Businesses both large and small spend a large amount of time executing their plans. Be they marketing, social media, sales, or business plans. If these plans – finely tuned and crafted – have the latest information, the correct assumptions, and proper resources in place, then their execution should lead to success. The key word being “should”.
When the plan is put into action the unforeseeable becomes seen. This is part of additional forces that can place great pressure on the business to stay the course or make changes. There are many success stories about business that persevere with their vision, as there are those that tell about how a business corrected course at just the right time. What are an executive, entrepreneur, and/or business owner to do? When they are under pressure should they stay the course or change? How do they know? When should they give up?
Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain. – Karl Von Clausewitz
Know Where Your Emergency Exits Are
If you have flown on a plane and actually pay attention to the safety information during the taxing of the aircraft, then you know they mention how many exits the aircrafts has. The key point that they try to get across is that in some cases the nearest exit may actually be right behind your seat, so you should take a look around. Do you know where your exits are in your plans?
If some of you are even thinking about using the failure to reach a metric or milestone… well you are partly there. Those are measurement tools, like a speedometer in a car, and as such can only give you information about progress. What metrics cannot do is make a decision for you.
Successful companies that know when to persevere or when to change course have metrics in their plans too. They also do something that most other businesses do not do: they create exits in their plans. These help prevent “golden cow” mentalities to built and create a culture of accountability. It keeps the business focused on the execution of the plan and nimble to adjust as needed.
Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference. — Karl Von Clausewitz
How To Build A Plan With Exits
Every business can have a plan with exits. One of the keys is to have metrics or milestones. It is important to note that metrics and milestones are nothing more than measurement tools that tell you about the progress of your business. They help provide you, the owner/executive, with information to make a decision: stay the course or head for the exits.
There are two other key components that must come first in your plan before you even make your metrics. The first is researching everything you possibly can and have a firmly built foundation for your business assumptions. The second is role-play.
Let’s get the boring one out of the way first – research. Boring and yet so incredibly important that most first time entrepreneurs and small business owners do not do enough of it: research. Weather it comes from the fear of making the wrong assumptions or afraid of what the research will tell them, many businesses do not do enough of it. Get over yourself and dig deep. Ask anyone and everyone questions about your products/services and markets. Realize that you will not know everything but work effortlessly in trying to. Your business and the plan you build will be ahead – way ahead – of the competition.
Now for the fun stuff: role-play. This is not Dungeon & Dragons where you are going to roll dice (although you could if you wanted to); instead it is a safe and financially secure way to test your plans. In essence you are asking your plan and decision makers a series of “what if’s”. What if your business makes more money than expected in the first month? What if your business does not make money in three months? What happens if your business just meets quota? etc. These series of questions work best when you role-play out the different scenarios. It helps your decision makers see where opportunities arise and it can even test the validity of your metrics. Role-play will also help you establish when and where to place your exits.
One More Quarter To Go
2010 is coming to close rather rapidly. The third quarter will quickly be over and the last quarter upon your business. If you are still executing the same plan and are not seeing the results you want… when are you going to quit?
Pull your plan out of the drawer and dust it off. Are you even following it or doing what you normally do? If it is not even in use what is the purpose of making one anyway for your business?
Use this last quarter to put what is written here into practice. Your business will thank you, you will thank yourself, and you will learn how to make smarter decisions.
