The Mindset Of This Entrepreneur From Episode #8

On The Daily Grind Business Podcast on November 10, 2017, Colin interviewed Mr. Derek Champagne, the founder, and CEO of Artist Evolution, a successful marketing agency. He is also the author of the popular selling marketing book, Don’t Buy A Duck: Stop Wasting Money & Only Do Marketing That Works and the host of his own weekly business podcast series. He talked about how he and his team reached their 10-year milestone by building brands and creating and executing marketing campaigns for clients.

He shared with the listeners an important message for anyone starting a business and that is the importance of “developing a mindset”. It is something that you do not hear of very often; so I am writing this blog to tell you how important it really is. As with everything that we do, we have the power to choose whether we think the glass is half full or half empty.

The Webster dictionary refers to a mindset as: “an established set of attitudes held by someone”. Psychologists further categorize the subject into 2 categories: A fixed mindset and a growth mindset. A person who has a fixed mindset is out to prove themselves, and get very defensive when someone suggests they made a mistake. In other words, they measure themselves by their failures. A person with a growth mindset is known to have perseverance and resilience to carry on after they have made mistakes.

As a result of some past successes and failures, Mr. Derek Champagne prefers to call his mindset a strategic one instead of an emotional one. He mentioned that when he started his new business 10 years ago he knew he was entering into a competitive market and in an industry that was so saturated he had to find ways to stand out and make his business “entrepreneur distraction proof”.

Here are the following behaviours and tools he used to get his business noticed.

1.  He had a very clear vision of what he wanted and where his business would be in 10 years before he even started it. By establishing a clear vision and a strategic plan his ability to process everything that he did, every person he met, every opportunity that came across his desk and, every obstacle he was faced with allowed him to fit it into that vision.

2.  He went “all in” when he started this business and was 100% committed to his business concept and doing all the necessary work that needed to be done. He rented a little office and always started his day wearing a suit. He believed that wearing a suit showed himself how committed he was to the business he was opening.

3.  He put in the time. Although he wasn’t busy in the early years he sat in this little office 12 hours a day, 6 six days a week and he willed it to happen. “If he willed it, then it would be so”, he told himself.

4.  As his business started to grow and his team expanded it was important for him to lead the team well and to always put them first.

5.  He continued to educate himself by learning everything about the industry and about the people who were successful in the industry.

6.  He stayed focused.

A very powerful message in this podcast for people who are starting a business. To listen to more of how he looked at his business and why he is successful today- click: dailygrindpodcast.com/2017/11/09/ep-8-start-with-a-clear-vision-with-derek-champagne/