The Power of Having a Plan A | 019

Sharon, welcome to the profit connections Podcast. I'm Sharon Galluzzo, your host, and I'm so glad that you're joining me for this episode, because we're going to talk about something that happens to business owners every single day, probably, if you're lucky, once a week, and sometimes maybe just once a month or once a quarter. However, if you're in business, it's going to happen the unexpected. Something is going to come into your business, into your life, into your space that you weren't quite ready for. And then what do you do? You go into reaction mode. Right? Reacting is something that will actually keep you stuck in your business, because you are not moving proactively. If you are reacting, then you can't move proactively. You're not moving towards the problem and towards solving it. So I want to talk a little bit about why it happens, what you can do and how why it happens. Of course, it's unexpected, so I don't know why it happens. However, there are areas in your business where unexpected things happen frequently. There are things that are not quite right in maybe your customer service area, or the way you're delivering your service, or the way that your vendors are are providing your products, ordering systems, processes, something in there. There's there are repeatable patterns in your business that you keep just fixing and moving on. You fix it in the moment, and then you don't plan for when it happens again. So we're going to talk a little bit about, how do we deal with the unexpected and and how can we put ourselves in a power position to move forward when those things come up, because they come up all the time. I mean, if your day feels like you are putting out fires all the time. Let's change that. Let's talk about it, and let's put some give you some tools and put some power back in your hands for those times. So what happens whenever you are in a business where things are routinely, often or frustratingly big, where these unexpected things happen, you actually will go into survival mode. If you're in survival mode, you are just putting out the fire. You are moving in in fight or flight, right? Because when survival is fight flight, there's also freeze and Fauci some people are freeze. I actually myself can go into freeze whenever I am in a stressful situation. So when you're in survival mode, when you have reverted back to the part of your brain and your body that is in fight or flight or freeze, you're going to be making decisions from a place of weakness, from a place of desperation, from a place of I just need this to fix. I to be fixed. I just need it to work right now. And so that actually will keep you stuck, because you're now no longer now operating in your higher brain. You're not operating in the things that you know to do. You are just surviving. And sometimes this is for a small period of time, sometimes it's just an incident, sometimes it's chronic. And so what I am encouraging you to do today is look at your business. Look at those places where it frequently happens. And let's start there, because you can't always plan for the unexpected. However, you do know in your business where those weak spots are, and you do know where those things happen all the time, where it's like every single time, every time this happens, or it works once, and then it won't work again. You know what those things are. So take a mount moment jot down two or three things, or maybe that one big area in your business where it just feels like all you do is put out fires. And let's talk about how can you put a process in place so that you can actually instead of being in survival mode, instead of fighting, instead of running away, instead of freezing in place, that you actually are moving and taking positive action to resolve that situation. So the thing that I have found in any mode of life, in anything that goes on, whether it's business, whether it's personal, whether it's taking care of children, whether it's raising your husband or your wife, whatever it is where, whether it's interpersonal relationships with friends or family, any area in your life, it. You can establish what I call a plan A, you actually can be more successful in those things almost every time. Because what I've found is if you will actually work towards creating a plan A, and I'll talk about what I mean by that in a minute. However, if you will put yourself in a position to create a plan A for those areas in your business where fires creep up, you are much more likely to be able to resolve it more quickly and to figure out what to do in Plan B and Plan C and Plan D. However, if you have no plan at all, you're more likely to melt down, to be frustrated, to, like I said, slip back into those survival, fight, flight or freeze habits. So what I mean by plan, and I'll tell you the this is actually where I it became crystal clear to me, and it was a long time ago, I was actually teaching. I was teaching preschoolers at church, and I I would have a lesson plan, and sometimes I would just like, wing it. I'd go in and I'd wing it. And then those other weeks I would go in and I'd be like, Okay, this is the lesson. And I planned it all out, and I know what's going to happen. Well, let me tell you that those days that I went in to wing it, everybody was crying. It was a hot mess. Everybody was just, you know, who's upset and who's crying and who touched who and who looked at the other person and me, I forgot. I forgot pieces of the lesson that I was supposed to bring whenever I went in to wing it. It just fell apart. However, I realized that when I prepared really well, that even when things went sideways, say the service took longer than normal, or there was some kind of an emergency or something happened in the classroom, that if I had a really solid plan, and I knew what was supposed to happen because I knew where we were going. I was really easy to bob and weave. It was really easy to well, I'm going to change this to this thing over here, and we're going to make it work this way. And I still got to the objective. I still got where I was going because I knew where I was going, and I had laid out steps to get me there. And every time that I was well prepared, it didn't matter if something went wrong, and if I was not prepared at all, then if something went wrong, then it was just a disaster all the way around. And I took that lesson that I learned working with small children, into every aspect of my life and into my business, and realize that when I prepared and had a plan A if this is this is the objective we want to get to, and if this happens, then we're going to do this, This and this. So whenever something happens in your business that is unexpected, let's say that it's a customer service thing, because I think that's an area where we really can have a lot of unexpectedness, right? Because we don't know how they're going to respond. So whenever you are looking at a customer service plan

a the first thing that you need to do is you need to decide, what is the culture that I'm creating for my customers. And you know, we don't really think about this. Sometimes we we just go, Well, we're just going to treat them like family. Well, that doesn't necessarily mean to your customers, what it means to you. So really think about what is that culture that you want to have in your business, and how do you want the customer to feel when they come in? How do you want them? What do you want their experience to be like, and how do you want them to feel when they leave? So whether that's a physical business or an online business, it doesn't matter, because the customer experience is universal. When customers come to you, they have an experience. So you need to figure out, what do you want that experience to be? And the first piece is, what is the culture? If you want them to come in and sit down and feel relaxed and take their time. That's one kind of culture. If you want them to stand and be very efficient and come in and take care of everything and then leave. That's another type of culture. If it's online, do you want to send them through a very beautiful landing page and having you know, learn about you and learn about what you're doing and how that kind of experience, if you wanted them to come in online and you want to have bullet point, bullet point, bullet point, all of these things are acceptable. You need to decide what it is that you want to create in your business. What is the culture that you want your customers to experience? So. So the first thing that you need to do is you would need to figure out what is that culture, and then you need to define the steps that they'll go through. Will they, you know? Will they have to give their name and their address and their telephone number? Will they have to describe what it is that they want, or do they pick off of a menu, or whatever that experience is. If it's a restaurant, you are they? Is it a sit down restaurant? Do they order at the counter? Do you have a wait step? What is that customer experience like? What is the process that they're going to go through and make it the same every time, and make it the same no matter who is servicing that client. Because what happens a lot in customer service is they will get, they will sometimes get different levels of service from one person to another person. So if you can put in a plan, a an actual process that every customer goes through every single time they interact with your business, then you will be able to have that solid plan. A this is amazing and powerful for so many reasons. Number one, it teaches the client what's going to happen when they interact with you. If it's the same every time, then they have the confidence to know that they can trust you. It builds their trust. If they get inconsistent service, depending on who's waiting on them, or when what mood you're in, whenever they work with you, then they're going to get inconsistent service, and that actually pulls away the trust. It keeps them from trusting you and wanting to do business with you further. The second thing is that, if you have employees, and even if it's just yourself, you know what to do, everyone gets the same treatment, so that you know if something happened, like, say, you have four steps in your process, and every time you do exactly those four steps, and you do them every time, and then a customer comes by and says, Hey, you didn't do whatever it was you, you didn't provide that service for me. You didn't give me that thing. And you have a four step process that gives them that item on step number three. You know that you did that, you always do it the same way. You always provide that service. Then you know that you have given that to them because they got that on step number three. So you that gives you confidence to be able to stand and say, Hey, let's talk about this. We actually did do that, and this is when we did it, and this is how we did it. So that gives you the power of confidence on your side and knowing that everyone is doing the same thing and that your customer is always getting the same level of service. So that's the real power of a plan in customer service. Now I know we're talking about other areas. It could be other areas in your business. I'm using this as a specific example. So you have you have your culture, you have your process, and it's the same every time, and you always do it the same way. It can be everything in your business. It can be the way you answer the telephone. You can answer your telephone with a four part greeting every single time, good morning. Thank you for calling profit connections. This is Sharon galuzzo, how can I help you that every single time, if you answer your phone every single time the exact same way, then you know that you've provided that level of service that you agreed to provide. So you have your culture, you have the system in place, and then you have the destination like, what is it that you ultimately want your customer to experience when they leave? What is it that you want them to do and when you've done business with them and it's time, did you ask them for a referral? Did you ask them for a testimonial. Did you ask them for whatever it is that will help you build your business further? Based on this the service that they received? Would they like to fill out a Google review? Would they like to fill out another kind of there are a lot of assessments out there that they can fill out and give you, give you a review back on different platforms that you can use for your websites and that kind of thing, if you have a really solid plan A, so this is your plan A, you know your culture. You know what you're going to do. You know what you're going to do after the sale and and a way to to move, you know business, to do business with them again, or to get a referral or testimonial and say a customer comes in and everything you've you've done everything, you have everything, and you're moving in the direction that you're supposed to be moving, and something goes wrong. Well, now you know what they're supposed to experience, right? So let's just say someone comes into your dry cleaning business and. And you have all the processes down. You know exactly what's going to happen, and something unexpected happens. They spill red punch all over the counter, and everything gets stained, and whatever, you know what the experience is supposed to be. You know how that customer is supposed to feel when they leave, so even if something goes wrong, you can still work out whatever was wrong, resolve it, and bring them back to that place. Went before they leave. We had a customer come into our our business one time, and he, unbeknownst to us, was on a very tight deadline. And so he was came in, and he thought he was just going to be able to pick up his package and leave however we needed to do. He needed to provide us with something, and it took us a few minutes to move things to his file and that kind of thing. And so he was very, very upset, because he had in his mind all the things he needed to do. And this was only supposed to take five minutes, and it ended up taking about 15 or 20. And so he was literally pacing back and forth in front of me. I happened to be sitting to the side that day working on taxes, which is, you know, I removed myself when I have to do taxes and numbers, and he was literally pacing, and I could see with every pass, he was getting more frustrated and more angry and more annoyed by this whole process. So I spoke to him, I addressed the situation, I apologized for the delay and for the misunderstanding of how long it was taking, and that did nothing for him. And I know that what I wanted was for him to walk out the door and love the service that he got. So what I did was I actually said to him, this is for your daughter, right? And he said, Yes. And so I when I mentioned his daughter, he suddenly got back into why he had was there in the first place, what his Why was for doing business with us that day. And he started to tell me about his daughter and the event that was coming up, and we chatted about that, and I literally watched his mood just lift. And by putting him back in touch with why he had come to do business with us in the first place, actually reset his mood, and it made

the time go faster. He was a happier camper, and by the time it was finished, he was in a marvelous mood, and was able to walk out instead of being angry, instead of being frustrated, and instead of giving us a bad review, and all of those things, I remembered, what's our culture? What do I want him to experience while he's here? And I took care of what was wrong, adjusted all of that, and then reset him to what his why. And this is a really powerful thing when you are working with your customers, no matter what happens, remember to get them back in touch with why they're there in the first place, because they've come to you not to give you money, not to solve your problems, not to make your business more successful. They come to you because you have a problem that they need solved, or you can. So I said that wrong. They have a problem and you can solve it. They come to you because you have the solution to the problem that they have, and that's why they're there. So remembering that that's our purpose is to solve their problem and the culture, how do I want them to feel? Can actually be your directional guides to help you put that fire out, reset it and get you back to where you wanted you wanted them to be, that experience that you wanted them to have. So that's the power of the Plan A is getting where you want to go. If you already know where that is, then you can actually go to all the other letters of the alphabet and still get to the destination that you have for your business, for that particular item in your business. So I wanted to give you an opportunity to take a minute if you're not driving, if you're driving when you get there, take a minute and think about those areas in your business where you have fires popping up, where things unexpectedly happen. Technology that the that the internet goes out, the computer goes down, that software doesn't work, um, answering the telephone, customer service, vendor situations, where are those places that you have fires that pop up often, where you're in reaction mode, where you're in survival mode? A and sit down and plan out a, Plan A. And it doesn't have to always be A, A, B, C, D, E, F, G. It can be like we talked about, what's the culture? What do you want? You know, what experience do you want your vendors to have with you? What experience do you want to have with them, the people that you're working with, if it's not a good match, do we need to adjust that? Sometimes it can be that you just are not well matched, and you need to adjust that. So figure out what it is you want, what's your culture, what do you want the experience to be for all of the parties, and what? Ultimately, what do you want to get in the end? And if you'll use these pieces to create a plan, a for all of the areas in your business where you have fires. And I'm just encouraging you to do one, just do it for one area in your business and test it out and see if it works. And once you've come up with that plan a put it into action, because we can do all the planning in the world. We can do all the creation in the world. We can do very you know, spend all time make charts, and we can do all kinds of elaborate things in planning and setting things up. But if we do not take the action to implement it in our business. We have spent a lot of time coloring a pretty picture in a coloring book. It's just going to look pretty inside the book. You're going to close the book, and it's going to be worth nothing. So pick an area, get a plan, a put it into action, and when you figure out how that one works. Then pick the next area and having, really having a articulated culture and what you want everyone to experience that comes into contact with your business. In my seven pillars of profit, this is the people pillar, anyone who you interact with is a person that you have to have a a process and a procedure for. Like, what is it that you want all the people that you interact with to experience? What do you want them to leave with? How? How do they? How do they talk about you in the world? Because of the way you interacted with them, that's a really powerful piece that we don't always think about when we are running our businesses. So that's my challenge to you. Pick an area, create a plan, a so that whenever something happens, you have the rest of the letters of the alphabet to move to, in the in the in the in the solution of the of the situation, so that you always end up where you want to be. We you always end up with that end in mind. So thank you for joining us for this episode of profit connections. I encourage you to come to our community. It's called profit connectors dot club. That's profit connectors dot, C, l, u, B. It's a website free to join. Go in. Join. You'll see all of our episodes there, the gifts that we have there for you, gifts, tools and from our from me, from our guests, our guests that we have on the podcast have all that stuff in there. So you can go in there and get all of that information, bios for our guests, ways to reach them. All of that kind of information is in our community. Profit connectors, dot club. I encourage you to go and join the club and be part of our community, and I encourage you to keep showing up your business and your future will thank you, and remember it's your business and your impact. Go make it matter. See you next time you.