How to React When
Things Don't Go
Your Way

When things don't go your way, follow a proven plan but stay flexible about how you reach the targets. Most entrepreneurs abandon their plan and chase quick fixes - that's when you gain ground. While they detour, you measure results, make calculated adjustments, and stay on course. Build a plan with five elements: what you want to achieve, why, who you need, what specific actions, and how you'll measure progress. Never stop working your plan - be flexible, but be persistent.

In life and business, you're going to have moments where things don't go your way. You have the option of freezing and letting the issue compound or tackling it head on with a plan. In today's episode, I give you the essential things you need to build an effective plan to stay focused and keep moving forward when things go poorly. Tune in to hear how a solid plan can get you in front of the competition, why you need to be persistent but flexible, and why winging it in the face of adversity is not an option.

What should an effective business plan include?

Five elements: what you want to achieve, why you want to achieve it, who you need on your team, what specific actions need to take place, and a way to measure those actions. Without measurement, you can't distinguish what's working from what's hurting your results. Every area of business and life that matters should have at least one clear plan built around those five questions.

In this Episode:

• Why you have to have a plan to stay focused when things don't go your way
• The essential parts of an effective plan
• Why you need to be measuring your actions against your plan, even when things are going well
• How sticking to your plan can help you get ahead in life and in front of the competition
• What has made me successful, even when things have gone wrong
• Why it's imperative that you're flexible with your plan

Find out exactly what aspect of your company is the current weak link that, if fixed, will help you scale faster and more successfully.

Go to the Growth Checklist and see insights on how to fix everything that might be out of whack and holding your back - for free.

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• Acquisitions Made Easy
• 8 Mistakes I Made Scaling My First Business
• How to Develop a Strong Business Culture

Transcript:

We all look like rock stars, and we all feel great when things are going our way. But in reality, that doesn't happen for anybody every day, including me. I mean there's days or weeks or several weeks in a row where it seems like nothing's going the way I want it to. So it's important to know what to do when things don't go your way and have a plan so you can stay focused and keep moving forward.

It's important in business and in life to understand two things. Number one, we're not in control all the time, no matter how much we wish we were. And number two, we need a plan for what we do when things are not going our way, when we don't make the sale or when employees don't excel like we sort of hoped they would or when people don't show up for key meetings, and when things don't go our way, we need to stick to our plan.

How do you get ahead of your competition when things go wrong?

While they chase shiny objects and look for quick fixes, stick to your plan. That's when you pull ahead. When things don't go your way, the most common thing people do is falter on their plan and abandon it for short-term solutions. But the times I've been most successful were when I followed a proven plan while staying flexible in how I reached the targets - taking calculated risks, measuring results, and getting back on path without losing momentum.

And that's the hardest thing for most people to do, including me. Now we all need to plan in life. Whether that's a plan to exercise to get the kind of body you want or a plan to build a certain amount of revenue in your company, or maybe a plan to have a great relationship with your significant other or your kids or your friends, or a plan to scale to a worldwide brand.

Every piece of your life should have at least one basic plan laid out, including what we want to achieve. Why do we want to achieve it? Who do we need on our team to achieve it? What actions need to take place in order to achieve it? Then finally, we need a way to measure all of our actions so we know that we're on course.

Here's where you get ahead in life: when things don't go our way, the most common thing that people do is they falter on their plan. I mean, we see it every single day, right? And that's when you can pull ahead of your competition. While they're chasing shiny objects and looking for a quick fix for whatever kind of roadblock they just hit, you stick to your plan and get ahead. Now I'm not saying that you should never deter from your plan.

The times I've been most successful have always been times where I followed a proven plan, but been flexible in how I reached those targets. So, being flexible means that you stick to your plan, but you take calculated risks and you measure your results so you could get right back on path without losing a beat, right?

What does flexible persistence actually mean?

Hold the targets firm, stay flexible about the path. Continue doing things that work, stop doing things that are killing your results, take calculated risks, measure results against the plan, and correct before the gap grows. Never abandon the plan when it gets hard - adjust the approach instead. That combination of consistency and adaptability is what separates compounding growth from erratic performance.

You're continuing doing things that work and stopping doing things that are killing your results. That's what we talk about all the time. Successful people understand that. They understand that there's going to be days or weeks or months or whatever when things don't go their way. And during that time, yes, you should be making tweaks to your plan to improve it, but never stop working your plan. Be flexible, but be persistent, and you'll be amazed at what you could achieve in life.

Now, when I wrote my first book, I couldn't get a publisher. No matter how many doors I knocked on, I had to keep telling myself, this is the next stage of your life, Chris. This is the next stage. Figuratively, I had already burned all my boats. So, there was no way for me to get back to my old life.

So, I kept pushing and learning, and I learned how to sell books on my own. That was before eBooks were really, really common. We sold over 60,000 copies in the first 60 days after I made that decision and 319,000 copies in the first year. Then when I went into the health club industry and I was trying to build this profitable company, I had so many things happening that were stunting that, you know, my team wasn't showing up on time, which was one big thing.

How do you stay focused on your plan when adversity lasts months or years?

Understand that setbacks are part of the plan, not exceptions to it. When I was building my health club business, my team wasn't showing up on time, costs were high, and we couldn't break even for close to a decade. But I kept learning, kept pushing, kept improving, never abandoned the plan. Eventually it became successful and we sold it for massive profit - enough to fund several more ventures. Setbacks don't mean you change direction, they mean you stay the course.

I mean, think about this, I'm selling memberships to my health club - not me, actually my salespeople were. We're selling memberships, telling people that we're going to open the doors at 5:00 AM but my team wasn't showing up until 5:15 or 5:30. There were competitors all around me and no matter how hard I worked and no matter how many nights I stayed late after we closed to try to figure out some way to have a better day tomorrow. We still couldn't break even on a regular basis. That lasted for close to a decade.

But I kept learning and I kept pushing and I kept improving and that company became successful but not only successful but also we sold for way more profit, way more than enough profit for me to fund my next several ventures. When things don't go your way, stick to your plan, be flexible, but be persistent.

The coming months will open up far more opportunities for growth than you could ever imagine. If you need help creating your plan for growth, dig into the videos on my channel.

No matter what stage of growth you're at, we all need an unbiased review of what's working and also what might not be working anymore in our business. Because the greatest cause of stagnation in any company, the reason most companies hit plateaus in their growth, is because they fail to see the roadblocks that stop momentum in its tracks.