A successful entrepreneur takes the stage, and the crowd sits on the edge of their seat listening intently to their story. 

Usually the person has an extraordinary story of rising up from the bottom, hitting hard times, and recovering to go on to earn millions.

As the crowd rises to its collective feet to give a standing ovation, you decide right then and there that the success story you have just heard is also the model you want to follow. 

After all, why reinvent the wheel if a successful entrepreneur has already carved a path you can follow.

But when you try and emulate the success, you suddenly realize the idea may not have been as straightforward as it sounded on stage.  Many aspiring entrepreneurs sometimes hear the greatest advice they have ever heard, and then ask:

How do you adapt success advice to your own business? 

The Plan to Follow a Model

The stories of successful entrepreneurs who created a business from their own idea are often model entrepreneurial journeys.  Entrepreneurs are driving forces in the economy, and their perseverance and determination is inspiring. 

Following a model someone else has set can be an excellent way to get your business up and running.  Several courses offer ‘complete blueprints’ on how to repeat the work already done, and hopefully to achieve the same success.  You can also find detailed blogs with guidelines and advice around an established model. 

But sometimes the advice is so inspiring you want to just follow what others have done step-by-step.  But when you go to do implement as instructed, you realize your business idea and plan do not neatly fit into the model. 

Copying verbatim may not work because your circumstances are not exactly the same. You have to figure out how you could do repeat the model’s success – with your own idea.

Where do you start?

Break down Details

Using an origin story you may or may not be familiar with – the creation of Facebook – you can begin to document the details you know, and identify the gaps that are missing.

In general, you probably know that Mark Zuckerberg and his partners built Facebook in their dorm room at Harvard, and released the site to Harvard students, before dropping out, going to Silicon Valley and formally creating the company.

If your business idea is to build a social-sharing website, and you want to follow this model, you would also intend to build on your own until you can attract venture capital funding.

Sketch the existing model

1. Gather all the Details from the Model You Can Find. 

Often when a successful entrepreneur tells their story, they do not give you all the details.  You might hear about the late nights coding, and the conflicts with partners, but you do not learn the specifics, especially about technical obstacles or marketing.

How did the site get built? How was it promoted? Who was the first person to sign on and why? Did the founder have 1,000 friends who clicked on links the first day?

When you try to emulate someone’s success, and are unsuccessful, you might think there’s something wrong with you – that you are unable to do what the most successful do.

But in fact you may not have all the facts.  Before you even try to do what someone else has done, document exactly what you know, and what you don’t know.  Make sure you fill in the gaps for information you have not yet heard. 

If you do not have a step-by-step guide to how to finish the job, you will have to research other sources to try and figure out what’s missing.

Since you know what the final product looks like, you can spend some time to visualize and reverse engineer the complete process.

Ask questions about the pieces you do not understand.

2. Fill in the Gaps

Where do you find the missing information? 

Keep doing research. 

Do enough research to figure out what you have to do next.  Do not drift in to analysis paralysis, and halt your entire business launch while trying to find out everything you need to know.

You will never know everything you need to know.  You will only have enough to get started before you begin trial and error to see exactly what could happen with your business.

If you’re trying to build the next great social network, and you know nothing about technology, start by finding out the basics, like how user interfaces are created.  Talk to programmers and coders who understand the process.  And designers who can help you make the product user friendly.

If you are not doing something as complicated as building a social network, but you are building a website and want to copy the process of a successful ecommerce company, you will almost certainly need to get started to learn what the market is buying, and how you can deliver for your market niche.

3. Build your community

Often the biggest piece of the entrepreneurial success story that is often left out of the current record is the marketing and promotion that intrigued the first customers. 

Understanding how this business reached its market is absolutely critical to your success as an entrepreneur.  You could have the best product or service in the world, but if no one knows about it, you will not have a business.

Conversely you could have a decent, not spectacular, product or service, and be wildly successful because the customer base responds well to your offering.

In all cases, you must respond to your own results, not try and directly copy what someone else has done. If your marketing does not work, look at your product or service, market targets and the current environment.

Trying to make the same adjustments your model made may be futile if all other circumstances for your business are completely different.

To learn more about what it takes to match someone else’s model, see my upcoming podcast and blog series where I will break down my attempt to capture the magic of someone else’s 30-day plan.

Summary: How to Follow a Model

1. Make sure you know all the details you can learn about the business you want to model.  You won’t find out everything the founders did, but document what you do know so you can decide what you have to do next.

2. Fill in the gaps for the missing information.  Continue researching or talk to experts who may be able to give you insight into the actions that you need to take.

3. Build your own community.  Focus on your own marketing and promotion.  Everything changes, the world around you, the economy, society – what worked for a business at a certain point in time, may not work for you.  Make make sure you are prepared to set up your own promotion plan before going forward.