Here is a great post from Josh Spaulding about what the difference is between a worker and an entrepreneur. You can see the original post by going to his blog here.
In November of 2004, while serving in the U.S. Army in Germany, I created my first website. It was a tourist info site on Germany. For the next three years I worked to get that site ranked in the SE’s and I also worked on many other sites and ventures with the ultimate goal of making a living online. That was a good thing, nothing wrong with that…I see it as working your way up… you just have to do it, but for all of those years it was a JOB. Although I knew there was huge potential online, I never thought of myself as a business person, so I kept my expectations low, to the level that as long as I can eventually pay my bills with it, it’s a success.
Fortunately after a few years working part time online while serving in the military I did finally get my IM income to the point to where I could pay my bills with it, barely. But as time went on I started to realize more and more than although I’ve never thought of myself as a Entrepreneur or business person, I was exactly that! That was my “tipping point.”
There should come a time in every IM’ers online ventures when they hit that same tipping point and start to see the bigger picture…the bigger opportunity that is the infant Internet… yes, it’s still very much an infant!
But the question for those who haven’t reached that point yet is, do you want to keep working a JOB or do you want to become an entrepreneur? If you just want to pay the bills, you might as well just get a job. At least then you have more stability… that’s how I see it anyway. But I don’t think that is what any IMer wants.
So how do you go from an Internet Marketing worker to an Internet Marketing Entrepreneur?
The first step is to learn the basics of the business… learn SEO, email marketing etc. You don’t have to be making loads of money in each, you just need to know the techniques and their markets… just learn the basics. That is the “work” we all have to endure before we get to our tipping point. The next thing is to decide whether you WANT that tipping point or not. I’m guessing you want it!
One thing I learned about life while in the Army is that almost everything that is challenging, whether mentally or physically, can be accomplished if you truly set your mind to it. So if you don’t believe you are an entrepreneur, or at least have the potential to become an entrepreneur, then you will never become an entrepreneur because you will not possess the mental confidence required to become one.
So what’s the difference anyway?
To me, the primary difference is in what you devote your time and resources to. If you’re constantly working to write and publish articles to get your site(s) ranked in google… creating sites to earn a little adsense income… etc. etc. then you probably have a worker mindset. If you’re constantly coming up with new ideas for software, applications etc. and you’re looking to outsource everything you possibly can… also thinking about automation (so one project doesn’t tie you down, but brings in residual income,) then you’re on the entrepreneurial track.
This all seems like fairly basic stuff, but I’m writing about this today because as I watch conversations and updates on facebook, twitter, blogs etc. I see 9 out of 10 Internet Marketers (if not more) who are completely focused on working for a living and very few who are focused on becoming true Entrepreneurial business people.
Of course it is nearly impossible to filter out all of those who are still in that required learning phase, but just by evaluating the overall mindset, I believe there are more IMers who are looking for a JOB than there are who are looking for a solid business opportunity.
