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The Problem With Plans

Written by: Rebel Brown

Article Overview: You'd change course rather than fly into a thunderstorm, wouldn't you? Even if that storm wasn't in your flight plan? Markets change, customers change, people change - plans should change too.

The Problem With Plans

Picture this. A big company has one last chance to rise from a serious downturn. But the company has lots going for it.

• An unbelievably loyal customer and market following,
• A game changing innovation,
• A significant demand for exactly that innovation,
• A bit of money to back it.

I watched customer after customer 'light up' as we told our story. We relaunched the company around that game changing solution to widely acclaimed success. In all my years I've never seen customers react so passionately. It was the proverbial Slam Dunk. Within a month of the relaunch, there was $60+M of qualified potential revenue in the pipeline.

Sounds great, right?

Wrong. Six months later the company is facing tougher times than ever.

The new product? It's still there, dying in the corporate gloom.

So what happened?

The Plan happened. There were other factors that played. But most of all, The Plan happened.

The Plan of Record called for the development/enhancement, selling and support of a broad range of products including:

• The best selling product
• The product the best customers want
• The product we have to have to beat the competition
• A custom, new HUGE opportunity
• The game changing product we were launching

The game-changing innovation offered:

• Strong differentiation - as in 'only one of its kind'
• 4-5x the product margins - probably double that
• A residual leasing revenue model - predictable, high margin revenue
• Immediate customer demand - everyone wanted to buy it.

But, since the game changing innovation didn't have revenues (yet) it was allocated a paltry share of The Plan. BTW - company revenues were increasing according to The Plan, but the company was losing more money than ever and draining cash along the way. What does that tell you about the quality of those revenues - and of The Plan?

Even after the launch success, the customer meetings, the pipeline - the plan was still The Plan. The rest, well, let's just say this story doesn't have a fairytale ending.

This company was positioned to soar again. But thanks to The Power of the Plan - this perfectly set up Phoenix crashed and burned before it ever had the chance to fly again.

You'd change course rather than fly into a thunderstorm, wouldn't you? Even if that storm wasn't in your flight plan?

Markets change, customers change, people change - plans should change too.

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Article Tags: company revenues, customer demand, differentiation, downturn, enhancement, game, gloom, innovation, last chance, leasing, li li, loyal customer, money, pipeline, product margins, revenue model, six months, slam dunk, tougher times



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