“Plan B? We don’t HAVE a Plan B!” I said, sounding exasperated to my business partners. We were to have our big event in less than two weeks.
You see we only had about 13 registered people for our Green Entrepreneur Summit: Scaling Up Without Selling Out and we were concerned we would not fill the event, the first of it’s type in NYC. What message would THAT send to the world that there were not enough Green Entrepreneurs interested in scaling up.
Some of the members of our team wanted a Plan B in case our goal of 40 attendees did not happen. And I could certainly understand why. We’d invested a lot of time and energy and what if things did not turn out? How to we manage the project?
But more importantly, how do we manage our breakdown? After all we had our venue, co-sponsors and speakers all lined up for the event. It would be a real bummer, to say the least, if we only have 13 attendees.
“And I don’t WANT a Plan B,” I continued with my partners. “Because if we have one, that is the plan that will most likely end up happening.”
And that is how we began managing our breakdown. No Plan B.
The Summit last week ended up being a success. Even after getting a new venue double the size, we had about 30 people showing up the day of the Summit trying to get in because we sold out online the day before. Security stopped letting people upstairs as our standing-room-only event was breaking fire code laws for the building.
And that doesn’t include the 58 people watching the event live via our internet streaming video channel.
How people manage breakdowns can be quite telling in how successful they end up being in business.
Here is the cool thing about breakdowns: they can often times lead to breakthroughs in how you are doing something.
But it takes something from you to make that happen.
Here are some ways people manage breakdowns:
- Roll over and play dead—usually giving up and saying that is the best you can do.
- Panic—everything is going to be ruined and you’re all doomed.
- Collapse the situation—when one or two things are not working as planned or expected, and you say nothing is working.
- Roll with it—as things happen and expectations are not met, you quickly address and reassess where you are before moving forward. This takes focus and commitment to the outcome you most desire.
Depending on which method you tend to use, there may be a better way. The best people I’ve seen that manage breakdowns are those that use the following steps in managing breakdowns:
- Declare a Breakdown—this is quite powerful and gets you focused on what is really happening. The admission of a breakdown allows you to hit the “reset” button. More on this in a moment.
- Ask the Right Questions—most people do NOT ask powerful or appropriate questions when dealing with breakdowns. For example, if you only have 13 registrations for your event, instead of asking, “What is Plan B?”, ask, “What is the quickest and fastest way to get at least another 40 registrations in 14 days?”
- Narrow Possible Solutions to Three—come up with as many answers to your “right question(s)” and then narrow the choices down in order to pick your strategy.
- Define “Go”/”No-Go” Point—while not having a Plan B works for some people, it is important to be UnReasonable and responsible. Make sure you have metrics set up to monitor progress on your project.
- Don’t Look Back—once you decided to go forward with your adjusted strategy, don’t question yourself along the way. Keep moving forward. Use your metrics you defined in Step 4 to guide you. Doubting your decision will derail you faster than you know.
- Play Full Out—Once you decide to go, make sure you put everything you have into your choice. Otherwise, more-than-likely you’ll end up back in the same place you started.
When we started by declaring our breakdown by only having 13 signups and we may not make it, we acknowledged our situation. Kind of like the words, “Houston, we have a problem!”
And once acknowledged, it creates a clean slate from which to operate. That your current plan is not working and that you need to recreate a new one ASAP.
Try it with your next breakdown. Perhaps you’ll have standing room only results as well.
Action Steps for the Week
To get a clear understanding on how you tend to manage breakdowns, take a look at the last two or three you’ve had:
- How did you manage them? Which of the above-mentioned ways did you use?
- What did you do well in the breakdown?
- What can you do better next time?
To drill down into this a bit deeper, take a look at one breakdown in your life that you handled really, really well. What did you do differently than you normally do?
Next, take a look at something in your business that is heading towards breakdown (or already there).
What is the “what’s so” about the breakdown? The facts, not emotions of what is going on. Remove the emotions.
Does it make sense to declare a breakdown? If not, why not? Make sure you are clear on this.
Otherwise hit the “reset” button and declare a breakdown. Then ask yourself a powerful question on what is the fastest, easiest, most inexpensive, etc. way to get what you want as your desired goal.
Lastly, monitor the results with your go/no-go metrics defined and in place.
