Episode 383： Why Business Plans Don't Work For Most
Episode Stats
Words per minute
181.13208
Harmful content
Hate speech
1
sentences flagged
Summary
Most people write a business plan on January 1st, but by February 13th, they are no longer looking at their business plan. Why? Because they don't even look at it anymore. In this episode, I challenge you to pull up your business plan and see if you are on track to hit your goals this year.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
So I want to challenge you to do something very difficult today.
00:00:19.640
I've been in the financial industry for a long time and one of the scariest things for your
00:00:24.640
clients to do in the investment world is to get them to actually look at their statements.
00:00:31.600
I don't want to look at my 401k statement, why not?
00:00:34.620
Because after what happened in 2008, I'm just worried, market tanked and I don't even want
00:00:39.820
Why don't you want to look how much money I have?
00:00:43.800
I don't want to go get a blood that I haven't done it for 10 years.
00:00:45.840
What if something bad comes out of it, you know?
00:00:49.480
Okay, so to everybody who's watching this, who created a business plan with new year
00:00:54.920
resolutions on January 1st, 2019, and you wrote a business plan in the last week of 2018 or
00:01:02.780
December of 2018, I want you to go pull up your business plan, okay?
00:01:09.020
I want you to pull it up and I want you to look at it.
00:01:12.280
And then I want you to mark off what percentage of the numbers that you thought you'd be hitting
00:01:18.380
in September, you're on track to hitting in 2019.
00:01:22.560
Then ask yourself, as of right now, am I on track to hit my goals?
00:01:27.080
Now, most people are going to say, Pat, I'm not.
00:01:32.320
I mean, it's only, and by the way, the way I measure my goals are percentage.
00:01:37.100
So if you said you're going to do $100 million, you only did, you know, $58 million, you hit
00:01:43.740
If you said you're going to do $10 million, you did $6.2 million, that's 62%.
00:01:52.780
The idea is to get your goals that you hit to be above 80%, okay?
00:02:00.540
By the way, if you did anything above 150%, you probably got a little bit of luck on your
00:02:04.860
side this year, one or two clients, or you underestimated what you could do.
00:02:09.360
But regardless of what it is, most people who look at their business plans, first of all,
00:02:15.020
But if you do look at your business plan, you're not going to be happy about it.
00:02:18.940
You're going to sit there and you're going to say, oh my gosh, I don't want to look at
00:02:26.580
It's going to be the same thing again, and again, and again, and again.
00:02:30.580
And then eventually, you become one of those people that says, I don't believe in business
00:02:37.620
That's why you don't believe in business plans.
00:02:44.580
Because when you write business plans, and they don't become a reality, and you're excited
00:02:48.940
on January 1st, by February 13th, you are no longer looking at your business plan.
00:02:54.440
Because those who run companies, publicly traded or raise money, they can't run a business
0.90
00:03:00.500
You're measuring money regularly, if not on a monthly basis, weekly basis, daily basis.
00:03:09.020
How you treat your 2020 as if today is January 1st of 2020.
00:03:19.020
Anytime I see somebody that's killing it in business, and they're doing very good.
00:03:22.860
Say they're doing 5 million a year, 10 million a year, whatever the number is.
00:03:25.860
But I notice some very bad habits are being picked up.
00:03:30.340
You don't see the bad habits for three to six months on the numbers and performance.
00:03:36.820
When someone's doing really good and their business looks like this, but all of a sudden
00:03:40.120
they see a bad habit, and immediately nothing changes in their business, they're thinking
00:03:49.620
You know what else shows up three to six months later?
00:03:55.140
Three months from now is Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year's.
00:04:00.140
What if you write a business plan now for the rest of the year?
00:04:03.660
I know it's only three and a half, four months of the year, but what if you write a business
00:04:08.900
What if you get clear about what you're going to do for the rest of the year, and you stick
00:04:12.000
to it, and you look at it every single flipping week, and you divide it by 12 weeks or 11 weeks
00:04:18.380
or 10 weeks, then you map out your 2020 business plan and say, here's what I'm going to be
00:04:24.960
But the greatest thing about the way you would write your 2020 business plan is you're already
00:04:29.320
going into 2020 with the right momentum because you started today.
00:04:32.780
So simple challenge, one, go print out your business plan.
00:04:46.580
You're going to be like, I cannot believe I thought I was going to do this, and I haven't
00:04:52.780
I'm so excited about 2020, and I've been planning out for 2020 since 2015.
00:04:59.940
I mean, I've been thinking about 2020 for a while, but for some of you guys who haven't,
00:05:05.760
if you start getting prepared for it now, you'll have an edge over everybody else.
00:05:10.000
Write out your business plan for the next three and a half, four months, three months, and
00:05:15.160
then when you go into 2020, you'll start off 2020 strong with January because you had
00:05:20.860
a killer December, a killer November, an incredible October with a ton of momentum starting in
00:05:27.380
September, and then be ready to have a killer 2020 because you're developing great habits
00:05:32.380
Thanks, everybody, for listening, and by the way, if you haven't already subscribed to
00:05:38.640
Give us a five-star, write a review if you haven't already, and if you have any questions
00:05:42.520
for me that you may have, you can always find me on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube.
00:05:47.580
Just search my name, Patrick MidDavid, and I actually do respond back when you snap me