Inner Personality Conflict

This is the fourth in my series of E-Myth Revisited posts. The E-Myth Revisited examines the core myth behind what people believe an Entrepreneur is and what it takes in reality to make a small business successful. This series of posts will cover the core topics explained in the E-Myth Revisited book and apply them to being a Wealthy Affiliate and making money online.

Inner Personality Conflict

Yesterday, we looked at the three minds of the small business owner, the entrepreneur, the manager, and the technician. It's easy to see how the differences in these three personalities naturally come into conflict if not properly balanced. According to the E-Myth most small business owners don't aren't naturally balanced. Instead they are usually closer to 10 percent entrepreneur, 20 percent manager, and 70 percent technician.

The E-Myth points out that when most small business owners have an Entrepreneurial Seizure the entrepreneur mind seizes on the idea of starting a new business. The manager mind sees the impending chaos and wants nothing to do with it. While these two minds argue, the technician sees the opportunity to take over and starts a business where they can just focus on the doing. We'll examine the result of this when we look at the small business life cycle next.

Internet Marketer Personality Conflict

While internet marketers are just as likely to not have the three minds in balance, I'd argue that in most cases the percentages are different. Rather than being 70 percent technician, they are 70 percent entrepreneur. This becomes pretty evident from the reality of an internet marketer.

As we've looked at before, starting an internet marketing business doesn't have the same high barrier to entry that starting a small business does. This naturally appeals to the entrepreneur mind because it means there are less obstacles to creating the entrepreneurs vision. They can just start doing it and don't have to work with other people that might try to block their the creation of their vision.

Of course, part of the internet marketing myth is that an internet marketing business doesn't require the upfront cost. In reality, as we've pointed out, you still have to pay that cost whether it is in money or time. So the entrepreneur mind will find some strategy for building an internet marketing business such as Wealthy Affiliate. They'll see all the how to stuff, and tell the technician to figure out how to build this thing. Because the technician has no experience in building websites or marketing online it takes them time to figure out how to do everything.

The entrepreneur mind is the impatient type though. So when the technician can't build the entrepreneur's dream fast enough the entrepreneur mind gets frustrated. They quickly decide that this strategy isn't going to get them what they want and tell the technician to forget it and go looking for a new strategy that will work faster.

This largely explains the addiction many internet marketers have to buying info products and constantly looking for the next big new idea. It also plays out on Wealthy Affiliate with many people giving up in four to six months. I suspect that people on Wealthy Affiliate might actually last longer than with other programs for no other reason than the social media aspect of the site.

Coming Up

The E-Myth provides a solution for balancing the three minds of the small business owner. While this solution is targeted toward the small business owner, the principles will work just as well for an internet marketer. First though, we'll examine the business life cycle and see why this solution is so important.

I hope you found something useful in this post and I look forward to your thoughts and comments.