Many people look for the path of least resistance. They might even think that it’s — by default — the best choice.
However, it’s easy to mistake least resistance to mean “the fewest challenges.” And that’s not necessarily the best option.
No matter what path you take, you’ll face challenges. How many you’ll face doesn’t matter as much as what they’re like.
The smartest business leaders look for the path of easiest resistance instead.
No plan survives reality
In chess, you may be able to make a perfect plan; consider every potential move and make a genuinely perfect plan.
That’s because chess is a “perfect game;” a game where you have all the information.
Marketing and business, on the other hand, are “imperfect games.” You don’t know everything. You don’t even know all the things you might need to know about.
So, no matter how well you plan something in business, you shouldn’t just assume your plan will work flawlessly.
You still need plans, so here are a few key things I focus on with clients to make sure they reach their goals, even when their plan gets beaten up:
- Prioritize simplicity. For example, if a sales funnel has 50 moving pieces (ads, landing pages, webinars, emails, etc.), there’s a lot that can go wrong. The alternative is a much simpler funnel with fewer things that can break.
- Build on what’s already proven for you. For example, if you’ve previously gotten most of your clients through referrals, consider if you could systematize how you get more of them, rather than try something entirely new.
- Consider what you will need when something goes wrong. For example, if a campaign doesn’t generate good results within its first week, what do you need, so that you can make a good decision about how to move forward? Perhaps you need certain data or customer feedback. Build your campaign so that it gives you that data/feedback. That way you can make good decisions immediately when things don’t work.
There’s a lot more you should consider when planning something. But the main idea is that for you to reach a goal, you can’t just hope your plan will work out as expected. Rather, you should know what are the likely things that can go wrong, and build a plan that works despite those issues.
Example of the path of easiest resistance: Advertising
Let’s say you want to get more leads with advertising.
Hiring an ad agency might seem like the path of least resistance. They’ll handle it all, so you don’t need to worry about it. But if it doesn’t work out, you have a far more complicated challenge to solve, you learn a lot less, and you usually spend a lot more money on it, too. So, the path of easiest resistance is often to roll up your sleeves and do it in-house with some guidance.
That is not to say that you should never hire an ad agency. It might be the path of easiest resistance. Just be mindful of what challenges might come up with an ad agency and how easily you can overcome them.
If you go at it yourself, what could the three ideas above mean in practice? Here’s one example for each of them:
Prioritize simplicity: Start with a simple ad campaign that will quickly create measurable results. If your campaign is complicated, it takes longer to get it running and you need to wait for results longer before evaluating whether it’s working or not.
Build on what’s already proven for you: Advertise something that has previously been attractive for your ideal clients. If you try a new offer and things don’t work out, you’ll have to wonder if the issue is the offer.
Consider what you will need when something goes wrong: Target your advertising to the absolute most promising audience, even if it’s too small to sustain the campaign for long. If the campaign doesn’t work, you need to know whether you’re reaching the wrong people. But if you started from the absolute most promising, targeted audience, you already know the answer and can move on to the next consideration.
If you plan your advertising campaign well enough, all the common challenges have quite straightforward solutions. That is, what may seem like a complicated and challenging path is actually the path of easiest resistance.
Conclusion: Forget the path of least resistance
If you’re trying to reach almost any meaningful goal, you will face challenges. You won’t double your company’s profit while avoiding challenges. You won’t launch a new offer without figuring out how to deal with new challenges. You likely won’t even survive without facing challenges.
What looks like the path of least resistance may look tempting. However, that path often leads to a small number of very difficult challenges that keep you from reaching your goal.
Look for the path of easiest resistance; the path where you know you’ll face challenges that you know how to overcome. You’ll make much more consistent progress.
