What do you do when everything falls apart? When your business, marketing or event is making a flushing noise? When things go down the toilet – what’s you Plan B? Developing a backup plan makes it easier to handle difficult decisions and do the smart thing. Here’s how and when to make one.

You’ll probably start with your business plan, event plan, marketing plan, and communications plan. They’re sacred, right? A lot of time and effort by really smart people went into developing them, and you don’t mess with them … ever … never.

When Things are Going Down the Toilet

Wrong! They were put together by mere mortals, so why do we consider changing an event plan, business model or marketing plan a capital sin (gasp) or a failure?

Just imagine the big iceberg scene in the movie The Titanic. The first people off the sinking ship had the greatest chance of survival. The people who clung to the rail and rode the ship down … drowned!

Markets change, consumers and customers change, the weather changes and your own organization changes – yet many, many companies still have no Plan B!!! The hardest decision you as an organizer, event planner or businessperson may ever have to make is when to go to Plan B.  Or go down with the ship.

Corporate Roadkill

Eyes wide, feet frozen to the spot and brain in pause it’s almost like playing dead. You don’t have the luxury of being inactive or reactive – you have to be proactive. No one in her or his right mind waits for a fiasco and then figures out what to do. Even if you’re riding high on your latest success.

Sure last year’s business or event strategy may have worked – BUT. It’s the “but” that gets you. There is a strong tendency to delay any decision to change because of a secret hope that says, “It worked last year, so it will work this year.” Once you attain your desired results, once the performance or attendance begins to flatten out, when sales momentum begins to slow, at the first sign of weakness – go to Plan B.

What’s Your Plan B?

This is where the endless meetings begin, rationalization steps in and people start to line up all those “buts” we talked about. Use current information, data and metrics, and reevaluate. Don’t use last year’s (insert campaign, event, marketing, recruiting or whatever here) to justify your decisions. Don’t just take what you did before, change the design, the stage set or the photography and expect better results.

Once people have heard your message, seen your content and shared the experiences … it’s over. You can’t go back to Plan A because it’s old and used.

Making decisions is tough. In the article, No One is Hired to Make Bad Decisions – Make Smart Choices I talk about how bad decisions happen because it’s too easy to let outside factors cloud the process. The process of developing a backup plan doesn’t generate the results – making the decisions does. Plan B has to be based on a different set of rules and assumptions. Draw the line and stick to it. If the current strategy or plan doesn’t generate measurable results or increases in a realistic period of time, don’t ride down to the bottom.

A Backup Plan Isn’t a Sign of Weakness

I once had a client get in my face and yell, “A backup plan is just planning to fail. We don’t do that around here.” I’m sorry, but I don’t consider do-or-die a viable business model. We all need some creative thinking between the two extremes. Usually, the signs are pretty obvious.

• If you can’t meet production, you need a plan.

• If you can meet KPIs, you need a plan.

• If attendance decreases every year, you need a plan.

• If you don’t have any clear results, you need a plan.

• If it rains, you need a plan.

When to Develop Plan B

The time to develop Plan B is while you are developing your initial plan. Don’t wait, and don’t substitute an outline, notes or rough ideas you intend to flesh out later. You’ll only dig yourself in deeper if your backup plan isn’t ready when you need it.

Develop it, think it through, budget it and establish a timeline. Put it all in writing and have it ready. The process of finalizing a Plan B gives you alternatives and options. My experience proves this is true.  I’ve actually seen clients and producers like Plan B so much they rethought Plan A!

When to Bail on Plan A

• Something has changed that is preventing you from achieving the desired results.

• Your desired results are not still valid and attainable.

• Some parts of your current delivery system still work and others don’t. (The delivery system is the process you use to deliver your product, service, event content … whatever you are offering and the value it provides.)

• Your customer, client, employee or audience needs have changed. They might not find you valuable anymore.

• Your target audience, market or business segment is shrinking or disappearing. This might not be the time to aspire to be the dominant player in the dial-up modem market!

• The current strategy or plan did not generate measurable results or increases in the past 12 months. If it’s flat-line or decreasing, there’s a message here.

New Research Says Andy Johnston is Wrong!

Not long ago two groups at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Wisconsin-Madison came to the conclusion that having a backup plan can destroy motivation. They decided that fear of failure, growing anxiety and spiraling stress are better ways to drive people toward success.

Wham! I had clients jump on this as proof that Andy Johnston is wrong. They don’t need an alternate plan because a group of professors said so. The academic scholars quickly clarified that their research was about coming up with a new goal if your first goal fails. It wasn’t about coming up with other ways to achieve the original goal.

So there’s a big difference between needing a backup plan if you don’t beat your personal best on the Fortnite video game and gambling with your stockholders’ money and the lives and security of your employees. Frankly, a little fear of failure is a good thing. But it won’t save you when things go terribly wrong.

Don’t Wait Too Late

Remember, there is not a step to success called “Determine Why Plan A Failed.” Action is your critical factor. You will have all the time in the world to analyze the failure after you have corrected the situation. Right now, be decisive and act. Waiting until you have lost all your options and opportunities in the name of analysis will only put you back on the deck of the sinking ship.

So don’t be a deer in the headlights … stand on the bow of the Titanic … as a semi-truck barrels down … or a giant iceberg.

So, what’s your Plan B?

Let’s spend 15 minutes talking about your next project or challenge. Just click on CONTACT US or send an email to andy@ideagroupatlanta.com and get in touch.

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