“There’s never been a better time on planet earth to be your own boss,” said Keara Palmay, an online business coach. “Social media allows us to connect with our ideal clients with the click of a button….and if we can’t reach our ideal clients, we can pay a couple of bucks to target them with ads.”
Is becoming a successful entrepreneur something that anyone could do?
“Absolutely not,” Keara replied. “You’ve got to have grit to be an entrepreneur. You will get punched in the stomach so many times. Someone should only become an entrepreneur if they’re willing to repeatedly get knocked down, get up, and keep going. Like Thomas Edison said, I haven’t failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Why would someone choose to become an entrepreneur if it’s so challenging?
“If the pain of working to build someone else’s dream is far greater than the pain of risking everything to build your own, then you should become an entrepreneur.
Look, as an entrepreneur, it hurts when your plans don’t go the way you want them to. It sucks when you put lots of money on the line and you lose it. It’s embarrassing when you make public claims that totally flop, like promoting a live event that no one shows up to (which has happened to me)…
However, if you never experienced challenges in your business, you’d never have the opportunity to grow. Challenges shape your character; they’re like tests to see how badly you want what you say you want. You can either quit or persevere. Those who persevere can experience success that most people will never see in a lifetime. I believe the extreme contrast between pain and pleasure is what makes entrepreneurship so rewarding.”
What was the shift you made that caused you to finally succeed?
“I brainwashed myself,” Keara laughed. “I realized that if I wanted different results, I needed to take different actions—and it all started with my mind. See, I used to be afraid to fail, and since I was so focused on failure, I kept failing. I now know that failing isn’t failure—it’s just feedback to adjust my course—but back then, I didn’t understand that. I felt stuck.
One day, I made a simple shift that changed my life. I decided to believe that victory—rather than failure—was the only option. Therefore, every time I doubted myself, I’d start to have locker room pep talks with myself. I’d remind myself that victory was the only option then I’d passionately declare all of the reasons why I was going to succeed. At first, these pep talks were as prevalent as 50 times a day, but they became less prevalent over time. I finally started to believe I was successful and therefore became it.”
Isn’t brainwashing a bad thing? Didn’t Hitler brainwash people?
“Yes, Hitler brainwashed people, but brainwashing yourself isn’t a bad thing if you’re doing it for good reasons. Entrepreneurs can help people with their unique innovations. However, if they accept their fears as facts, they can’t help anyone because they’ll never have the courage to get started. Therefore, if you start to believe you will succeed, you’ll start helping people and making a real difference.”
How can more entrepreneurs brainwash themselves to become more successful?
It’s simple. Reverse your negative thoughts whenever you have them. Don’t dwell upon why things won’t work—dwell only upon what you want. Visualize your dreams every day as if you’re living them now, and write your goals down on paper every day as if you’ve achieved them already. Where focus goes, energy flows, so be deliberate about what you want and aim high.
Okay, so we’ve got the psychological component down, but what about the tactics? How does one actually go about becoming their own boss?
I invented a formula called CASH, which any entrepreneur can follow in order to make CASH as their own boss.
The C in CASH stands for clarity, meaning you’ve got to know what service or product you’re offering the world before you can start making money. To get clear of what value you’ll provide to the marketplace, you must think of yourself as a problem-solver.
People will pay you to solve their problems, so write down all of the problems you can solve. For example, if you can help mothers lose baby weight after giving birth, write that down. If you can help people overcome depression with meditation, write that down. If you can help entrepreneurs build breath-taking websites, write that down. If you can help people train their dogs, write that down. Write down any problem you can solve then narrow your list down to one problem. Then create a solution for the problem through a service or product.
The A in CASH stands for attract, meaning once you’re clear of what product or service you’re going to share with the world, you can begin to call out and attract your ideal clients. To start out, you can do this for free using social media. Share your work with the world and explain the value of it. Finally, give your audience a link to learn more information, or to directly hire you.
Next, the S in CASH stands for scale. Once your attraction strategy is working and you’re starting to get clients or customers, you can scale your attraction strategy to ensure more people see it. You can use Facebook ads to scale your marketing (or if you have a local business, you could invest in SEO to rank at the top of the Google searches in your area). The bottom line is, when more people see a profitable ad, it naturally generates more profits.
Finally, the H in CASH stands for hustle because it’s important to remember that none of these strategies will work unless you do.
What should entrepreneurs know now?
It’s important entrepreneurs begin mastering marketing as soon as possible or it will be nearly impossible to create a successful business. The online entrepreneur world is very oversaturated, but there is certainly room at the top for the brilliant entrepreneurs who know how to generate attention through effective marketing.
Huff Post Column by AJ Mihrzad, Founder OnlineSuperCoach : http://www.OnlineSupercoach.com/