OK, I admit it, I didn’t make this line up. I borrowed it from the “A” Team (the TV show not the movie) but it doesn’t matter where I got it, I DO love it when a plan comes together, don’t you?
As business people, we make plans on a regular basis. We make plans for many different aspects of our careers. Plans are made for sales growth, profitability, customer penetration, order count, collections, and countless other factors. Like so many other things related to sales, our plans usually don’t go as smoothly as we thought they would. In fact many of our plans fall apart before we ever get a chance to implement even the smallest part of the plan.
The good news is, every now and again, every once in awhile, every blue moon we hit it right on the money and a plan comes together not as we planned it, but BETTER than we could have ever dreamed it could.
So what is the difference between plans that fall apart before they ever get started and plans that happen better than expected? NOTHING usually, it is one of the mysteries of sales. Well, because so many plans fall apart and so few come together, does that mean we should stop planning and let whatever happens happen? I HOPE NOT!
If we stop planning we stop looking toward the future. Even if the plan is bad and it falls apart we at least took time to look to what we should be doing. In many cases the end result we are looking for is the right result, it was how we decided to get there that was wrong. So many times one plan that fails leads us right to a better plan. Sometimes the second plan also fails but the result leads us to yet another plan and this progression can go on, plan after plan, until we finally hit upon the plan that leads to success.
Can we stop making plans because most don’t work, come on we are in sales, do you stop making sales calls because someone says NO? We keep going, we are persistent, we dig in deeper with every failure and our resolve gets stronger as we go forward with our sales calls. The same attitude, resolve and commitment needs to be associated with your plans.
One key to success is to make planning like any other part of sales, learn from every failure. As you make a plan think about the plans you have had success with and the plans that have failed. Try to fashion the winning ideas into your new plan and see if you can isolate and remove any losing ideas from your plans.
Now we have hit on another important part of the planning process, write things down! It can be days, weeks, months, maybe years between the time you make a plan and it either failing or succeeding. The details of the plan may be forgotten or become a little “fuzzy” in our memories over time. If we write the plans down in detail we will have them to look back on and decide what we want to keep and what we want to throw away. One part of a plan you decide to throw away today may come in handy at another time with another plan. You don’t want to lose the details, take good precise notes during your planning sessions and keep the notes for reference.
Lastly, don’t compare the success or failure of one plan against another. Different times, different circumstances, different situations will affect how a plan plays out. Look at each plan on its own merits and rate its success or failure on its own merits as well.
I DO LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER! I hope this plan on how to help you make your plans comes together!
Lorin
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