The Truth About Copying Successful Entrepreneurs

Copying what other successful entrepreneurs are doing might seem like the fast track to success. But tread carefully…

You might think you’re “standing on the shoulders of giants”… but you could be stepping into entrepreneurial quicksand. 

You see… there’s a hidden danger in blindly mimicking even the most outwardly successful entrepreneurs. 

And yes… this also applies to copying me! 🙂

You have to be careful about who you copy or who you mimic.

You know, I once heard this story about a pizza chain, like a chain of pizza stores and pizza restaurants, and how a big company came in and bought them out. They started making all these crazy changes and they eventually went out of business. They went bankrupt. And if you looked at them, like a lot of the things they did made absolutely no sense whatsoever, but what happened was, I think it was Pepsi, the company that bought them, and Pepsi basically they bought them just to go in and be able to test what it was like to serve their soft drinks from a pizza restaurant.

And so if someone was watching what they were doing and trying to mimic what they were doing, or copy what they were doing thinking that they were trying to maximize pizza sales or restaurant store sales, then well they would have made all kinds of mistakes because this company, they were just testing. They didn't care, I mean the size of the Pepsi company was so large that whether they made or lost money, whether this restaurant chain went out of business, made absolutely no difference whatsoever to them. They were after the information. The testing, the results they would get, and so, I know, like in our world, I've heard about people like looking at other folks and looking at what they're doing and just assuming that what they're doing is working. Or there's, you know, there's good rational thought behind it when, first you don't know what the numbers are, you don't know how successful they are, and you don't know why they're doing it.

They could have an offer that's just setting up a different offer, they could have an offer that's just positioning a different offer, they could just be simply testing something. They could be looking for experience in the market. So I know, in like, in my business we're always testing stuff. Just because you see me doing something doesn't necessarily mean a) that it works and, b) that it's a good idea. I could be doing it for a completely different reason than to maximize, whatever, you would be looking to maximize in your business.

So just be really careful about looking. Just because someone appears to have their act together, they've got a nice looking website, they have a nice looking sales page, they have a good-looking video, don't assume that it's successful. And don't even assume that they are going after the same thing you're going after. You know, I guess with the position I have in the market, a lot of people are looking at what I do and they just assume that I've got some magical Mida’s touch and everything I do is going to work out great. And they should copy everything I do – No. We're testing nonstop. I mean, that's part of my job – to test, to innovate, figure out what works, and then I teach it from that standpoint.

So be very, very careful who you're copying and who you're mimicking in your business and your marketing.

I'm Jeff Walker, wherever you're watching this, scroll down, leave a comment for me, and let's go get him this week.