“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
-Isaac Newton
In my entrepreneurial journey, I quickly learned the power of modeling successful people.
- In college, I began studying the most talented copywriters that I could find (Joseph Sugarman, David Ogilvy, and Gary Halbert to name a few).
- When starting my business, I studied successful sales funnels (and the marketers behind them, such as Russell Brunson)
- I studied coaching and teaching from some of the most brilliant educators that I could access (Eben Pagan, Annie Lalla, and Wyatt Woodsmall)
- And countless others.
Before realizing the importance of modeling, I had this “lone wolf” mentality.
I’d say statements like… “I’ll figure this out on my own.” And it resulted in slow growth (and I made tons of unnecessary mistakes).
Don’t get me wrong, independent thinking is important! Modeling does NOT mean copying OR mindlessly following a leader.
And when combining independent thinking with proper modeling, you can streamline your business success.
Major thinkers and high achievers already have an understanding of how to create the outcomes that YOU want.
So why do we make it harder on ourselves? Why reinvent the wheel?
This is what we’ll be exploring so that we can become more profitable in our businesses and create a larger impact on others.
And at the end, I’ll share how you can begin modeling successful lead generation campaigns.
This ultimately helps you…
- Achieve your outcomes faster
- Make less unnecessary mistakes
- Avoid wasting your time, energy, and money on subpar strategies.
Why Do We Actually Make It Harder On Ourselves? Here’s What Happens Behind-The-Scenes…
Your mind will play tricks on you when you begin growing your business online.
And understanding this will allow you to “get out of your own way” and start hitting your business milestones.
Richard Wiseman wrote a book called “The Luck Factor.” The basic idea is that people who believe that they’re lucky will start to have “lucky experiences.”
Now, this sounds a little out there. But there’s some interesting psychology happening behind-the-scenes.
I’m going to share a quick story that you may have experienced yourself.
A couple of years back I took a road trip to San Diego with one of my good friends. He’d recently bought a brand new black jaguar, and we decided to use it for the drive to San Diego.
He drove it all the way there, and I drove it back (which was tons of fun)!
But after the trip was over, something interesting happened…
I started noticing black jaguars’ on the road! On the highway. Parking lots. Everywhere!
Before taking this trip, it had never even been on my radar.
Perhaps you had an experience where you were exposed to something new (such as a brand new car or object). And even when you were no longer using it, you would still notice it everywhere!
Your Brain Has “Selective Focus”
This story illustrates your brain’s ability to use its “reticular activating system” or “RAS.”
Without going deep into the science of it, think of this as your brain’s ability to have “selective focus.”
Your RAS is very similar to the confirmation bias. This is our tendency as humans to seek out information to confirm our existing paradigms, belief structures, theories, and knowledge.
We all do this, no one’s exempt from this cognitive bias.
For example, if you’re focusing on negativity, your brain will find ways to reinforce that paradigm. If you’re convinced that today will be horrible, then you’ll most definitely find ways to make it happen.
On the flip-side, if you’re focused on having an amazing day, you’ll find ways to be grateful and happy (even if it was full of challenges and obstacles).
Spooky stuff! But understanding how your psychology works will allow you to get out of your own way.
They’re two things I want you to take away from this:
- You get whatever you focus on
- You largely get what you expect
This is why you want to model successful entrepreneurs and marketers (or anybody who’s accomplished what you want).
And here’s the main reason why.
If you haven’t achieved your goals yet, what’s the underlying assumption?
What you’re currently focusing on (and doing) isn’t working.
And this is largely due to the RAS and confirmation bias. Your brain is looking for information that confirms it’s existing paradigms.
We don’t know what we don’t know.
This is why you see high achievers utilize masterminds and coaching for themselves.
Name someone who’s successful in your industry, and I can guarantee you that they’ve had some form of mentorship, coaching, or role model (even if they claim they achieved success all by themselves).
Modeling is a skill set. The better we can get at replicating success, the more effective we become.
[Lessons Learned From Tim Ferriss and Michael Simmons] — A 4 Step Process For Modeling High Achievers
I want to share 4 steps you can use to model high achievers. This will cover a “meta” approach that you can apply to almost any domain.
This is largely inspired by the learning cycle that Michael Simmons teaches. So if you find this content useful and interesting, be sure to check him out!
In the next section, I’ll share a quick process for modeling lead generation campaigns so that you can grow your business online.
1. Identify the person or thing you want to model
Most naturally, this is the first part. You’ll want to identify who/what to model. This also means you’ll need to know your goals and vision.
Do you want to improve your copywriting? Begin identifying who the best copywriters are.
Want to learn how to grow an audience? Begin identifying the most influential and persuasive people who’ve built large followings.
2. Create a blueprint (Tim Ferriss style)
This is where you want to begin connecting the dots and piecing knowledge together.
In essence, you’ll want to create a blueprint from whoever you’re modeling.
Tim Ferriss’ book “The 4-Hour Chef” has a few chapters that masterfully illustrates this step. The book is all about learning how to learn and how to model top performers. I’ll share a few of the concepts here:
Deconstruction: This is where you want to break down the underlying skill or ability that you’re modeling into manageable pieces.
In other words, what are the key components?
For example: the copywriting formula “AIDA” is trying to deconstruct the complex world of copywriting into some manageable pieces.
Attention. Interest. Desire. Action.
Selection: This is where you select the 80/20.
What’s the 20% that results in 80% of success?
When trying to model someone (and QUICKLY replicate their success), we’ll want to focus on the most important stuff.
In the words of Henk Kraaijenhof, here’s a hint for how to do this: “Do as little as needed, not as much as possible.”
Sequencing: In what order should you learn the key components?
In essence, here are the 3 questions that Tim Ferriss recommends for sequencing your modeling process:
- What are the commonalities among the best competitors?
- Which of these are NOT being actively taught in most classes? This usually is “implicit expertise,” which is what high performers do under pressure AND are unaware of (OR they simply don’t know how to verbalize their expertise to their students). This is also called tacit knowledge.
- Which implicit skills could you get good at really fast??
This’ll allow you to create an effective blueprint.
3. Experiment and begin replicating
When learning anything, knowledge without action is useless (unless, of course, you’re just reading for pleasure).
If we consider the quote by Isaac Newton, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants,” then we need to somehow climb up the shoulders!
This means we should start experimenting with what we’ve discovered in step #2.
4. Get feedback and iterate
By learning from experience, you begin to gain some feedback.
What’s working? What’s not working?
We take these “learnings” and plug them back into our experiments.
And over-time, we’ll find ourselves on the shoulders of giants!
Now Let’s Model Successful Lead Generation Campaigns
This process is useful for anyone who wants to model successful lead funnels, ad copy, landing page copy, landing page design, and overall lead generation strategy.
Russell Brunson would call this process “funnel hacking.” It’s just modeling successful marketing campaigns.
And since it’s all public information, anybody can utilize this process.
To begin, consider researching an industry or niche similar to yours.
For our example, I found a company called “Barefoot Writer.” They’re a company that helps people become highly-paid and sought-after writers.
Let’s begin!
Step 1: Find their Business Facebook Page
After you know which business you want to model, check out their business page on Facebook.
Step 2: Scroll Down to Page Transparency
In this step, we want to see if they have any active ads running on Facebook. This is where we’ll begin modeling the lead generation process.
Scroll down to view “Page Transparency.”
Click “See More.”
After clicking, you’ll be able to see if they have any active ads running.
If they’re currently running ads, click “Go to Ad Library.”
If they’re NOT currently running ads, you’ll want to find another business to model for the time being.
Step 3: Select an Ad to Model
Now you’ll be able to see the ads that the business is using. They’re a couple of things you want to look out for:
- Make sure it’s an active ad
- Check to see how long it’s been running. The longer the ad has been running, the more likely the campaign is hitting the business’ KPIs (and converting well).
Once you’ve checked off these two bullets, click “See Ad Details.”
After viewing the details of the ad, you’ll have an option to click their CTA. This will link to a landing page where they have their offer.
In the case of our example, it’s a lead magnet.
Step 4: Model the Landing Page
Once you’re on the landing page, you’ll have tons of information to model:
- Hooks
- Stories
- Offers
- Design
- Strategy
But don’t stop here!
Step 5: Continue Until the End of the Funnel
I’d recommend going through the full funnel! That’ll give you insights into marketing strategies and processes.
- Check out the thank you page.
- Do they have an upsell page?
- What does their follow-up email look like?
- Etc
And there you have it.
I’m looking forward to seeing you on the shoulders of giants!
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