I’ve discovered that one of the biggest obstacles and causes of procrastination, especially when it comes to new and experienced internet marketers starting a new project is fear.

What type of fear?

Besides your every day “I don’t know how to do the technical aspect” (solution: go hire a programmer), or “I don’t have money” (solution: find a partner who will put in the funding, while you put in the sweat equity, or do a cash advance/take a payday loan) , the biggest fear is the fear of failure.

I think this goes beyond internet marketing and into the realm of entrepreneurship.

As a business owner, you need to realize that you are responsible for your businesses success or failure.

If you continue to see the cup as “half empty” rather than “half full”, or better yet, as a glass that will be filled with water soon, your mindset will influence how confident you are, and the actions you take.

If you want to look at a picture of confidence, go read my buddy Amit Mehta’s SuperAffiliateMindset blog.

One of the secrets to success I got access to during my days as a business newspaper report is that the top CEOs and company founders – business leaders like Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, Red Hat Linux’s Bob Young, the project directors at LucasFilm, have a “can do” attitude.

Many times, they have a goal in mind, and the goal might be totally unrealistic, or might not even exist yet.

Take Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, for example.

Producing the movie meant that hundreds of special effects had to be created – ie. prior to the movie, these special effects did not exist yet. So someone with the vision and the mindset had to step up to the plate and say “Do this, create this effect, etc”.

Similarly, several of the Fortune 500 technology companies are led by leaders who set down tight project deadlines for projects that don’t exist yet (maybe a 5 GHz processor or a 10 terabyte hard disk.) The technology might not even exist, and yet, they set a deadline of Feb 2009 to get the product out.

It’s only with visionary thinking and aggressive goal setting that things get done – seeing the glass as brimming with potential means you maximize your chances of success.

What does this have to do with the fear of failure? 

Plenty actually. Because where the business leader sees potential, the newbie or the pessimist will think of reasons why something cannot work.

• There’re already too many competitiors.
• It’s a market which will burn itself out soon.
• By the time I develop the product/get the campaign out, the party will be over
• [Fill in your reason here]

There’re probably 101 reasons why you should NOT do something, but probably only one reason to take action.

But here are some considerations before you decide to go along the path of internet marketing success……….or failure.

How badly do you want this?

Is your outcome (whether it’s to make $100 a day, or $100,000 a month) a necessity?

Is it a “MUST ACHIEVE” or is it a “good to achieve if I can put in zero or little effort”?

Are you willing to spend time AND money AND learn new skills AND change your way of thinking, perhaps the number of hours you’re working on this project, AND even willing to change your sleeping habits (maybe even sleeping 1-2 hours a day) to get the project up and running on it’s feet?

If the answer to any of these questions is a “no” or “it’s optional”, then you need to examine how important it will be.

It’s importance will determine how much effort you put in, and in most cases, the amount of effort you put in will determine your likelihood of success.

Fear of the Unknown

Fear of Failure has a lot to do with no knowing what type of problems you might encounter, or a fear of not knowing what to do when problems come up.

Here’re ways to minimize failure:

• Do your homework

You have the best tools at your fingertips and they’re available for free. Check out the top ranked sites in your niche (whether it’s blogging, or weight loss or dog training), take a look at the top sites. Are they successful? Are they effectively monetizing their marketplace? Who is their core audience? Where is their traffic coming from?

If at least ONE site in your chosen niche is successful, you know that it’s a viable market.

• Develop a plan of action

Take out a sheet of paper, and construct a brief “business plan”, define your objective, define what you’re going to do, and most importantly, set a timeline for the project – when it will start, when it will finish. Set aggressive deadlines and most importantly stick to them. I’ve known marketers who have “hot projects” that they are planning to launch.

The problem? Many of these projects were initially conceptualized more than a year ago, and they’ve yet to see the light of day. Are they going to be launched eventually? Probably not.

• Take effective action

I like the saying “If you do nothing, nothing will happen. If you do something, something will happen”.

If you’ve been on a ship, you can just imagine what would happen if the captain fires up the engine, spins the propellers for a couple of hours, then shuts them off again. And maybe a day or so later after drifting aimlessly in the sea, he spontaneously decides to fire up the engines again and run the propellers for a couple of hours, before stopping again.

You may laugh, but I know of countless marketers who’re in this position… Is it any wonder that success just seems like a distant island far away on the horizon?

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Internet Marketing “Failure” is pretty much a fear, and an imaginary outcome. I don’t think you can count something as a “failure” if it never actually takes place.

The biggest failure will probably be not taking action, or not taking effective action and working it to its fullest potential…

Can you overcome failure easily?

Just take action now.