Roadmaps Are an Evolution, Not an Achievement

Imagine you’re going on a road trip — but in the days before smartphones and dash navigation, back when you had to print out directions from MapQuest.?

You hit the road and everything is going according to plan. But then, halfway to your destination, you run into a problem. A bridge is closed for repairs, and they’ve shut down the interstate!?

Even though you followed the directions perfectly, something happened outside your control that you couldn’t have seen coming. And now, you’re stuck.?

It’s time to make a decision. You can either stick to your original roadmap and wait for the interstate to reopen, no matter how long it takes. Or you can set a new course and continue on your journey.??

On a road trip, the right choice seems obvious. We assess the situation and chart a new path.?Maybe ask for directions?

But when we experience roadblocks in business, the correct decision isn’t always so clear.?

We’ve set a definite goal and created a roadmap to get us there. But then the business climate changes, the economy shifts, or we experience a global pandemic that shuts down our entire industry.?

Whatever the obstacle, we still need to reach our destination. So what happens to our roadmap??

The Major Misconception of a Roadmap

The major misconception of setting a roadmap is the belief that it must be static.?

When a roadmap stops working, business owners often come to one of two conclusions:?

They believe that somewhere along the way they didn’t follow it correctly and blame themselves, or they believe that the original roadmap was flawed.?

Either way, the assumption that a roadmap is not dynamic fails to take into account the changing conditions around a business. In reality, you may have followed a perfectly good roadmap, and followed it exactly as you should have.?Expect a change in plans and know how to re-navigate.

The roadmap that gets you to your destination as efficiently as possible is the roadmap that evolves.?

Symptoms of a Static Roadmap

When I describe this concept to business owners, many don’t believe that they view their roadmaps as static. When we take a deeper look, though, we start to recognize just how easy it is to fall into this trap.?

Here are some common phrases I’ve learned to watch out for:

“We need to get back to serving our old customers.”

Sometimes we believe the cause of all our troubles is that our customer base has changed.?

For example, in the pandemic, many of us had to shift our businesses to serve new clients. But now that business is picking up again, there’s a sense we need to get back to selling to our old customers.?

We say things like, “We’ve been selling to the wrong people,” or, “I’m looking for our old customers, but they aren’t there anymore.”

But that’s not the whole truth. The real issue is that you want to keep your old roadmap’s definition of your customers. You’re trying to force your new customers to adjust to your old roadmap without taking into account that the world is different now.?

You can stick to your original plan as closely as possible, but conditions have changed. Your former target client may not even be around anymore.

“We need to find customers who want us to do what we’ve always done.”?

Another indicator of a static view of the roadmap is when owners want to achieve success only from their existing processes or products.?

They want to bring what was working for them in the past to the current market conditions. But that may not be possible.?

They’re saying, “This is what we do. How do we find the people who want us to do that?”

When you make your product, service, or internal processes the immovable anchor, you’re stuck to a very limited (or nonexistent) market. The reality is your customers’ needs have changed, and you’re limiting your ability to pivot to their new needs.?

The better question to ask is, “How can I adjust to the new needs of my customers?” This allows you to adapt your product and services to where your customers are now.

“We have to serve the customer right in front of us.”

Think back to the driving metaphor.

You’re on the interstate and you’re running low on gas. You see a billboard for a gas station that says, “Exit now and turn right! Located 3 miles on the left.”?

You also know that in about 10 miles, there’s another exit with a gas station right by the interstate.?

Which should you choose?

The gas station located 3 miles off the exit is definitely closest to where you are now, but the gas station 10 miles away will take you the shortest distance from your route and use least amount of time.?

The same is true in our business. When we view our roadmap as static, we focus on it so intently that we forget to look ahead and make decisions for the big picture. We need gas, so we do anything to get it now. We want the closest gas station, even if it costs us valuable time and energy.??

Similarly, our businesses need revenue now. So we choose the closest customer — anyone who will give us money now. As a result, we sacrifice our larger goals for the immediate payoff.?

Good decisions are hard.

How to Keep Your Roadmap Nimble

When faced with a major obstacle in your roadmap, you can check two things to keep moving forward. Check the target, and check the plan for reaching it.?

Take a step back and see if your current plan is still relevant. Then, see if your target has moved. When you take the time to do this, your roadmap evolves naturally.?

At the beginning of the pandemic, owners realized they would need virtual events to survive. So they focused on improving their Zoom skills, building studios in their warehouses, and investigating virtual meeting platforms.?

In some cases, when current customers chose the Zoom option, business owners would toss out the other two options. They would focus entirely on Zoom instead of finding new potential customers for the additional products and services they developed.

These business owners evolved their plan, but they forgot to evolve their target. Because of this, they lost a lot of new opportunities.?

The most successful businesses adjusted both the plan and the target to the new reality they were facing. They didn’t rely on what made them successful before the pandemic, and they didn’t view their new roadmap as a temporary solution. They evolved their plan to what customers needed in the pandemic and flourished because of it.

The business owners who are still stuck are asking, “When are live events going to come back?” The thriving business owners are asking, “Who is my target customer now and what do they need?”?

You can have a perfectly good plan when you start out on your road trip, but you can’t control the road conditions or what will happen along the way. When you can accept this, you’ll be prepared to adjust your route — to make the necessary changes to reach your destination as efficiently as possible.?

When the roadmap is static, the business is static. As the roadmap evolves, the business evolves.

Don’t get stuck waiting on things to get back to normal. You can’t control everything, but you can control how you respond. This is the power of evolving your roadmap. This is how you reach your destination.