Do you have a plan B?

Below is a response I gave to an old client of mine.  Let me catch you up on what led to this.  I found them getting into a panic cycle and reaching out to me about every 6 months.  They weren’t ready to commit to getting help for the problems they were having so I gave them this advice that I believe will benefit you as well.

What is it that causes you to panic every couple of months?  Maybe instead of just looking at strategies to improve your situation “NOW”, you may want to consider strategies that would put an end to the panic situations popping up.

Here’s what I’ve found that causes this type of panic for most people…

They find themselves in a cycle of up and down in the business. A bit like a wave coming in with business and then going out with the work. As the waves get bigger, something shifts in the business and they have a harder time focusing on bringing in more sales. Business is up and down and up and down and it’s never stable. This creates times of panic as things are down and so we tend to focus on bringing it back up again. The trick is planning for these times.

Some people will confuse planning for these times with focusing on something bad happening in the business. While they are easily confused, understand that there is a very clear difference. If you know your business runs in cycles, plan for the cycle. Having an action plan for day-to-day operations is critical to your success, but having an action plan for bad times is an absolute must!

Think about pilots for a minute. They plan and plan for a spectacular flight each and every time. But what we don’t realize is that they have hours and hours of constant training on what to do when something goes wrong. In their case, they may only have seconds to adjust course, fix a problem, or communicate countermeasures with their entire team. They don’t have time to waste coming up with a plan or panicking. So have a plan A for day-to-day and more importantly, create a plan B for those rough times that may make you panic. It will change everything in your business to always have a plan B handy if you are willing to implement it.

And here’s a little secret… Some of the most successful business leaders in the world have kept a plan B and even plan C and D in their desk for years. The minute plan A was clearly not the correct course, they whipped out plan B and went to that.