Evan Carmichael argues the fastest path to business success is modeling people who've already won. He shows how Coco Chanel handed out perfume samples to land her first buyer, how Bill Gates got a $7 million IBM deal by bundling software with hardware, and how he went from $300 a month to a $13,500 partnership by copying Microsoft's approach.
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Model success. The fastest way to accomplish any goal, any challenge you have for yourself is to model success. Find people who've already done what you're trying to do and put their strategies to work for you. Otherwise, if you try to think of every new idea yourself, come up with every answer yourself, you're going to keep beating your head against brick walls and not seeing the results that you deserve. For your business. I got a great question from one of my YouTube viewers, Noreen, who's trying to start a cosmetic line and wanted my advice on how to start a cosmetic line. So I haven't started a cosmetic line before, but if I was going into that business, what I would do is try to model success. I would look at who has started some of the most successful cosmetic lines in the business and how did they do it. Not how did they make an extra million dollars now, but how did they start? How did they go from I have an idea for a product and get it into department stores. I look at people like Coco Chanel. How did Coco Chanel get started and what lessons can you learn from her success? I know one of her strategies in the early days was she would go to department stores and hand out samples of her perfume. And when the buyer came and said, what are you doing? And when she saw that everybody seemed to be really liking her perfume, that helped make a deal possible for Coco Chanel where otherwise she couldn't get the chance to open the door. But that's one example. Look at all of these successful cosmetic lines and see how they got started. What were the factors that led to their success? How did they get their first customer? And model them. I remember when I had my first company, I really struggled at the beginning. I was making $300 a month, not enough to survive. Almost gave up repeatedly, and, uh, was willing to try anything. I felt like I tried everything and, and nothing was working out. I had a great product and I couldn't understand why this was so hard because the books I read and the websites I visited and the shows I watched, everything seemed to be so easy. Like, follow these 8 steps and you'll be successful. Well, I followed those 8 steps a million times and I wasn't successful. And one of the big breakthroughs for me came when I realized that I wasn't the first guy to try to do this before. My first company was a software company, and I had no background in software before, apart from using, you know, a computer, but I wasn't a software designer. And the breakthrough moment came when I did realize that I'm not the first guy to try to sell software before, and I went and I modeled some of the largest and most successful software companies in the world, and one in particular was Microsoft. And again, I don't care how Bill Gates makes money now, but how did he go from nothing, from that idea, to getting his first customer? What did he do? What did he say? What were his actions? What was his mindset? Who did he need to connect with? And I took those strategies and applied them to my business, and I finally started to see results. For him, it was through partnerships. So he made partnerships. He had software, he partnered with hardware companies. His big deal came with IBM, was a $7 million deal, that first one with IBM that really put the company on the map. But before that, he still made partnerships with other hardware companies and they sold their products as a bundle. And so I applied that strategy and within the first month I closed my first partnership deal and I made $13,500. Now that may not seem like a lot of money to you, $13K, but to me, I'm making $300 a month, this was like eureka. Oh my God, I struck it rich. This is amazing. Somebody actually believes in what I'm doing. I'm seeing some positive momentum finally after all this failure and struggling. And I just kept copying that again and I applied it again and again and again and closed more partnerships and more partnerships and continued to grow my business and eventually got acquired by someone who was a potential partner. They loved us so much that they wanted to buy my business. And I wish I had discovered it earlier. I wish I discovered the strategy so much earlier. Because I almost shut down, like I almost quit my business and thought maybe I should listen to my friends and go back and get a job. And I'm so grateful that I didn't, but I came close many times to having to do that. And so if you're struggling with your business right now, if you don't have a lot of experience in, in the field and it's a first-time thing for you, you can't get this thing off the ground, model success. Find someone who has done it, who's had success in your field. Look at the cosmetic lines companies, see how they did it, learn from their mistakes so you don't have to make all the mistakes yourself. And you crunch down your learning curve, so instead of it taking you years and years and years to achieve success, you can do it a lot faster because you're modeling things that work. So I've never had success in the cosmetic field, but I could have it. And to do it, I just modeled the people who've had a lot of success doing it. Apply the strategies and make it work for me, and it can work for you too. Believe. For those of you watching, you like the video, please give it a thumbs up below. It always makes me want to do more for you, and I love seeing your comments come in. They really make a difference for me and give me a strong impact every time I read them in the morning. So please leave a comment below. If you have a question, leave it underneath. I'll make a video response. Thank you so much, and I'll see you soon.
