The Holy Grail of marketing. Have you ever looked for it? If so, you must know by now that there is no such thing.
There is, however, a foundation that will maximize your chances of success… and that is having the right mindset. It’s a feature of high-profile marketers and you can’t make it big without it.
Of course, you can’t… Look out there. The only certain thing in marketing is uncertainty.
People’s needs are changing fast. The markets are moving even faster. What worked yesterday most probably won’t today.
To succeed amid this uncertainty, technical skills alone won’t do it. You need something more powerful.
And nothing is more potent than your own mind.
Mindset is the Cornerstone of Entrepreneurial Success
Great marketers and entrepreneurs have mastered the art of turning uncertainty and failures into opportunities for growth. They learned that spotting these uncovered opportunities pays off the most. The key to that lies in adopting the right mindset.
To do so, you need three mindset shifts that enable you to have the proper perspective and keep you on the right track towards entrepreneurial success.
So let’s get right into each of them.
Mindset Shift No. 1: Think critically & be skeptical
Great marketers question everything: their assumptions, decisions, and understanding of people’s needs. By taking any of these things for granted, you might overlook potential opportunities to discover new insights about the market.
Without a proper dose of skepticism, you build hubris. And as the saying goes, pride comes before a fall. When you take your genius for granted, you close yourself off from learning more.
The point is to persevere in gaining further and further insights into the collective consumer mind instead of proving your decisions right. Be like a scientist, testing a hypothesis. And be open to adjusting your strategy whenever needed.
And even when you feel like you’ve made the best decision possible, don’t settle.
Keep looking.
For that, start every marketing campaign from scratch and ask the most fundamental questions about your consumers: What’s keeping them up at night? What are their specific needs? How significant is that one specific pain you want to address? Are you sure?
And no, you should never be sure. Instead, you should adopt a genuinely skeptical approach. By questioning and testing everything, you’ll gather the intelligence to ultimately come the closest to the best marketing option.
Asking those questions over and over again can help you develop not only empathy for your consumers but a sharp intuition, too.
And truth be told, it’s a fantastic combo.
Mindset Shift No. 2: Adopt a growth mindset rather than a fixed one
Being afraid of failure has a very high price in marketing. It’s the fixed mindset that deprives you of opportunities for growth.
In fact, behind every powerful marketing campaign is the knowledge gained through some previous campaigns that failed.
That’s how you ultimately come up with new, better ways of doing things.
The goal is always the same – to take your customers from where they are to where they want to be via your product. What determines your success, however, is the HOW.
And the HOW should always be a better, unexplored way.
That means testing your assumptions fearlessly and gathering intelligence about your market.
Sometimes that also means failing and wasting $1,000 in a marketing campaign with 0 results. But what’s essential is labeling those $1,000 as money invested in learning about your market rather than money wasted.
You see, failures are great chances to learn, and you should see them accordingly.
A growth mindset makes you look into them analytically, learn the lesson, and get ready for the next try; a fixed mindset pulls you back frustrated, or keeps you from trying!
And it’s when you finally run a marketing campaign of great success that you realize how much you’ve learned from the previous failures.
As Steve Jobs said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backward.”
Learning from past failures is precisely what allows you to connect the dots in the future in a more valuable way, by recognizing similar patterns from the past.
And when you’re able to do this, you become a much better marketer.
Mindset Shift No. 3: Adopt an abundance mindset rather than a scarcity one
Thinking in terms of scarcity holds you back from accessing abundance. The point is not to get your hands on money and hold them tight.
The point is to invest them in learning how to reach more customers, provide more value, help more people, bring your product or service to a wider audience. It’s the price you pay for your future abundance.
Each one of us is dealt some cards. The difference comes from how each one of us plays them. Some of us play them with courage and daring.
And that’s how you open yourself up to abundance.
-> By asking an abundant number of questions about your market.
-> By taking meaningful risks to figure out the best strategy.
-> By making an abundant investment to gather pertinent data.
-> By taking action, running that marketing campaign, and making adjustments whenever needed.
-> By driving the best conclusions possible. Then, questioning those all over again.
The money invested in marketing is the cost of leveling up your business to new heights.
You see, it’s the abundance mindset that ultimately creates abundance.
And it’s the scarcity mindset that holds you back, and keeps you poor.
Key takeaways
Remember: to be a master of the markets, you should start by mastering your mind.
That’s what great marketers do.
There are 3 mindsets that characterize great marketers:
1. They think critically and question everything.
2. They adopt a growth mindset rather than a fixed one.
3. They adopt an abundance mindset rather than a scarcity one.
These mindset shifts should also be your foundation for success.. It’s what will enable you to reach your full potential, and become a truly great marketer.
Tell us below in the comments – is there any particular mindset that you’re struggling with? Have you shifted your mindset along these lines, and if so, how did your results improve?