The Will Smith Guide To Becoming an Entrepreneur [Infographic]

Recently I started thinking, what does it take to become successful as an entrepreneur? 

The first thought that pops in to my mind is this notion that we need to be innovative and have a breakthrough idea that is going to change the world as we know. But we all know that’s not it. 

Sure, it’s great if you’ve thought of something that no one in the world has thought of (unlikely), but ideas on their own are worth nothing. That’s why I decided to talk about Will Smith in this post. I’ve watched almost every interview he’s done and one thing he’s constantly bringing up is his work ethic. 

Execution trumps the best idea. No matter how smart you are, you WILL fail if you do nothing; and we know that becoming a successful internet entrepreneur…

… getting all the traffic

… getting thousands of subscribers

… and getting sales, takes a whole lot of action. Here are a few other ideas Will has that can relate to our journey as online business owners.

“The things that have been most valuable to me I did not learn in school.”

School can teach you a lot of things. You can learn a little math, science, history and art. But very little of what you learn in school can be applied to the business world. I took a marketing class in college years back and I’ve learned 20 times more about marketing a business after I started doing it myself. 

Takeaway: You learn by doing. 

“When you create art, the world has to wait.”

Don’t rush the creative process. You see, as online entrepreneurs we rely on our content (blog posts, podcasts, videos, infographics, etc.) to spread the word about our business. Without content marketing, we wouldn’t be able to attract our target market. 

…and although it’s been proven that more content equals more traffic, the key is to focus on the quality of that content. If you rush it, you’ll just be putting out crap that no one wants to read or share. The same thing goes for product launches. If you don’t feel the product is ready for the world to see, make it better and then launch. (but don’t wait too long)

“Your life will become better by making other lives better.”

To become a successful entrepreneur, you need to focus on providing value to your customers. Think about their problems and frustration and then figure out ways to help them solve those issues. 

The idea is not to give it all away for free on your blog, either. Once you know exactly what you audience is struggling with, create a product, service or membership site (like I did)  that helps them solve it. Remember, you’re in business and you need to get paid if you want to keep helping people. 

“99% is the same as zero. If you are gonna do 99, go ahead and stay home.”

If you’re going to half-ass it, then you might as well do something else. As an entrepreneur you always have something to do, especially when it comes to selling digital products online. There’s always content to create, or emails to respond to, or updates to be made. 

Marketing never stops and if you’re going to go down this journey, whether you’re selling software, physical products or digital goods, you’ll need to go at it 110%. 

“Don’t compare yourself to others, that’s when you start to lose confidence in yourself.”

This is one of the worst things you could do, especially when you’re first getting started. I remember being very excited about this internet business thing back in 2008 and how it quickly turned into overwhelm and frustration a few months into in. 

I started looking at other sites doing much better than I was, which made me feel like crap; like I wasn’t good enough. But we all start out like that and the key here is to go at your own pace. In the past few years I’ve acquired skills that I didn’t have and can now press publish and see thousands of visitors everyday. 

I create an infographic. Check it out and share it. Also, I’m going to be releasing the Epic Marketing 16-Step Roadmap soon, so get on the Launch List to get access to that.