The Fisherman Analogy: I am currently going through The IM System by Kenster – this is a comprehensive training on the art and science of internet marketing with a heavy emphasis on the importance of mindset.

One of the interesting articles in THE IM System makes the analogy between internet entrepreneurs and the fisherman who had bought a rod and reel and decided to go fishing.  He went to the lake and spent a frustrating day trying to catch fish with his new tackle.

At the end of a long, hot day when he had caught nothing, after trying various spots around the lake, he walked dispiritedly away from the lake.  On the way back to his car he met an old fisherman who greeted him with the words – “I’ve rarely had a better fishing day in my life.  They were really biting today.”

Our newbie fisherman just grunted and passed on – he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  He had the right tackle and he’d fished hard all day, surely the old fisherman couldn’t be right.

Our newbie fisherman is very like many internet entrepreneurs.  They have all the tools of the trade and they jump from ‘fishing’ spot to fishing spot on the internet but rarely catch anything.

They know there are fish in the lake but they have a poor habits and a poor mindset.

After a little effort, they soon give up and move on to something else little realising that most methods will work if the right techniques are employed.   Many internet fisherman get caught in a perpetual cycle, moving from opportunity to opportunity little realising that they need to change their habits.

They don’t understand that ‘buying a rod and reel doesn’t make them a fisherman.’  They are ‘wannabees’!

Doing the exact same things that an experienced fisherman does makes you a fisherman.  If you don’t have the right habits and are not doing what experienced and successful internet entrepreneurs are doing, you are not an internet entrepreneur.  You are a ‘wannabee’.

If you sit down right now and think about what you should be doing to be a successful internet entrepreneur, I’m willing to bet that you could come up with a list of things that you should be doing but you are not doing to grow your business.

If you are serious about growing your business, start doing those things on your list right now.

You may be saying at this point that you don’t know what successful entrepreneurs are doing to make money on the internet.  Notwithstanding this, if you just fix those bad habits it’s likely you are going to see a substantial lift in your income just through following your own advice.

When you have the right habits, things just start to fall into place which is why many successful businessman can move from industry to industry and still be successful – they just keep on applying the right habits.

What are some of these habits? Things like:

• increasing your productivity within your allocated working hours
• running your business by the numbers
• systemising your business so you can outsource aspects of your activities
• focusing on your sales and marketing activities
• working on your business, rather than in it – planning and strategising your way forward e.g. knowing how much you need to sell this month and then working out how you are going to do it!
• not jumping from shiny object to shiny object.

And so on.

I bet you can come up with your own list of things that you know you should be doing.

In my own case, I realised that once I had products to sell, perhaps 90% of my time should be spent in marketing and selling those products rather than starting to create a new product.  I love creating products so I find it difficult to allocate marketing time because I constantly have new product ideas.  As I sit here writing this post I have at least 4 or 5 products I would like to be creating!

Often if you can’t get some internet marketing method or strategy to work properly, the problem lies with YOU rather than the method or strategy.  If you spend any time online at all, you hear people saying that this or that method no longer works.

People were saying that about the ‘interview method’ of making products when one of my IM colleagues launched his copywriting interview products and made 600 front-end sales on only his second ever product launch.  Luckily he didn’t know that this method of product creation didn’t work any longer, according to some people!

So if you have tried multiple methods and opportunities without success, perhaps it is time to take a close look at your habits – look for the problem on the ‘inside’ rather than ‘outside’ of yourself?

If you are really uncertain about the right habits to adopt, find a good coach to help you – an experienced fisherman who is already getting the results that you are seeking.

If you adopt the mindset that YOU are fully responsible for the results you are currently getting, then that is the first step to realising that YOUR habits need to change in order to reach your desired goals.  It’s not this or that method that is at fault – it’s really down to you and your habits.

By taking 100% responsibility for your results you are well on the way to achieving the success you desire.

Of course, it can help greatly if you can find someone who is creating the results that you desire i.e. catching lots of fish. This is where getting a good coach and mentor can short-cut your route to success.  So if you can find and afford such a person, then this is well worth doing (but select that person with care after doing your due diligence.)

In the case of our fishing analogy, you would simply seek the advice of the old experienced fisherman.  No doubt he will instantly spot what you are doing wrong and put you back on the right path to success.

If you are getting dispirited by the stories of other peoples success, then you are not adopting the correct mindset.  You should be using those stories to motivate you because they are additional evidence that the same success is also open to you.

Just realise that if you want to get different results than those that you are currently getting, then you need to change your habits (and you probably already know what many of those changes need to be!)

So rather than jumping around from fishing spot to fishing spot, or lake to lake, start by looking at your habits first and you’ll be amazed by how things start to work themselves out and by how many fish you start catching.

These changes in your habits are well within your power to start doing.

I hope your found the fisherman analogy helpful and inspiring and I look forward to inspecting your prodigious catch!