I need to go get the laundry,” you will get up and go get the laundry, not randomly perform rocket science. Our actions follow our thoughts.
Now, you might get up to go and get the laundry and, along the way, get distracted by something, but it is your mind that gets distracted and takes you on the path to perform another action.
Thought precedes action.
Beliefs = Thoughts = Emotions = Actions = Results
Let’s say the next actionable step that needs to happen for you to make money in your business is getting on sales calls. The action itself is straightforward. But if deep down you have a fear of failure, you’ll start making excuses not to get on that phone call, “I just don’t feel that great today. I’ll do it tomorrow.”
In Quantum Physics, where scientists study sub-atomic particles, they discovered that the particles would always appear where they expected them to. Their thoughts influenced the behavior of the particle. The quintessential manifestation quote, “thoughts become things,” is quite literal in meaning.
When you commit to master your mind, you end up mastering your life.
Step 2: Focus
Winners look to the finish line, and losers stare at the person ahead of them.
It is particularly challenging being an entrepreneur in the online space because it appears as if everyone else is successful (especially if you frequent entrepreneurial hang-out spots on social media).
Despite everyone “appearing” to be doing well, the statistics show us the truth behind the scenes.
Statistics by the Kauffman Foundation found that:
More than 50% of all business owners never exceed $25,000 annually.
Only 6% of all entrepreneurs ever achieve 6 figure businesses.
Just 2% of businesses ever achieve 7 figure success.
It may look like everyone and their dog is running a 6-Figure+ Business in the online space, but the truth is that very few ever attain that level of success.
It’s really easy to fall into comparing ourselves to everyone else in our field, yet that’s very unhelpful. Keep your eyes on your own lane. You are not running a race against others; you are running a marathon by yourself.
The power of focus is best illustrated by your Reticular Activating System [RAS]. Your subconscious mind is aware of approximately 400 billion bits of information per second. Your conscious mind is aware of about 2000 bits of information per second. So, which 2000 out of 400,000,000,000 does your mind know to focus on?
Answer: The ones you tell it to!
Your mind works like Google. If you put in the Google search engine “savory vegan recipes,” you will see it pop up with countless results for savory vegan recipes. It won’t show you how to do an oil change, quantum physicals, medical info, movie box office stats, or anything else, EVEN though Google has access to ALL of that (and much more). It will ONLY show you what you searched for. Your mind works exactly the same way.
If you’re focused on what’s wrong or you’re thinking, “Building a business is hard,” then your mind is searching for answers that support that search criteria.
Instead, you must start getting your mind to focus on what you want to create.
Step 3: Simplication
I frequently see new entrepreneurs drown themselves by signing up for every freebie, buying tons of books, downloading all software types, purchasing a domain and attempting to build a website, e-mail list, funnels, and trying to start 6-projects all at once. That strategy is doomed to fail.
Our minds are only good at focusing on one thing at a time. Despite how awesome you think you are at multi-tasking, many studies have been done that all tell us the same thing: we are not good at focusing on more than one thing at a time.
On top of that, paying for all of the business tools upfront is a huge financial burden that will not have an ROI for a while. Instead, simplify. Get your idea hammered out and focus on marketing and selling it. Get money coming in first (with as little expense upfront as possible) and then expand. I didn’t have a website until years into running my business. While it’s a nice tool, it alone won’t sell for you.
Get your organic marketing and sales process in place, and then you can automate it.
Step 4: Do the Right Actions
It’s all too easy to be busy but busy doing the wrong activities. While keeping busy doing things like checking e-mails, scrolling your news feed, and learning new systems for your business can feel like progress, it isn’t translating into cash in the bank.
The real question that entrepreneurs need to ask themselves is, “What are the income-producing activities in my business?” Inevitably income-producing activities boil down to sales and marketing. These are the lifeblood of any business.
Busy work gets you nowhere. Income-producing activities build a business.
Once you know what activities generate revenue for your business, put 80% of your attention on them.
Step 5: Outsource & Automate
At first, in building a business, most entrepreneurs are “solopreneurs,” as they wear all their business hats. While this may be necessary to get the business going, it does not bode well for long-term growth.
The faster you can outsource non-income producing activities that still need doing, the better.
You might do this by hiring an accountant, virtual assistant or automating your business through systems or paid advertising. I am a huge fan of Kajabi for service-based entrepreneurs. Having an all-in-one platform, especially one that’s designed so well like Kajabi is, allows entrepreneurs to save time, have their website, e-mail marketing, CRM, courses, memberships, checkout pages, sales pages, affiliate program, etc. all in one spot saves money and allows them to have exponential growth.
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Amanda Rose, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Amanda Rose is the founder & director of The Infinite Power of You Inc. It is a multi-published multi-genre author, business, wealth, & mindset coach, actor, motivational speaker, and online course creator. She is a multi-passionate entrepreneur who has been in the online space since 2013 and a sales expert for over 10 years. It's her passion to help her clients build lives of freedom and joy, and thriving businesses with multiple revenue sources, through strategies combined with mindset mastery. Amanda's mission to shift human consciousness to create soulful abundance through mindset practices.
