Mindset Secrets for Entrepreneurs | Tommy Walker

Ann Kraus: Hello and welcome to Simpli.fi TV, the web series and podcast for agencies, brands, marketers, and media buyers. I'm Ann Kraus. This is going to be a little different type of interview on Simpli.fi TV. Our guest today is Tommy Walker. He's the author of Mindset Secrets for Entrepreneurs. He is an international mindset business and life coach with over 14 years of experience. For the past four years, Tommy has been researching the behavior of business owners to understand why most are struggling and how he can help them make more money and determine what's holding them back so that they can crush their goals. Tommy has lectured about mindset and stress management in the US, the Caribbean, Columbia, Chile, Mexico, and Argentina. Tommy, thanks so much for joining me on Simpli.fi TV. Tommy Walker: Thank you very much for having me here. I'm so happy. Thank you. Ann Kraus: So let's get started with your research. What did you find was the main roadblocks that cause many entrepreneurs, for instance, to get stuck in businesses that just aren't growing anymore? Tommy Walker: So what I've seen talking with thousands of people around the world, I've been an entrepreneur for 26 years too. So the three main roadblocks that stop most people, whether it is launching their business or growing their business is going to sound weird, but it has to do with marketing, it has to do with sales, and it has to do with money. So let me explain fast what I mean with that. Marketing has to do with self-image. So a lot of people that are trying to grow their business, whether they're marketers trying to get their business out there, or even entrepreneurs selling other type of services, unfortunately what happens is they don't realize their negative self-image. So as they don't deal with their negative self-image that have been created in the past, of course, what happens is when you need to get out there to get people to know you, when most people are scared of people seeing their negative. Most of this is happening at a subconscious level. They're not even aware of what's really going on, and they're going to blame the government. They're going to blame the country, they're going to blame the economy. They're going to blame anything else except themselves of what's going on. The second one that I was mentioning, sales. Sales has to do with direct or indirect rejection. When you're offering your services in whatever area it is, people are going to say no. And mostly when you're starting as you, and I'm going to talk a little bit more about this specifically in a little bit, people don't really communicate correctly what they're doing and what happens is, although they might be very good at what they're doing, they're not good communicators of what they're doing. So a lot of people are thinking that because if they know something, they're going to be able to sell it. So when people say that they're not interested, they start doubting themselves and their skills. So instead of understanding that maybe it's a communication skills on exactly what they're doing and how to communicate that and get people interested in buying, they feel that that is directly to them as a being and them at the skills they have and they start getting discouraged and they don't want to do that anymore. And another one that I've seen is a programming that we have around money. Money doesn't grow on trees. I don't deserve money and things like that. And people try to convince themselves that they're going to be able to make money, that they deserve money. But deep down, many times in their subconscious mind, they don't believe that. Ann Kraus: So it sounds like we have trouble getting out of our own way, that you have to switch things up. In order to be successful, we have to believe that we can be a success in sales and marketing. Tommy Walker: Exactly. So the first thing is, what I see a lot is people try to convince themselves through positivity that they deserve, that they're going to be successful. And that is a big lie because the mind has "proof" that we're not going to make it. What do I mean with that? When we were kids and maybe we were at school and we had bad grades and we were judged and criticized or even rejected by our parents, they were not happy with us. That could create a program in the back of our head that we are a failure. So by trying to convince ourselves that we're not failures, this is another thing that I see a lot of people stuck because they're trying to logically convince themselves... Not even logically, by positivity, like enforcing themselves to try to change instead of understanding what's really going on in the mind. Does that make sense? Ann Kraus: Yeah, yeah, it does. And I'm just wondering if these roadblocks, are these the same for any type of entrepreneur, any type of salesperson, any type of marketer, like from a small hometown bakery to a Fortune 500 company? Tommy Walker: So it's going to be a little bit different. And there are several variables that I've seen. One of the things is if you're selling services to somebody that you're going to help them grow their business, there might be some of the things that I said, right? But when you're selling somebody else's business, you're going to get that person out there. People tend to find it easier than when they're selling themselves. Haven't you seen people that selling other people's products or services, they're amazing when they're trying to sell their own products or services are getting stuck? They're limited, playing it small. So there are some things playing there that could change in Fortune 500 businesses or the local bakery, as you were saying. Ann Kraus: How does this current economic environment, which is who knows what it is or what we should call it, how does that play into the mindset of salespeople and marketers? Tommy Walker: So thank you for that. So before what I've seen is a couple of years ago when the big boom of crypto came out, people had more money moving and they had more in a way the idea that they were going to make money. So there was more money moving in the market easier and faster from one hand to the other than what's going on right now. The crisis that happening now with what happened, crypto is going up again, but it dumped and a lot of people started trusting it. And there's so much out there. I'm not going to talk if it's okay or not, but a lot of people talking in the wrong way and lost a lot of money there. People have lost hope in trying to make money faster than before. So what's happening right now with a global crisis is that people are holding more money. So there's more uncertainty, although they're kind of the same uncertainty. Before it was covered with these kinds of big dreams of having a Lambo or Ferrari just by investing in the trade marketing or in crypto. So what happens is, although there was uncertainty before, it could kind of be covered up with those things. Now those things are not much around. So the uncertainty is still there and people are not finding ways to be able to cover it as they used before, so they need to face it. So one of the things that I really encourage people is to understand what's going on with the uncertainty, because the truth is we need to become friends with the uncertainty because the truth is we don't know how much money you're going to make next month and the next month or even next year. The truth is we're here now and we're putting seeds into the ground to try to of course, grow business help clients and things like that. But we don't know exactly. A lot of people talk about having consistent income, but what is that? If you're an entrepreneur you know that that doesn't exist as consistent making 10K every month. Except you have one client that pays you 10K, you might lose it eventually. So the consistency in setting the wrong expectations is something that really destroys the mindset. Ann Kraus: So now I want to switch gears from the environment now and over to something else because so many agencies and marketers and salespeople are talking about AI, artificial intelligence, and its functions and its future and how it's going to impact everybody. And I would imagine that that is probably some of the things you're hearing about that's interrupting with a positive mindset when it comes to entrepreneurship. How do you recommend that agencies wrap their mindset around this? Tommy Walker: So first of all is there's two things that we can talk here. There's many, but two main things that come to my mind with this question. One of it is I'm seeing a lot of people using AI to cover up for their own weaknesses in a way. So they don't feel good and they start using a lot of AI to try to get their word out, try to grow themselves, their business, or helping somebody else. But if we use AI as a crutch, when we're try to build strong legs, unfortunately what's going to happen? It will never happen that we're going to be able to do it by ourselves. And I'm not meaning that you got to do everything by yourself, but you got to be careful because I see a lot of people using AI for mostly everything in their business when they actually don't understand the different aspect in the business. So we need to understand that AI is amazing, but we make it amazing in a way because we've got to ask the right questions, create the right prompt for AI to work the best for us. Does that make sense? Ann Kraus: Absolutely. And that's something similar that I've heard from a variety of different interviews. It's just that it's not a standalone, it's something that we are going to feed info in and we're going to get info back. And I like how you responded as if we don't feel good enough about writing it ourselves then we shouldn't be asking anybody else to be doing it for us. Tommy Walker: Exactly. That's the problem that I see over on. You don't need to become a really professional copywriter or creator or whatever area you're looking for, but have a good idea because many times if we don't get the right prompt in, ChatGPT is going to throw what it understood what we asked, and it might not be good. And unfortunately, if we don't know enough, we might think that, "oh, ChatGPT or AI throughout this, it should be good." So what I tell all people as I work with some entrepreneurs is, Hey, you need to get good at different areas and then start bringing AI in as a push and accelerate your growth. But when you bring AI too fast, and that's what I was saying, that people don't feel good and they start using AI to cover their weaknesses, that's when things go sideways. So we got to be careful with that. On the other hand, it is true that unfortunately, if you are good at writing prompts and understanding AI, understanding the different areas of your business, it's going to make it easier to get AI in and hire less people out there for different areas of your business. I have AI that does engagement in different platforms, so it goes into groups, profiles in Facebook, maybe group profile pages, and it can start engaging in people's posts. It doesn't choose a post. It just randomly starts doing it. And it's good because I start getting engagement on Facebook, and then when I post, I get more engagement on the things that I'm putting out there. So it's great to have those things. So before maybe I would have a VA doing that for me. Now I have AI doing that for me, but I understand what I need and how to use it in my advantage. Ann Kraus: I would imagine that as people listen to this, they're going to want to get to know you a little bit more. What's the best way for viewers to learn more about you? Tommy Walker: What they can do is they can write anywhere, the mind engineer Tommy Walker, and they can find my website, they can find, I have a small YouTube channel that is slowly growing. I'm in different social platforms and I'm the only one for now that is called Tommy Walker, the mind engineer. So if they look up those names like that, they're going to find me and they're going to find a lot of value. I talk a lot about psychology and I also mix it up with the entrepreneur journey because I think that it's very important to be able to grow our business, having a healthy mindset. Ann Kraus: Tommy, thank you so much for being my guest on Simpli.fi TV. Tommy Walker: Thank you very much. It was amazing. Ann Kraus: And thank you all for watching. Simpli.fi TV is sponsored by Simpli.fi, helping you to maximize relevance and multiply results with our industry leading media buying and workflow solutions. For more information, visit simply.fi. Thanks for joining us today. I'm Ann Kraus, and I look forward to seeing you next time.