A few weeks, one of my readers commented that she had a really hard time seeing herself as an entrepreneur. I mean, she wanted to make passive income online and she wanted to be her own boss but she was having a hard time making it happen. She couldn’t get out of the employee mindset. When I left corporate America to become an entrepreneur, I too suffered from this ailment and I know many other marketing writers who suffer as well. So, here’s some tips that helped me conduct an entrepreneur mind shift:

Create a Realistic Schedule

Since there will be no one to look over your shoulder and tell you what to do when you’re your own boss, it’s important that you create a schedule and stick to it. Doing so, will keep you motivated to work. Divide your time between work and play, and stick to that schedule. Also, use the Pomodoro technique to get those tasks done.

Seek Motivation

Review stories of others who have started their own businesses and were highly successful at it. This will motivate you, and help you realize that you can do it too. Sometimes, it can feel like you’re spinning your wheels, but when you have the right motivation, you can spin those wheels in the right direction. Wealthy Affiliate has an entire section dedicated to others who have succeeded at internet marketing.

Reward Yourself for a Job Well Done

Although it can take some time and effort to build up an online business, rewarding yourself for meeting your goal is a great way to find motivation. By doing this, you’ll feel proud of yourself and will start to see yourself as a real entrepreneur – someone who sets goals and meets them. Always keep your goals attainable and when you meet them, treat yourself to a movie, an extra slice of chocolate candy, or a mini shopping spree. Whatever it is, make sure you’re acknowledging the fact that you’re succeeding!

Join Communities of Like Minded Professionals

Join communities of other entrepreneurs. A great one is Wealthy Affiliate; a paid membership site for internet marketers. You can get feedback, tips, and support with your internet marketing efforts. It will help you get your mindset right to talk to others who are going through the same things.

By taking these steps and getting out of the ‘employee’ mentality, you can really get on the right track to internet marketing success. What do you think?

In case you don’t know, I am a huge fan of membership sites. Not just any sites, but membership sites that are of value to their members. With great scripts available, just about anyone can throw up a membership site in a few hours, but it takes a special person to create a membership site that is valuable and will withstand the test of time.

To me, a successful membership site starts as a labor of love. It is typically created by the owner in order to share their knowledge and provide immense benefit to their members. It is not necessarily created simply to turn a profit, although a profit will likely occur if the owner does a good job providing value.

That said, the problem with purchasing an existing membership site is that the new owner doesn’t have an established relationship with their members. In fact, most new owners purchase the site based on the monthly income it is currently generating and lose sight of the fact that you have to continuously improve and add value to the members or you risk losing them.

The existing members know this and are leery of a new owner from the get-go. As such, the new owner has to work double hard to establish themselves and have big shoes to fill in rebuilding trust. Plus, the value they create will be different from the previous owner based on their backgrounds and life experiences, and this may or may not fly with the new members.

With this in mind, I decided not to purchase a membership site recently.

Although the asking price was fair, and I was interested in the subject, I didn’t believe I could create as much value as the previous owner.

Plus, I felt that another membership site would distract from my Internet Marketing Writers membership site , so I turned it down. Instead, I have recommitted myself to creating and establishing my own membership site.