Mistake #9: Blindly sticking to your urgent care business plan

It is a big mistake to blindly follow your urgent care business plan. You will never plan for every contingency that will arise in your startup urgent care center. Before you start there will be delays in your construction, the city will balk at your zoning, a partner will back out on you, a vendor will fail to deliver furniture, a managed care organization will fail to see the importance of your startup urgent care center, and one-hundred other minor or major unforeseen problems will arise.

How will you respond to unforeseen adversity? It will not be in your business plan. Every time you trip on an obstacle you will need to step lively and avoid crashing to the pavement with a nimble sidestep from your preconceived business plan. Planning the future is necessary, but you can never anticipate every eventuality. Expecting the unexpected and making rapid adjustments will be absolutely critical to the success of your new urgent care center. Your startup urgent care center will succeed because you take a positive attitude-even when the whole plan seems headed into an abyss. When things look blackest, your staff will look to you for the light of leadership. Your energy and can-do attitude will be the key to sidestepping the obstacle and illuminating a completely new way to path of success.

Let your urgent care business plan be a launching pad and a general guide, but get ready to think on your feet and make changes as needed. Your urgent care business plan can help you think through many issues that will otherwise end up rearing their ugly heads as unwanted surprises. A good business plan may determine the speed of your launch, but the height of your trajectory will be determined by your ability to respond to problems with the business plan and to find opportunities to improve on the business plan.