Almost every report you pick up on Internet marketing and business success will deal with the mechanics of the business.  For example, you’ll learn how to find hungry niche markets.  You’ll learn how to create products that are in demand.  You’ll learn how to create a website and drive traffic to this website.  You’ll learn how to convert these visitors into buyers through good sales copy and via building relationships. 

If you really strip the formula down, it’s easy:  find a hungry market, give them what they want and put your offer right in front of them. 

But if it’s so damn easy, how come we’re not all multi-millionaires?  Why is it that two people in the exact same niche who have the exact same knowledge obtain such vastly different results? 

The answer is simple:  because business is not all about mechanics and plugging in formulas.   

The biggest element that separates the successful from the unsuccessful and the rich from the poor isn’t their knowledge or skill levels, but rather their mindset. 

Successful people simply have a different mindset than unsuccessful people.  If you’re inflexible and set in your ways, then you have little hope of changing your mindset and attitudes to get on the track to success.  However, the very fact that you’re reading this report shows that you’re open and willing to change.   

So let’s talk about mindset.  There are plenty of mindset components that come into play when we’re talking about analyzing a successful mindset – overcoming fear, a burning desire to succeed, a good reason why we want to succeed, and so many more. 

Although there are many characteristics of successful people could talk about, for the purposes of this report we’re going to focus on two:  believing in one’s self, and taking responsibility.

Belief In Self  

The limitations we experience in life are often the result of our own mental limitations.   

Consider for a moment the hoopla surrounding Roger Bannister when he broke the four-minute mile.  Previous to him setting this record, most people considered it impossible to run a mile in less than four minutes. 

Indeed, I bet there were people in Bannister’s time who were physically capable of running a four minute mile, but were held back by their mental limitation that said it was impossible to do so. 

Once Bannister did it, however, many people followed suit.  Indeed, the record has been broken since by almost 17 seconds.  All it took was for people to change their mindset and believe they could do it.  Once they believed it, they did it (provided of course they had the physical skills to match). 

The same is true in your business.  Do you believe you can make one hundred dollars?  Do you believe you can make one thousand dollars?  Do you believe you can make six figures?  How about seven figures? 

Chances are, you already hold some sort of limitation in your mind, an amount that you believe you can make.  If you currently work an outside job, your current salary is a pretty good indication of how much you’ll make in your business …unless you consciously decide to do more, and believe you can do it. 

What Do I Mean? 

If you make $25,000 at your current job, then you’ll probably make right around that amount unless you decide to make more.  If you make $50,000 at your current job, than you can expect to make that amount in your business.  In short – whatever amount you make at your job is roughly what you can expect to make at your business. 

But you don’t have to bow down to your mind’s limits.  Instead, be open and be free. Choose to make more.  Believe that you can.  Make it so.  All you need to do is free your mind. 

A few years ago I experienced first-hand the limitations I allowed my mind to put on my activities.  Let me explain… 

I had just recently started weightlifting.  One day I loaded up 70 pounds on the barbell to do a back exercise.  The previous week when I did this particular exercise I had used the same weight – 70 pounds – and found it extremely difficult.  I was only able to pull a few repetitions per set – so instead of getting in about eight reps, I was doing half that. 

Nonetheless, I decided to stick with the same weight and see if I could do better.  I expected it to be difficult but a little easier this week – perhaps doing five or more reps per set. 

As expected, it was difficult but doable.  I improved over my previous week just as I had hoped by knocking out about six reps per set.  I was pleased. 

After a rest I decided to do another exercise and so had to remove the weight from the bar.  That’s when I noticed it – instead of putting 70 pounds on the bar, I had put 80 pounds on the bar! 

I was able to do more reps with more weight simply because my mind didn’t KNOW that I was lifting an extra ten pounds!  Had I knowingly loaded up 80 pounds on the bar that day, I wouldn’t have done more than a rep or two, because that’s what my mind believed I could do at that point in time.   

My mind believed I could do five or six reps with 70 pounds, so that’s exactly what I did – around six reps.  But naturally since my mind didn’t know I was dealing with more weight, I was able to complete the task. 

All of this made me wonder what other limitations I had put on myself, and what sorts of limitations others put on themselves every day.  If you aren’t making what you want to make with your business, there’s a good chance that you’ve set up a limitation in your mind. 

Let’s suppose you are making $100 a month, but you want to get to the $10,000 a month level.  The truth is if you can make $100, then you can make $10,000 …after all, the first dollar is really the hardest, and after that it’s a matter of replicating what works, leveraging your previous success to snowball it into more success, and so on. 

But of course many people don’t shoot from $100 to $10,000 overnight.  Their mind needs to adjust to the idea.  If they could free their mind, they could meet their income goals. 

Hence the big question: how can you ever get to a higher level if your mind isn’t ready? 

The answer is to start taking smaller steps. 

You see, many people do it the other way.  When they decide they want something, they take big steps to get what they want.  For example, if they want to make $10,000 a month, they roll out big plans for big web businesses.  

But if their mind isn’t ready for this type of success, they won’t get there.  Maybe they’ll sabotage themselves by doing something like choosing bad business partners or making other poor decisions. 

Forget about those big steps.  If your mind isn’t ready, it won’t work. 

Instead, take small steps to begin building bridges between what you know you can do and what you want to do. 

For example, let’s go back to the example of a person making $100 a month who’d like to be making $10,000 a month.  In this scenario the person needs to find what she is comfortable making, what seems doable.  If $1000 seems doable, but $2500 seems like a bit of a stretch, then this person’s first goal is to reach an income of $1000 a month. 

Now $2500 likely doesn’t seem like such a stretch, but perhaps $4000 a month does.  So the person starts aiming to go from $1000 a month to $2500.  When she reaches that amount, it’s likely the $4000 doesn’t seem like a stretch any more because she’s almost there.  She’ll continue on, taking small steps to bridge what she’s doing with what she knows she can do, until she finally reaches her goal. 

I’ve talked to several people who’ve had big launch days, and the same thing applies here.  If your mind is not ready to accept the fact that you can make a four, five or even six figure amount in a day or two, it won’t happen for you.  Define the amount you believe you can make in 24 hours and do it.  Then shoot for a bigger and bigger amount each time. 

The same thing applies to a launch day as to a business in general.  If you know how to make $100 on your launch day, then you know how to make more (four, five or six figures).  It comes down to taking massive action.  But if your mind isn’t up to it, you’ll find all sorts of resistance (you may even get sick during a critical time before your launch, which is a way to sabotage yourself). 

So to recap: you likely already know HOW to make more money.  Now you just need to free your mind to believe that you can do it.  Once you truly and fully accept that you can do it, you WILL do it. 

Successful people know that training their mind to accept success is just as important as studying marketing methods.  Actually, it’s probably more important as knowing everything in the world about marketing is worthless if your mind’s not ready. 

Now let’s take a look at another characteristic of successful people… 

Taking Responsibility 

This is a big part of a successful person’s mindset, but for those who aren’t already doing it, it’s a difficult thing to accomplish.  Indeed, if you haven’t already starting taking responsibility for everything that happens to you, you’ll likely feel lots of internal resistance as you start doing it.  This is growth!  Resist the resistance, and forge ahead. 

So what do I mean by taking responsibility?  Perhaps this is best introduced by looking at how many people handle things.  Let’s look at a common example… 

Think back to your school days.  When you or your friends did well on a test, what did you say or think?  Chances are, you figured you did well because you studied hard, got a good night’s sleep before hand, and you were prepared. 

Now think back to a time when you did not do well on a test.  Chances are there was probably some reason for that poor grade.  Maybe you didn’t sleep well the night before because the neighbor’s dog was barking.  Maybe the text book didn’t explain things well enough.  Maybe the teacher didn’t do a good job of teaching you, or perhaps she unfairly gave you a very difficult test. 

Do you see what happened in these two examples?  In the first example we did well because we studied hard.  We took the credit for our success. 

In the second example we did poorly, but it was someone else’s fault – the neighbor’s dog, the people who wrote the textbook, or the teacher. 

Here’s what successful people know: not only should you take credit for your successes, you need to take responsibility for your failures. 

The reason successful people do this is because they realize that they are responsible for everything that happens in their life.  If you are only taking credit for the good things, then you are refusing to admit to the true cause of the bad things in life.   

And here’s the 'thing':  if you don’t admit responsibility for the bad things, then you can’t change them.  If you have no control, then bad things will continue to happen, and you will continue to blame third parties for your misfortunes. 

Let’s go back to the example of taking a test and doing a poor job.  If I say I did poorly because the neighbor’s dog kept me awake barking for hours, then I’m not taking responsibility for what happens to me.  Perhaps, in truth, I just didn’t want to admit that I hadn’t studied hard enough. 

Let’s face it, it’s hard to criticize ourselves.  It’s hard to say, “it’s my fault I didn’t do well.”  And yet we MUST be able to do this in order to start experiencing more success in our life. 

Think about the test: if I can admit the test failure was due to my lack of studying, then I know next time I need to study harder. 

If instead I deny my responsibility and instead blame the neighbor’s dog, then my behavior doesn’t change.  End result: if you keep doing the same thing, you’ll keep getting what you always got. 

Do you see now why it’s so important to accept responsibility for everything that happens to you?  It literally gives you the power and control to make things better next time so that you can experience success. 

Let’s look at a couple common excuses in online business and see if we don’t recognize ourselves saying them.  Then let’s look at how to take responsibility. 

“My launch day didn’t go as well as expected.  My JV partners didn’t sell hard enough.” 

It’s not your joint venture partner’s responsibility to have a good launch day – it’s solely your responsibility.  If your JV partner’s didn’t do as much as you’d hope, then you need to look at your role in your launch day. 

Did you line up enough partners so that even if only a few of them promoted you’d still have a good launch day?  

Did you test your ad copy to see if it’s converting? 

Did you stay in touch with your partner’s so that they’d know what was expected of them? 

Did you give them enough promo material so that they could use them as templates for their own promos? 

Did you give them enough time to review the material prior to the launch? 

These are the types of questions you need to ask yourself in a situation like this.  Remember, it’s YOUR responsibility if you don’t have a good launch day, or even if your JV partners don’t perform as expected. 

“My copy isn’t converting – my copywriter sucks!” 

You’ll see variations of this on forums in particular, where someone talks about how they got ripped off by being given shoddy copy or similar.  Then they blame their poor sales on the shoddy copy. 

True, yes, you may get shoddy work from time to time by various service professionals like copywriters.  However, in the end it’s still your responsibility for the poor sales.  Don’t blame the copywriter.  Yes, make a note never to do business with that copywriter again – and ask for rewrites or refunds where applicable – but don’t blame him for your poor sales. 

Why? 

Because once again, it’s ultimately your responsibility as to whether your sales page converts or not.  It’s convenient to blame someone else – a nice out for someone who’s not yet ready to accept success.  But it is your responsibility. 

Responsibility starts by doing one’s due diligence when before even hiring a copywriter.  If the copywriter doesn’t have a portfolio or references, you’re taking a big chance.   

Instead, hire someone you know you can trust, such as someone who’s well-established in the field and has plenty of good references.  Or at the very least, hire based on a recommendation from a couple trusted friends.   

Second, no matter who you hire it’s your responsibility to test any copy before rolling it out on a grand scale.  Test it with pay per click marketing, test it with your own list, test it locally …whatever you do, test it before you roll out a huge launch.  Whether it converts is your responsibility – if you test it, then you can change it. 

“I’m having a poor response because people aren’t ready for my revolutionary ideas.” 

This is one of my favorite excuses for poor sales, because the person is simultaneously putting the blame on someone else (in this case, the customer), while giving themselves a pat on the back for being ahead of their time.  Indeed, I know someone who regularly uses this excuse for her poor book sales. She says she’s ahead of her time and thus people aren’t buying. 

That may be so.  But if you’re in business to make money, then you shouldn’t blame a customer for not buying – you should only blame yourself. 

Case in point: if you’re writing material that’s ahead of it’s time such that there’s no market for it, then you need to do better market research.  The easiest money you can make is to find out what people want – and what they are already buying – and give it to them. 

The hardest sale you’ll ever make is if you try to convince people they need or want your product – and they don’t agree with you.  If you have to first educate them as to why they need your product, you’re in for an uphill struggle.  Or if people can’t immediately see the benefit of your product because it’s truly ahead of it’s time, you’re in for another struggle. 

Being ahead of your time is fine if you have deep pockets and plenty of time to educate people.  Being ahead of your time is fine if you’re a philosopher or other academic type – in that case, perhaps your work is better suited for an academic journal or other scholarly publication. 

However, if you’re in business to make sales and make money, then you need to sell what people are buying.  Let me repeat that… 

If You Want To Make Money - You Need To Sell What People Are Buying

Being ahead of your time is an ego stroke for you, but it doesn’t put money in the bank unless you find a way to monetize what you know.  You need to find out what people want and give it to them.  You can’t decide in your own mind what people need and try to force it on them if they’re not ready. 

Take responsibility.  If you’re not making sales, don’t blame the customer for not being bright enough to see your genius.  Blame yourself for not giving them what they want. 

This Business Is Biased Against ‘The Little Guy’ 

Do you feel you’re struggling because the 'Little Guy' (or Gal) doesn’t have a chance?  Do the guru’s have some sort of huge advantage because they have huge lists and big-time joint venture partners? 

BULL@#$%

If you’re not succeeding you can’t blame other people who ARE succeeding.  How on earth could it be their fault if you’re not doing well? 

Let me clue you in:  all the big guys and gals started out exactly like you – no list, no website, no product, no contacts.  And probably no money, either. 

That’s right, you are starting at the same place that the gurus once started.  They grew their lists one person at a time.  They networked their way around the business one joint venture, one relationship at a time.  They created one product at a time.  

Whatever they have today is the result of their hard work.  They earned it …just like you’ll have to earn your place. 

But there is one difference between people who are struggling and gurus …while those who are struggling are blaming the gurus for this being a tough business, the gurus are taking responsibility for their own shortcomings.  THAT’s how they became a guru or a top expert in their field. 

So you want to become top in your field?  Then take responsibility.  You don’t have a big list because you haven’t focused on building a big list.  You don’t have lots of JV partners simply because you haven’t focused on building those relationships.  You haven’t made money perhaps because you aren’t focused on anything at all. 

It’s an uncomfortable truth, but the best thing someone can do is take responsibility for their own failures, disappointments and shortcomings.  If you’re not a success in your business and you want to be, take responsibility.  Discover why you haven’t succeeded …yet.  And take action towards making it happen.