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You Have to Have the Hustler Mindset

Yesterday we had our mastermind meetup and it was very informative, a lot of topics spoken and a lot of new things learned. We all drank and ate and discussed strategic plans on attacking a specific niche. We even criticized each others LPs and tactics on attacking our own niches, all 3 of our inputs helps one another without one of us trying to kill each other on traffic.

Besides the planning and learning we also discussed reality. We discussed aspects of normal people and entrepreneurs, this was a really good topic we just talked about over dinner. Everyone talked about how they hustled prior to online marketing and it ranges. I remember doing crazy stuff when I was younger, especially in the hood – when I was a young young young dude – like 20 years ago. But it says something you have to have a hustler’s mindset to survive.

Adhustler and WayneDog has done a lot prior to online marketing and it has helped their way of thinking. By far our group were basically hustlers when we were younger from drug dealing to selling on eBay.

Me personally, I have done several things in my young days, sighs. I have done custom mixtapes, I bought sneakers and clothing in bulk and sold them on eBay, I have done computer repair for local neighborhood, I sold old crap on ebay, playing card games, rolling dice, I have done a lot prior to online marketing. This type of thinking definitely has on impact on what you do and how you think of things.

I personally went heavy on the internet went I got kicked out of my parents house and started working 3 jobs! I started heavy with eBay and made good money that I started and risking it on affiliate marketing and information marketing. When I was doing eBay I even did local marketing, selling things out of my trunk.

I sold to employees at Wal-Mart, I went to local McDonald and just stood outside chilling and selling stuff out of the trunk of my car. It was crazy and I was definitely hustling heavy. This type of mindset definitely help me where I am today. It helps be thinking and rethink certain marketing aspects, how does a customer think and how do they react towards preselling topics.

Thinking differently and putting a different spin on how you look at things is important. There are people in this world who likes repetition and no change, basically workers. Then there are other people who like to think different and want to improve their situation, entrepreneurs. Thinking differently and doing something others are not puts you in a different boat.

If you started buying a pack of Juicy Fruit gum for 25 cents and sold each stick for 25 cents – I mean you automatically profit after you sold the second stick of gum, thus helping you increase your inventory and helping you create more income! It is this type of thinking that kids have when they are little or when they are strap for cash, you think of ways to make money.

Another example is selling mix CDs when 4x CD burners were just coming out. I remember buying a spindle of CDs, downloading music and providing a huge list of my music inventory and asking friends at school or whomever what type of mixes they wanted – sold each CD for 10$. This is another big profit since the songs you downloaded were basically free or cheap to purchase and a spindle of 100 CDs are cheap as well after the 3rd CD sold you basically profit!

Why isn’t the whole world thinking like this? Is it too complex for someone to grasp an idea and run with it? Repetition and no change is the typical Americans, it is a safe place – there is no risk involved. Which is fine because it separates the entrepreneurs from the typical corporate America.

I would ike to nkow how you started hustling prior to the internet, if its selling fake girl scout cookies to your neighbors or selling ice to an eskimo. How did you earn some sort of lunch money prior to internet marketing! Definitely would like to here all your stories.

  • http://lead.myjetstream.net/ Sean Winter

    I have thought about this before, it’s kinda funny.

    Not many have that hustler mindset…

    I think about how to get money all the time.

    I started out slangin’ bud to get free smoke.

    I then moved to get fronted, to make money.

    The profits were good, but not good enough.

    At about 18 I started to rob drug dealers.

    Now, that’s where the good money is… Pure Profit…

    I got out of that life for the legal online hustle, and I try not to look back. Although, the easy money makes me think about going back.

    A true hustler can make money from damn near anything.

    “There is money everywhere, you just have to go get it…” ~ Sean Winter

  • http://convert2media.com Ruck

    Everyday I’m hustlin…

    In all honesty this post strikes me man. Totally understand where you are coming from. With the people I take to, read and associate with such as yourself, it’s pretty easy for me to see that with your ethic, motivation and meeting you personally (just your personality) I can tell that times might have been tough and you had to do whatever it took to make things happen.

    I dont have a clue where people get off on the idea that the same things and way of thinking dont apply online. I think too many of them have seen the dolla bills and ferraris in the header.

    See you in Vegas Ian!

  • http://www.adhustler.com Ad Hustler

    Your stories are so much like mine its freakin nutz. I was gonna do a similar post, i guess you beat me to it.

    PPCMafia 4 Eva. LOL

  • http://www.feedflare.ca Collin – Affiliate Marketing

    Ian

    Wanna Be My Pimp???

  • http://www.juanburton.com/juan.html Juan

    “something you have to have a hustler’s mindset to survive” << This is True. You have a be an all around hustler.

    It would be crazy if eveyone thought that way, then who to sell to? But if everyone were sellers, those sellers would probably be buyers of B2B markets.***

    Here is another little story how I went from a Buyer to a Seller.
    When I first did business online, was like my Sophmore year in highschool, I had a small promotional deal with Vendi Universal online only, until the company was sold to download.com. Then I seek farther distribution oportunities.

    By 2002, I launched my first online business venture from scrach.
    A simple small online shop selling a 1 or 2 dozen toys and gadget items to choose from. This grew into a learning process from here out. I was always artistically creative and even more with the computer. I bought retail/wholesale items and sold them for $5 more to make profit. at this time my goal was to only make a little extra money.

    I decided to open a checking account with $100.. and i pointed it to a free sever like geocities. This was before I knew how to install any shopping cart script. I set it up in that style and looked nice, but I did not have any way to accept payments except Check or Money Order.

    My aunt told me to get a merchant / PayPal account. So i did that, soon as a put those buttons up I got a few orders a week. This is when i havent even sent traffic to my site. I began processing these orders. I noticed one item stoodout and was purchase more then others for some reason. “Cork Guns” were purchased at about $50 each. A year later I looked back at why this was a tiny success and it was somthing so simple and FREE that we forget about or dont take as a priority, its proper “Keywords” and “MetaTags” this is where the FREE traffic was coming from.

    At a Senior in highschool, I finally decided was I wanted to be in life.. not an engineer, scientist, i wanted to be an entreneneur / self-employeed business owner. This one experience changed my entire life becuase I saw the income potential and freedrom of working deadend jobs.

    Another thing is I have choose this as a way of financially prospering because i never found a job after 2002. Many others resort to dealing , gamgling, robbing and bangin to survive.

    “something you have to have a hustler’s mindset to survive”

    Power & Prosperity,
    Juan Sito

  • http://www.traffic-is-king.com Sam with Traffic Is King

    ian,

    Hustling is a state of mind. Most people are in a state of comfort. Anything that disrupts comfort is too risky. Some would rather live check to check never wondering if taking a chance on a business would lead them to a more comfortable lifestyle. I grew up in New York seeing everyone around me with some kind of hustle in addition to the 9 to 5. Here is a little run down of my life progression:

    * 1985–> Packing bags at a Korean Grocery Store. $2.75/hr plus
    tips

    * 1990–> Golf Caddy. 18 holes was $40 for 2 golf bags. Met lots of wealthy individuals and how they view wealth. Grueling work but the knowledge acquired was priceless.

    * 1997-1999–> Bought a mobile billboard truck and advertisied for MLB, Willie Esco, Magic Convention, Fubu, Bad Boy Records. Made $15k-25k a campaign. Fell apart due to bad business partners and lack of true business networking.

    *2000–> Started learning the web. Building sites, programs, etc. $3k/year

    *2001-2003–> imported pda covers and accessories from china and sold on ebay. $500/month. This got tired fast. I started hating it! Couldn’t stand running to the post office to ship products and doing all the backend stuff with paypal.

    *2004–> Real Estate. Rehabbing and Flipping. Made 10K to 40K a flip. The market tanked and I got burnt real bad.

    *2006–>Started learning about internet marketing. Had friends with similar journeys. Came together and formed a company.

    *2007-08–> Created 5 Blackhat software products and made 8K/month to be split with 4 partners. Partnership didn’t workout. Sold the site. Kept source code and private labled it. Learned a lot from partnering, intellectual property,etc.

    *2008–> In learning mode. Discovered blogging as a way to make some income, found ianfernando.com through shawn collins blog, studying some really good internet marketers, studying web traffic, copywriting,etc

    *2009–> Will deploy niche sites and a host of affiliate campaigns. Will continue content building on my blogs.

    There was a lot of failure and very minimal success in that timetable. No course can teach you how to hustle. It’s either you have the will to do it or you don’t. I will say when your back is against the wall and you have to find a way to survive, these experiences teach you how to be real creative with little or no reasources. So I’m happy to have had these experiences but hope to see more success in the future.

  • http://www.digitalproductsreview.net/blog/ Stephan Miller

    I scraped for a while. Some people don’t know what valuable metals are in the trash they throw away. I would take copper and aluminum items to recycling companies for cash. Every now and then I would run into ancient computers and catalytic converters and other things that had even more valuable metal.

    I also used to manufacture and sell GHB when it was still not classed as an illegal substance. Yes, it used to be sold at GNC stores. But I sold it for less and for partying at raves.

  • http://www.ianfernando.com Ian

    > all
    thanks all for your hustlin stories! interesting to hear from a lot.

  • Stuart

    When cd burners first came out, disks were AU$20 per disk… And you couldn’t buy a 100 disk spindle

  • http://diggalive.com digga

    Sick post man.. I followed you today on Twitter..follow me up!

  • http://www.ppc.bz PPC.bz

    I sold coke, weed, and e, so fuck you all.

  • http://www.365hustle.com www.365hustle.com

    Damn man. Inspiration in a post. Will be following on twitter soon.

  • http://SASSYTRIXIE@GMAIL.COM MS.TRIXIE

    hey i liked all of your advice and idea’s I never really seen a website like this im only 17 and tryna find some new legal hustles. i cant really give any true advice to anyone im tryna learn some new things i can do.this website helped me because i thought the only way to get real money was to go to college,sell drugs,or your body.I just wanna thank Ian for this website and everyone else who commented.

  • Andreas

    The last year or so of rapid growth by the Celtic Tiger has not been particularly fruitful for most working people. Two problems, for many of us, have been have been spiralling house prices and near gridlock in most cities. According to the bosses’ association, IBEC, roads carry 97% of Irish passenger traffic and 86% of freight. The number of cars on the roads is rapidly increasing. The number of new private cars licensed in the state increased from 60,792 in 1993 to 109,333 in 1996 (according to the Central Statistics Office). Despite the economy being so bad off right now, this is a great time for the right kind of entrepreneur. Not necessarily a great time for the entrepreneur purveyor of underwater woven baskets, but if you have a solid business plan, every detail mapped out to a tee, then you have a decent shot. Many large business empires began as meager ventures, and then grew under visionary eyes that seized opportunity and had an eye on the brass ring. Many of the richest men in history began with next to nothing and became successful through their spirit and drive. That is why America is the land of the entrepreneur.

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