You may have heard about Tesla’s recent “Oops” moment during a live demonstration of the new Cybertruck. While demonstrating how tough the vehicle was, and more specifically the “Armor Glass”, the demonstration didn’t go as planned.
Elon Musk asked Tesla’s lead designer, Franz von Holzhausen to throw a solid metal, baseball-sized ball at the driver side window … and the window shattered … twice. You can read the full story here.
I feel Tesla’s pain. While I’m not an auto manufacturer, I do enjoy hunting. Each year my father and I make plans to get that big buck, but often things don’t go according to plan. This year, we’ve spent more than two-and-half months in the woods, and neither one of us have bagged the big one yet.
In the same way, sometimes in business things don’t go as planned. One of our owner’s (Chad Ritterbusch) favorite quotes is “Plans are worthless, but planning is essential.” The point being that the activity of planning is extremely helpful for a business. It helps organize your thoughts, strategies and tactics. But when the real-world hits, that plan (and you) may need to adapt. When everything is too rigid, it’s difficult to succeed.
This is just one of the reasons why we always encourage clients to maintain flexibility in their marketing plans. It helps ensure your efforts can expand or contract based on changing market conditions, available opportunities, and current business dynamics.
So, when things go wrong, or simply don’t turn out the way you expected, our best response is to assess and address the new reality, then adapt your plans.
