Why You Should Try Modeling

The more experience you amass, the more that you see how much has already been tried. Some become dismayed by this reality. They fear that they have nothing original left to contribute. That’s certainly one way to look at it.
Build On What’s Already Working

But a more optimistic perspective is to realize that you don’t need to start anything from scratch. There are countless successes and examples out there for you to emulate and learn from. You could then use your own perspective and experience to build upon what came before. Online retailers like Amazon and eBay certainly didn’t invent their business models of selling reduced price goods and empowering others to act as vendors. What they did was take what had already been done in brick and mortar stores for a long time and emulate it on a much larger scale.

I often tell young entrepreneurs starting out the same bit of advice. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. You don’t know what you don’t know and most likely many others have already struggled with precisely the same challenges you are. If you dust off some books on the library shelf, you will very likely find that someone else has managed to face down exactly the same seemingly intractable problem that has been vexing you.

Therefore, one of the best and easiest ways to create success in anything is to model something or a system that has whatever it is that you are after. In the case of business, there are countless examples of online success and money creation that you can look to. Certainly don’t sacrifice your own creativity, but especially as you are starting out, you can learn a tremendous amount by following the examples of others. Follow in the path of those that have “done it” and do the same.

• Add Your Own Twist

I myself certainly haven’t created the concept behind the real estate and online marketing businesses I run. What I have done is look at the models out there and identify how I can use my own expertise to build upon others’ successes and create something new of value for customers.

It’s amazing how much we undervalue the tremendous power and knowledge filed away in books alone. Just about every major, successful executive and business founder eventually puts out a memoir on exactly how they did it. Channel some percentage of the time you spend agonizing about the wall you are hitting and put it into reading these success stories. You will see a path forward in absolutely no time.

• Study the Success Stories

I try to only read books by the top performers in a particular field. I have found that it helps to focus in on who is the very best in the world at what you want to do. There are too many books out there and too little time to get bogged down in modeling someone who is not a peak performer. So if you want to learn about stock picking, learn from Warren Buffet and if you want to learn about cinema, learn from Steven Spielberg. It would be very difficult to get face time with them one on one, which is why books and media are such invaluable tools in providing you with insights into how top performers have constructed their business models and learned their craft.

Even subscribing to a quality business publication like the Wall Street Journal will provide you with daily invaluable insight into business trends and how others are navigating the challenges of doing business in the 21st century. I’ve had friends who’ve stumbled upon tremendous ideas for their own ventures through a daily habit of setting some time aside for purposeful reading. This is important to remember for all the harried business executives out there who tell me they are too busy to make time to read. In truth, you are too busy to not always be reading if you intend to stay ahead of the curve in a time of rapid technological and business change.

This doesn’t mean to outright copy, but keep an eye out for successful models in your industry. (Although Pablo Picasso was said to have commented, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”) You may have even more luck with models outside of your industry then you can bring to your own in a way that your competitors aren’t doing. This will allow you to distinguish yourself from what the rest of the herd is up to. Look at how Steve Jobs emulated great design principals in a way that nobody else was doing in the technology space. It wasn’t that his concepts were original. It was that they were original for his particular sector.

Look at the example of John Ferolito and Don Vultaggio, the founders of AriZona Green Tea, which is now ubiquitous at stores everywhere. The two friends had initially started out in the beer distributor business, with some humble beginnings working out of a Volkswagon bus. They eventually were inspired by the success of Snapple in selling packaged, brightly colored drinks outside of the usual soda and alcohol trades. They took that example to their own brand of drinks, creating what is today ranked as #1 in their field in North America. They didn’t invent an entirely new model or idea, they merely applied what had worked elsewhere and tackled a new market niche with it.

Or look at Facebook, which certainly didn’t invent the terms or idea of a social media network. There had already been models like Friendster that included the basic contours of an online network in which you connect with acquaintances. Mark Zuckerberg was able, however, to bring his own psychological and technical insights to building this model into something much more effective, and ultimately world-changing. He understood that in the early days of building the network, creating a level of exclusivity by making the site limited to Ivy League schools, would help build buzz and social cachet that allowed the network to ultimately be irresistible to increasing numbers of users. He ultimately achieved much greater success by looking at existing, viable models of successful businesses rather than coming up with something altogether new out of scratch.

Remember especially that if you are truly afflicted with the entrepreneur gene, your first business will very likely not be your last. It will merely be the start you need to begin to learn more about how to launch new ventures in the future. So don’t be shy about taking a page from others when starting your first business. Think of it as a learning opportunity that will allow you to gain insights to inform your future enterprises. In the meantime, spend as much time as possible with other entrepreneurs at networking and social events so that you can hear more firsthand about what has worked for them. It isn’t only modeling business design that will help you to think like an entrepreneur, but modeling the behavior of other entrepreneurs. And the first step to that is always getting out into the real world and plunging right into this exciting world.

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