How Prepared Are You For The Unexpected?

TRANSCRIPT

TRANSCRIPT AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED In the last couple of weeks my internet has cut out 4 times. Okay. It's cut out more than four times, but it's cut out at full really crucial times. And I want to walk you through this experience to really demonstrate something that I think we're not paying enough attention to as entrepreneurs. So the first time my internet died. It was at that key moment in a sales call where the person has said to you, what's the investment. And as I began to say, my number on her screen, she saw me freeze on my screen. I carried on talking for another two minutes before I realized something was really wrong. I peeked over at my router, my internet light, completely dead. So I did what we do with all technology. I turned it off and turned it back on again. As it began to reboot itself, which seemed to take for ever, I was sitting there thinking, Oh my gosh, will the prospective client be sitting in the meeting room for me? Will they be notified? Has zoom completely killed the meeting room? Do they think I just hung up on them? Do they think I'm coming back? This is taking forever. So I jumped back into the call, apologized profusely, and we continued the conversation. I didn't really think that much of it. Right. We all know tech and internet can be a bit of a pain in the butt and occasionally these things will happen. the second time it happened came as just as much of a surprise to me. I was doing a five. Interview podcast, batch day. And in, I think it was my first interview of the day with a new friend. We've been social media friends for a long time. And this was the first time we were meeting in person, so to speak. We were about half an hour into our chat and suddenly everything on my screen had frozen. And again, it was this internet. And so while it was rebooting and doing its thing, I spent that time kicking myself for not having prepared for this, because this was the second time it was happening. Like what on earth? I had allowed this to happen. It looks incredibly unprofessional that you're in the middle of an interview with someone and you can't connect and. I'm using a different software than I was using on the sales calls. And now I'm like, I don't know, is my software going to kick them out? Will they still be in the room? Have they been booted out? This is taking forever. The same kind of panic was setting in all over again. We logged back on. She was incredibly graceful. I was incredibly flustered. So now I'm halfway through an interview with someone trying to remember where we left off. The last thing I heard them say, plus also just feeling completely mortified that this has happened. Fortunately, this person's also a podcaster, so they could empathize with where I was sitting. And so we managed to pick up and carry on. And five minutes later, I did it again. Okay. Irish level, like full Magellan at this point, I don't know if she noticed I'm sure she did, but the rest of the interview, I was incredibly flustered. I was worried that the internet was going to cut out again, That we weren't going to have a recording of the full episode. I was thinking about from a tech perspective, how I was going to piece together six different recording. Cause my software records who assigned in my side separately. So we'd had three different recordings and they were all going to have to get patched together and matched and timing. then I'm worrying that. I'm not doing her justice because she hasn't had that full flow of an interview. So, I guess the first time could have been a blip the second time. And the third time was a clue to me that something was going wrong. We had moved from it's possible. I might not have internet to it's now probable, that internet is going to go out and another important call for me. And I was right. It's a three hour VIP day. The internet did the exact same thing again. However, what was different this time was that I had warned the client when we started that I was having internet issues and that if anything happened, all she needed to do was stay in the room and I would be back as quickly as possible. So when it happened, I quietly rolled my eyes to myself, said some four-letter words to my router and waited for it to start itself up again. When we resumed, it was a very different feeling for me. I was back. I was calm. I was in control. We were able to laugh about it happening. I had been able to plan what I needed to have happen. And so my response in that moment moved from being panicked into calm and collected and able to think through what I was going to need the minute it happened. I quickly wrote a note to myself about what we had been discussing right before it happened, so that I would be able to get back on the call and say, I'm so sorry. Here's where we were. Let's pick up again and keep rolling. So I had a plan in place in case it happened again, while I waited for the broadband engineer to come out, turns out. That the only thing that was wrong with my broadband was a slightly faulty connection to the line outside. So we have to suck it on the wall. It had got a little bit old, a little bit worn out, and it was a little bit wobbly. And so every time he big truck or heavy traffic Paust outside my apartment, it would vibrate a little bit and disconnect and reboot. And I told you this, not because you care about why my internet wasn't working, but because I want to show you how tiny the actual issue was. I think a lot of the time in business, when we're thinking about these things that can go wrong, we think everything has to be massive, but no, actually something really small and something really simple to fix could create massive problems for you in your business. So I want to invite you to think about if you were in my situation, what would you do now? can I have a stop the internet going on again? No, but I can assess how likely that is to happen and whether or not I want to have a plan and you best believe that it is now included in the introduction to any podcast interview that I do that says, Hey, if the internet goes out on your side or my side, just stay in the room or come back as quickly as you, can, because here's the deal. I did not have a plan. And so this is what experience has taught me. Those are really your two options. Either you make a plan or experience will be your teacher. And I think a lot of the time, we don't want to think about what could go wrong. And I think a lot of the time we think we're too small for something big to go wrong. Coming up in the next few weeks, I'm going to be talking to several entrepreneurs about what went wrong in their business. What experience taught them because they did not have a plan for these things. We all have reasons to not think about the potentially difficult stuff in our business, but I'm sharing these stories with you not to. Make you afraid not to give you anxiety, not to make you panic, but to show you that this is a much more common experience than we think, because often these are not shared publicly. And this is a big name who we can't really relate to. A lot of the time these things happen behind closed doors. I just want to open that door and show you that, yes, all of these things happen. Yes. All of these entrepreneurs have survived it, but I want you to ask yourself when you're listening to those stories, could this happen to me? If it did, would I know what to do and how much time and energy is this taking from running my business from staying in my zone of genius, because I want us to talk about not just all the highlight reel, pretty Instagram feed stuff. I want us to talk about some of the stuff that's happening behind the scenes in businesses that people don't often share. And don't often want to look at. So I'm going to challenge you to really stick with it as I share these stories. And I want you to keep saying to yourself, I can make a plan or experience can be my teacher. If you've listened to this episode and you're thinking. Oh, this is kind of scary. I want to invite you to make a plan for the things that you can't plan for by joining my live workshop on May 18th. I'm going to talk you through what a crisis is and why it's not what you expect. I'm going to introduce you to entrepreneurs, just like you. Who've had things happen in their business, and we're going to walk you through how they survived it and what they would do now. And we're going to talk about my simple step-by-step process to build a plan for the things that you can't plan for so that you have peace of mind when your head hits the pillow or the issue hits the fan Head to Dianemayor.com/plan


While we prefer not to think about the things that can go wrong, as CEOs can we really ignore them completely?

Key Takeaway

Behind the pretty Instagram feeds and closed doors, thing go wrong more than you think. And now you know so now you can plan.

In This Episode

  • What my embarrassing tech troubles can teach you
  • Why it’s important to hear stories like this
  • What ask yourself when you do

You're Invited To Save YOUR Business

Join my FREE live “You're One Crisis Away From Losing Your Business” workshop and make a plan for the things that you can't plan.

We're going to walk through:

  • What a crisis really is (and why it's not what you think)
  • Real-world examples that have happened to entrepreneurs just like you (because you're secretly thinking this stuff only happens to bigger businesses and celebreneurs)
  • A simple step-by-step process to build a plan for the things you can't plan for so that you have peace of mind when your head hits the pillow or the sh!t hits the fan.