The internet is full of stories about people who make a killing selling merchandise such as T-shirts online. The short news articles always make the process seem so easy. Just create a couple of T-shirts that will appeal to the masses, post them online, and wait for the money to start rolling in. What the news blurbs fail to mention is the amount of work the entrepreneur they’re featuring did before they became a success. The key is knowing how to have the right mindset for selling T-shirts online.

Create a Schedule

People who try to sell T-shirts sometimes get overwhelmed because they try to do everything at once. The sheer amount of effort required leads to exhaustion, frustration, and eventually giving up because it seems too difficult. You can avoid all of this by creating a schedule and sticking to it.

Instead of trying to handle everything required to successfully sell T-shirts online in one or two days, dedicate one or two hours a day to generating sales. Focus on one sales aspect each day. For example:

• Monday – Research your target market and think of probable designs
• Tuesday – Create and submit designs
• Wednesday – Work on marketing campaigns
• Thursday – Launch your most recent creation
• Friday – Work on promotion
• Saturday – Examine how your design/sales campaign performed

After just a few weeks, you’ll find yourself automatically getting into the swing of things and it’ll get easier and easier to motivate yourself and stay on task.

Be Persistent

Don't treat your T-shirt sales as a hobby or a way to make a few extra bucks on the side. Approach it the same way you would a job. Realize that it's going to take a little time to get your sales really rolling. If you're persistent, stick to your schedule, and continually create outstanding T-shirt designs, the generated revenue will steadily increase and you'll find yourself enjoying selling T-shirts online more than you ever imagined possible.

Don’t stress about running out of creative T-shirt ideas. You’re going to find that the very act of creating encourages additional creativity. Once you set a schedule and learn how to stick to it, you’ll find yourself creating more T-shirt ideas than you’ll know what to do with. It’s a great feeling!

Monitor Your Results

Successful online entrepreneurs know that they can’t sit back on their laurels and reap in revenue. They spend a great deal of time monitoring their efforts. Questions they ask themselves following each marketing attempt and product launch include:

• Has the effort generated the desired results?
• What aspects of the launch/campaign/design worked and what needed improvement?
• Did they hit their target goals? If they didn’t, what can they do to improve their sales figures the next time around?

Keep a detailed record of every single T-shirt design and sales campaign. Every few months, review the record and use the information to create a winning sales formula which will help your T-shirt sales business grow. I've written a great guide to using Evernote to help you keep your T-shirt design ideas and campaigns organized.

Take the Bad Days in Stride

One of the things that some people don’t talk about is how many times they failed before they finally found online entrepreneurial success. You need to be prepared for the days when you don’t make a single sale, when an idea that you thought was great fails to attract any attention, and the days when you just don’t have any great ideas. The important thing to remember on days like this is that everyone fails from time to time. Don’t yield to the temptation of giving up and pursuing something else. Instead, you need to look at what led to failure, learn from it, and adjust your business. Have faith that tomorrow will be a better day.