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