There’s a good chance it’s all an illusion. Internet marketing Alex Jeffreys helps a lot of people launch online businesses, get customers and create a funnel strategy for sales. In the course of his coaching program, he’s noticed a few things.

To an outsider, it seems as though these businesses are highly successful, he said. But just because an entrepreneur has a well-designed website, active social media presence, doesn’t mean they’re making money.

“When they speak to me behind the scenes, they’re struggling,” he said. “They don’t know how to resonate with consumers in their market or get the market’s attention to make any money.”

Jeffreys works with a lot of coaches and marketers who want to bring in more sales online. Most, he observes, are broke, and they struggle for many of the same reasons. At one Marketing with Alex event, Jeffreys spoke to a client about his struggles in making his new coaching business successful. It all came down to three things, the client told Jeffreys.

“He said, ‘Alex, I figured out my pattern. I figured out why I’ve struggled,’” Jeffreys said.

Out of those three things that caused him to struggle, the client mapped out a journey that came back to one place — fear. This lead to procrastination, which transformed to depression, Jeffreys said. In this depression stage, this client didn’t know what to do. He told Jeffreys he was terrified he would wake up someday and sabotage his business.

“I’m not going to make it sound nice for you,” Jeffreys told the client. “I’m going to tell you what needs to happen to get success. OK? I’m all about results.”

In order to achieve success, Jeffreys touts the importance of keeping the campaign funnel simple, citing examples from his own business. He’ll often give a client a task list that appears straightforward.

Once they see it, they often think, “I could do that. It will only take me about a short afternoon to do that,” he said.

But instead of tackling that short to-do list, the client piles on a variation of different tasks because they feel guilty, or perhaps feel like they need to do more things, Jeffreys said. And in the end, the main tasks get suffocated underneath the busywork, all technique goes out the window. Feeling overwhelmed, the client gets sucked into a vicious cycle of self-sabotage.

Here are three tips from Jeffreys to break the cycle and find your own success:

Get in the right mindset

The first step is to change your mindset, Jeffreys said. Start by taking note of where your business is and why. Once you can answer these questions, you can overcome your obstacles.

“You’ve got to figure out what’s going on,” he said. “Are you scared? Are you procrastinating? What are you hiding from? You got to get it out on the table. You’ve got to accept where you are or you’re just going to stay there. And if you don’t bring it to the surface, you’ll still there but it will hold you back.”

The other part of putting yourself in the right mindset is to rid your life of negativity, Jeffreys said.

“Just on the negativity, I don’t watch any news,” he said. “I don’t read any newspapers. I don’t really go on social media. I don’t read. I don’t accept negativity. I live in my own economy. I create my own economy. I live in my own bubble. I just don’t accept negativity in my life.”

Have a plan

After reflecting and ridding your life of negativity, it’s time to make a plan. Jeffreys tells his clients to decide on an outcome and a timeline for their small business or company. After you have that goal, you need to work toward it every day, he said.

At the end of every day, Jeffreys said he does something he calls “Plan Tomorrow Today.”

“Before I leave the office, I plan out tomorrow,” he said. “I make sure I know that my morning rituals are in place.”

Planning your day in advance makes easier for you to spend your time working toward your goals, instead of getting distracted by menial tasks that won’t help your business, Jeffreys said.

“You have a to-do list for the day, not for the month, the week, whatever, the day,” he said. “This is where I’m going to work on today. And once I tick this off and I plan tomorrow today, which is tomorrow is going to build upon this, we’re working towards finishing something and finish it.”

Stick to a routine

“Once you have the process and you know the plan and you step into the office, … You want to then focus on no distractions and no procrastination,” he said. “This is key.”

After you’re in the right mindset and have a plan in place, it’s important to stick to a routine, Jeffreys said. The routine and process makes it easy for you to focus on growing your business without getting distracted by shiny objects and procrastination.

“And basically, the struggle that everybody has now is procrastination,” Jeffreys said. “And if you procrastinate then every time you procrastinate, you’re harming your business. Every time you work on something that’s not important, you’re harming your business.”