Why business plans are stupid

Robbie discusses not having a business plan and why some people do business plans to feel like they're being productive instead of actually being productive.

Transcript

Robbie Lofaro (00:00):

Hey, guys. It's Robbie Lofaro and Andi K here.

Andi Kovalcek (00:03):

G'day.

Robbie Lofaro (00:04):

So Andi, I've got a topic that I want to talk about.

Andi Kovalcek (00:07):

One that you are very passionate about. He's like, "I can't f'ingwait to talk about this."

Robbie Lofaro (00:13):

So I hate business plans.

Andi Kovalcek (00:16):

So why business plans are stupid?

Robbie Lofaro (00:18):

Why they are stupid.

Andi Kovalcek (00:19):

Talk to us.

Robbie Lofaro (00:20):

Look, over the years, as a business owner, I've had to do plenty of business plans and they're just stupid. I hate them. And no offense to anyone that's listening that's ever had to make me do a business plan in the past, because I know sometimes that's a KPI from our corporate team, so I apologize, but I hate them. You can't plan business. That's what I think.

Andi Kovalcek (00:40):

Okay.

Robbie Lofaro (00:40):

I think, you want a business plan? Figure out, what is my product or service and why will people pay me for it? That's it. That's your business plan. And then everything, you just build on that. I've had people try to sit down and say, "Okay, well let's do a plan and figure out where the business needs to go. What are its strengths? What are its weaknesses?" all this crap. And to me, I don't really need to plan this. I remember the old Mike Tyson quote, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." That's me. That's how I run business. I go, "All right, where do I want to be? What do I want to achieve here? What's my goal?" I set that goal and then every decision I make needs to be getting me closer to achieving that goal.

Andi Kovalcek (01:19):

So you have an end goal. You know where you want to be?

Robbie Lofaro (01:22):

Yeah, kind of.

Andi Kovalcek (01:23):

A vision?

Robbie Lofaro (01:24):

Well, sort of. To me, I want to make good money. I want to grow something that would make people proud or impressed or anything like that. I want to be proud of what I've achieved. I want my family to be proud. That's what I want. How I set goals is I look at somebody who's in the same industry that's doing better than me, and I say, "I'm going to beat that person," or, "I'm going to beat that business." Whatever it is, I'm going to beat them. And then when I do, I pick the next person ahead of me and I say, "I'm going to beat that person too." And I just keep going. And any business I've ever done, but particularly in real estate, I just say, "Who's doing better than me? Who's next? Who's next in line? Who's the next rung up the ladder?"

(02:02):

And whoever it is, I go, "I'm going to beat that person." And I do whatever it takes to get to a point where I'm beating them comfortably and then I pick the next person. That's how I've done it. And all I want to do is grow and I want to be profitable. I want to make sure my people are happy and my team are fulfilled and satisfied. And if I'm ticking those boxes along the way, then I'm on the right track. I don't need a plan to tell me how to do that. Does that make sense?

Andi Kovalcek (02:25):

Yeah. And it's like, you know how the other day you sent me that thing, it said, "This world does not reward the planners or the thinkers. It rewards the doers." That fits in perfectly with our thing.

Robbie Lofaro (02:38):

I completely agree. If you want to succeed, you just have to do. If you talk about it and talk about it, nobody's impressed. Nobody cares. People don't care about what you say you're going to do. They care about what you actually do. And making a plan and saying, "I'm going to do all of these amazing things," doesn't really mean all that much. I could say, "Hey, I'm going to go and train and train and train, and I'm going to go and play basketball and I'm going to beat LeBron James." But until I do it, or at least start getting close to doing that, you don't believe me. You just think, "Please."

Andi Kovalcek (03:05):

Yeah, I get you. And something important I suppose to remember, I've never done a business plan. I don't have a business.

Robbie Lofaro (03:12):

You do have a business!

Andi Kovalcek (03:14):

Yeah, I suppose I do. But business plans don't have contingencies in them. They don't have plans for when sh't hits the fan.

Robbie Lofaro (03:21):

Yes. And you can't plan for that. You can say, "I'm going to do this and by this stage this should have happened and this should have happened," but what if it doesn't?

Andi Kovalcek (03:29):

True.

Robbie Lofaro (03:30):

And then what do you do? And what happens if something comes up? What I've always looked at is I know I'm going to make mistakes. I'm going to screw things up. I'm going to make decisions that don't pan out or don't go my way. People are going to try and screw me over. It happens all the time. People are going to let me down. All I can do is learn from that. Every time something doesn't go my way and there's a problem that needs fixing, I find a way to fix it. I learn what needs to happen or I cop the consequences and I move on, but then I know next time how to handle that situation or how to prevent it from happening again. You can't plan for that. There is no planning for somebody suing you over something stupid or somebody letting you down.

Andi Kovalcek (04:09):

True.

Robbie Lofaro (04:09):

You can't plan for your people leaving or somebody getting sick. You just can't plan for those things.

Andi Kovalcek (04:14):

That's right. There's no manual for that sort of stuff. I think obviously knowing you, it gives me an impression that you are trying to be the best version of yourself every moment of every day. And that's maybe what helps you be able to make quick decisions.

Robbie Lofaro (04:29):

I'm trying to, I want to put in 100% every single day.

Andi Kovalcek (04:33):

Cool.

Robbie Lofaro (04:33):

Ut I also know, sometimes if you only have 40% one day and you put in 40%, then you put in 100%. Some days you just won't be your best. And, again, you can't plan for that. You can't plan for days where you're not going to be at your best. And it happens, because you just know what's going to happen in your life. You could be sick. If I've got a cold, I'm sorry, I'm just not as good as when I don't have a cold. I still turn up. I still come to work, try not to get everyone sick. I've had a headache all day, all day. I woke up this morning, I had this massive headache, and I came to work and I did a speech on stage. I did two speeches today. I did training sessions. I spent time with my team. I made a lot of calls. And I had a headache. And I know that today maybe I was at 80%, not 100% because of this stupid headache, but I gave 80%.

Andi Kovalcek (05:16):

Yeah, you rocked out.

Robbie Lofaro (05:17):

Which means I gave 100% and I just did what I had to do because, I said this in an earlier episode, you can't have bad days. If you want to succeed, you just have to show up every day. That's how I operate. I don't plan what's going to happen and I do have to just show up, but some days you won't be at your absolute best. If, I don't know, you had a fight with your partner or you've got a sick person in your family, something like that, there's always things that are going to affect how things go. You could come to work super pumped and have a really, really good day, and the next thing you know you've got a legal letter in your email. That's going to throw you off. It just does. You can't always be 100%, but you can always give as much as you've got to give.

Andi Kovalcek (05:57):

When I asked you before I said, "Hey, have you got a vision? Have you got an end goal?" And you said, "Not really," but you know that you want to be successful I suppose in every facet of everything that you do. Look, I know there are some people who have the argument or whatever, have a vision, have a place that they want to be, have an end goal, whether it's money or whatever the hell it is. Do you think though, that you can plan every decision for that?

Robbie Lofaro (06:24):

Yeah, I do, in business anyway. I know that every decision that I need to make in the business is, is this going to help me grow the business? Because right now I'm in growth mode. I want to grow as much as I possibly can. And so sometimes I have to look at the books and look at how much money we've got and all that sort of thing. And I've got to look and go, all right, is it really worth spending this money on this thing? Is this actually going to be growing the business? If the answer's no, then I can't do it. It's just stupid.

Andi Kovalcek (06:50):

So it's a growth mindset. I suppose my question before was the most stupid thing I've ever asked. It didn't even make sense in my head when it left my mouth. But what I meant to ask was actually, when you're making decisions, how do you know where that decision is headed if you don't know where you're headed? Does that make sense? Or is it just the fact that, hey, I don't know exactly what the end vision or end result looks like of where I want to be in my life, but as long as I focus on making the best decision for growth or for whatever the hell it is, where is that decision making going? Does that make sense?

Robbie Lofaro (07:22):

It does, but I really don't have the answer. I just genuinely don't think, just do. Sometimes I don't plan what's going to happen. I just do it.

Andi Kovalcek (07:31):

Awesome.

Robbie Lofaro (07:32):

And if I think, hey, is this going to advance my career? Is this going to grow my business? Is this going to make my team happier? Is this going to help somebody on my team grow their business? If that's the case, then do it. And sometimes I'll spend money on things that don't pan out and I've wasted my money, but I go, okay, well, now I know for next time. Sometimes I make decisions to, I don't know, host an event or something like that, that doesn't pan out or people don't turn up or whatever. And I go, okay, cool. Now I know for next time what to do differently. So no, at the time, I don't know what's going to happen, I don't know if it's going to help me advance to where I want to go, but you got to try. And so I think, is this going to help? I think it will. Let's do it.

Andi Kovalcek (08:13):

Sweet. I've got a few little notes here in front of me. One of the notes says, "We're in real estate, obviously, and I like to teach my agents to think of themselves as business owners, not employees."

Robbie Lofaro (08:25):

So I think that's relevant in any industry, not just real estate.

Andi Kovalcek (08:29):

Because when I said before I don't have a business, you're like, "Yeah, you do."

Robbie Lofaro (08:31):

Yeah, you do. Because, okay, if you're a real estate agent, you don't have a job. If you think of this as a job, it will always be a job.

Andi Kovalcek (08:38):

True, true, true, true, true.

Robbie Lofaro (08:39):

If you think, I've just got to turn up, do my job, and go home, you're going to have just an average mediocre career. And if that's what you want, that's okay. There's no problem with that. But you can't tell me, "I want to be wildly successful, I want to be rich, I want to be whatever," and then think of it as a job and do your nine to five and go home. That doesn't work. You have to think of it as if you're running a business. Now, obviously,` businesses involve investments, so you've got to invest in it. You've got to spend your time. You've got to take risks.

Andi Kovalcek (09:07):

Absolutely.

Robbie Lofaro (09:08):

You've got to invest in yourself. And one of the biggest things is training. So the amount of agents that I see that don't attend training when it's available to them, I'm like, "What are you doing? You have to attend training."

Andi Kovalcek (09:18):

Why is training so important?

Robbie Lofaro (09:20):

Because if you've got an opportunity to improve, then you should be taking it. That's investing in yourself. You're investing your time. Sometimes money, sometimes you've got to pay for training, but even if it's paid training or free training, you should be attending because you're investing in yourself. You're investing in your own knowledge. That's incredibly important. But also, even if you sit there and you don't really get that much out of it, but you get one little nugget, that's incredibly valuable. That half an hour that you spend to get that one little nugget out of a training session, that could change your entire career. You don't know. And you have nothing to lose except for half an hour of your time or an hour or whatever it is. If you go to training, and I teach my team this sometimes, because sometimes I do training sessions, I can see blank stares, and I know that.

(10:04):

I've said the same thing over and over again and hearing it for the 20th time, I know you've sat in many of these sessions, sometimes I say to them, "Guys, if you are sitting there and you are not learning anything, if you're sitting there and you are taking it all in, but going, 'I'm already doing all of this,' that's also valuable because that's confirmation that you're doing the right thing." And just hearing it from one trainer is one thing, but if you hear the same thing from several trainers, and I swear in every industry, everyone says the same stuff anyway, if you hear the same thing over and over again and you go, "Yeah, I'm doing all of these things, there's nothing I need to change," that's also valuable because now you know.

Andi Kovalcek (10:40):

Exactly. The training's paying off. It's working. You're listening. You're implementing, you're like, oh, I do this sort of shit. I do this every day."

Robbie Lofaro (10:45):

Yeah, absolutely. And so going back to business plans, maybe this is a controversial opinion, but I think people do business plans as a way to feel like they're being productive instead of actually being productive. I've had agents in the past that want to do business plans with me to plan what they're going to do to get more business, and I go, "Just pick up the phone and call more people. It's that simple." You don't need a website. You don't need a fancy flyer to go out. People are going to throw it in the bin anyway. Why spend all day trying to come up with the best flyer or all day doing your marketing or your social media or whatever? Just pick up the phone and call people and say, "Hey, do you want to sell your house?" It's that simple.

Andi Kovalcek (11:25):

Just doing is actually more simple than planning. Just doing will actually provide you results, but planning isn't dollar productive likely most of the time. As you said, "Let's go to the cafe and business plan all day and then go home and do fuck all."

Robbie Lofaro (11:45):

Yeah. Honestly, business plans are stupid.

Andi Kovalcek (11:48):

Yeah, that's fair enough. Hey, I suppose just to wrap up on last thing, you obviously talk about, well, look what I've noticed even, not from a principal or a business owner perspective, and it's not just in our industry. It's those honestly who just take action without thinking, even if you don't know I suppose of what you're doing to have the product knowledge or service knowledge. Those who just take action generally, no matter how smart they are or dumb they are, they figure it out along the way and they get better results than these smarty-pants planners.

Robbie Lofaro (12:25):

Yep, very true.

Andi Kovalcek (12:26):

Really interesting.

Robbie Lofaro (12:27):

And I think you see that in most industries. I've never met somebody who wasn't the hardest worker in the room who didn't show up every day and put everything they could into it that wasn't successful. Or maybe they're not successful just yet, but they're close and you can feel it. I've never met somebody that isn't succeeding if they're doing all the right things.

Andi Kovalcek (12:47):

That's really cool. Yeah, I've definitely have seen it in my last job. My favorite team members were the ones who just listened to me and just did it without even understanding it. They were the ones who yielded all the results and got all the pats on the back as well.

Robbie Lofaro (13:01):

So true.

Andi Kovalcek (13:02):

Awesome. Well, that's been really cool, and hey, we'll catch you guys another time.

Robbie Lofaro (13:07):

Sounds good.