Most business owners fail because of themselves. They act too slow. Emotionally. Or reactively.

We constantly have to make decisions under pressure, but pressure makes for bad decisions unless we’ve planned ahead.

Today, we’re talking about:

• What Offensive vs. Defensive Action Plans are
• How to use triggers that force actions
• The 5-step process to building them

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IF YOU HATE WAR ANALOGIES IN BUSINESS, READ THIS ANYWAYS (TRIGGERS TO ACTION PLANS)

I recently started watching “Surviving Black Hawk Down” on Netflix and one word sticks in my mind: chaos. Now, let me pause for a minute: if you always hated when leaders used war analogies in business (like me), please stick with me.

Bullets flying. Chaos all around. The battlefield is a blur of noise, dust, and confusion, and especially in that situation. Nothing went to plan, but their training took over and they took new orders and executed those… even in the middle of complete chaos.

The ability of these soldiers to perform under this pressure is the epidomy of discipline. They call it the fog of war for a reason. And they train for that fog. On the whole, these soldiers don’t freeze. They don’t panic. They follow their training, lean on their protocols, and adapt to the new plan their leaders bark out as conditions change.

Yes, I’m going to compare this to business. And it’s a bad comparison. But the “fog of war” concept is true in business as it is in war. Yes, it’s completely different. But when I watched the show, I couldn’t help but see the relation to these concepts we’re talking about.

In combat, the fog of war makes decisions hard. So, how do they avoid making bad decisions? They train, they plan, and they plan some more.

Last week we talked about using financial triggers to KNOW when to make financial decisions ahead of time. But those triggers are useless without a plan. The moment you hit that gate is the worst moment to make a decision. It’s the moment you feel stress, anxiety, and uncertainty, which means it’s the moment you’re most likely to make a bad decision.

Whether it’s a sudden cash shortfall, an unexpected surge in demand, or a market shift that threatens your margins, you don’t want to be scrambling to make decisions while everything is already in motion.

And that’s where we can learn from the military: they plan and plan and plan. And that planning means that in those moments of chaos, they can act decisively.

Just the same, we need a plan. And that’s where the other half comes in: offensive & defensive action plans.

By creating these pre-planned responses, you’re able to move forward decisively instead of emotionally.

Now, they’re self-explanatory in their name, but I’ll still define them:

Let’s talk about how to build it.

ACTION PLANS = BETTER RESULTS

In 2010, Harvard Business Review wrote an article titled “Roaring Out of Recession.” The article is the result of a year-long study they did analyzing corporate performance during 3 global recessions (1980-82, 1990-91, 2000-02).

They grouped companies into 4 groups:

1. Prevention Focus: made primarily defensive moves
2. Promotion Focus: made primarily offensive moves
3. Pragmatic Focus: made a combination of offensive and defensive moves
4. Progressive Focus: made an optimal combination of offensive and defensive moves

Progressive-focused companies significantly outperformed all other companies, with prevention-focused companies performing the poorest.

When looking at who cut staff during the recession, progressive-focused companies only cut staff 23% of the time, where prevention-focused companies cut staff 56% of the time.

While it’s just one data point, this data point makes it clear: reactive decision making is is not a good recession strategy.

Instead, we want to proactively make decisions, which allows us to focus on both the offensive and defensive actions during hard times.

When a trigger (gate or buffer) is hit, having a plan with both offensive (growth focused) and defensive (protection focused) actions gives us the best chance to succeed.

DEFENSIVE ACTION PLANS

Defensive plans prevent small problems from becoming big problems. These are huge when talking about staying out of the “fog of business.”

When your biggest customer cancels their service, it’s hard to remain rational. These plans help you because they already have the first few steps in place.

So, where should you use defensive action plans? Any place you want to protect against a downside risk. For example:

• Cash Flow Management (What do you do when cash reserves hit a low threshold?)
• Cost Control (When to cut discretionary spending or renegotiate supplier terms.)
• Debt & Financing (When to restructure debt or secure additional credit.)

A few examples of what a simple trigger → action plan would look like:

• AR:
  • Buffer: 40-day AR → Start contacting overdue clients.
  • Gate: 60+ day AR → Stop new work until payment is received, assign follow-ups.
• Cash:
  • Buffer: If cash falls below 3 months of expenses → Pause big projects, double down collection efforts, and weekly monitor cash flows.
  • Gate: If cash falls below 1 months expenses → Freeze non-essential hiring and CAPEX; Evaluate if staffing changes are needed.

OFFENSIVE ACTION PLANS

But if we only focus on survival, as demonstrated in the Harvard article, we’ll never be an industry leader. The best way to get ahead isn’t to outperform in the good times, but to do so in the hard times.

Great businesses prepare to strike when conditions are right. And that requires having an offensive mindset.

Offensive action plans are key to capitalizing on opportunities:

• Hiring & Expansion (When cash and revenue trends are strong, ramp up hiring.)
• Strategic Investments (When excess cash exists, deploy it into high-ROI opportunities.)
• Customer Acquisition & Pricing (When demand spikes, adjust pricing or expand marketing.)

Offensive action plans are a natural part of our annual or strategic planning, but they can even be used to react more quickly to changing market conditions:

• If cash flow exceeds 3 months of reserves → Invest in growth initiatives.
• If customer acquisition costs drop by 20% → Increase ad spend and sales outreach.
• If team capacity is at 85% → Evaluate your hiring needs and start the hiring process.
• If [Government Entity A] introduces new [funding] → Recruit talent with related expertise.

It’s about being nimble when others are standing still.

PUTTING ACTION PLANS INTO ACTION

STEP 1: IDENTIFY YOUR KEY RISKS & GROWTH LEVERS

The SWOT analysis is a great way to evaluate your business and determine where you need to create action plans.

Some examples of risks (defensive actions needed):

• Cash Flow & Liquidity Risks (major customer delays payment, expenses exceed income)
• Operational Risks (supply chain disruptions, key employee departures)
• Market Risks (sudden drop in demand, regulatory changes)
• Debt & Financing Risks (interest rate hikes, loan covenants tightening)

Some examples of growth levers/opportunities (Offensive actions needed):

• Hiring & Team Expansion
• Strategic Investments (M&A, new product lines)
• Scaling Sales & Marketing
• Capital Deployment (when to invest excess cash

STEP 2: DEFINE TRIGGERS

This goes back to the gates and buffers concept. For the most important metrics you’re measuring, specific financial or operational thresholds that triggers a response.

For defensive action plans, these triggers can look like this:

For offensive ones, here are a few more examples:

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STEP 3: CREATE A SIMPLE PLAN

Notice the key word: simple. We’re not creating a 10-step,10-page document that we’re to follow to the letter.

These action plans should be 2-3 steps that should be taken immediately. They should include:

1. What is done at the buffer AND gate
2. 2-3 steps that should be initiated

I figure the best way to explain this is through examples.

Example: Cash Flow Crisis Plan

• BUFFER Trigger: Cash reserves drop below 3 month of expenses.
• BUFFER Action Plan:
  1. Evaluate slow paying customers and reach out.
  2. Start weekly monitoring cash flows.
  3. Engage short-term financing partners to consider options.
• GATE Trigger: Cash reserves drop below 1 month of expenses.
• GATE Action Plan:
  1. Freeze non-essential spending (pause hiring, delay major purchases).
  2. Accelerate collections (offer discounts for early payments, aggressively follow up on AR).
  3. Negotiate extended payment terms with vendors.
  4. Secure short-term financing.

Example: Market Downturn Response

• BUFFER Trigger: Monthly sales decline by 10%+ for two consecutive months.
• BUFFER Action Plan:
  1. Reach out to similar businesses to see if they’re seeing a similar decline.
  2. Re-evaluate marketing and sales spend to see what’s work or not.
  3. Evaluate staff to tighten up internal weaknesses.
• GATE Trigger: Monthly sales decline by 20%+ for three consecutive months.
• GATE Action Plan:
  1. Reduce marketing spend on underperforming channels and double down on high-ROI areas.
  2. Adjust workforce strategy (pause hiring, restructure teams if needed).
  3. Reforecast financials based on the new market reality.

Example: Hiring Acceleration Plan

• BUFFER Trigger: Team at 80% capacity.
• BUFFER Action Plan:
  1. Evaluate outlook for coming months; see if capacity issue is temporary or expected to worsen.
  2. Evaluate current staff to ensure they’re performing (retrain or improve procedures).
  3. If need is expected to continue, start preparing to hire.
• GATE Trigger: Team is at 95% capacity and customer experience is starting to suffer.
• GATE Action Plan:
  1. Authorize current staff to work overtime.
  2. Post job listings immediately for critical roles.
  3. Shift workload temporarily (contractors, internal role rebalancing).

STEP 4: ASSIGN OWNERSHIP

If a plan doesn’t have an owner, it won’t get done. And not only does it need an owner, it needs a bought in owner.

So, for each trigger and action plan, ask:

• Who is responsible for tracking the trigger?
• Who makes the decision to implement the action plan?
• Who owns executing the response?

For example: in a cash flow crisis, the CFO tracks & triggers plan, CEO approves, Controller executes. When growing your staff, the Operations Manager tracks workload, CEO approves, HR executes.

STEP 5: REVIEW & ADJUST

Your plans should evolve with the business. Doing an annual planning session once every three years won’t accomplish this. You need both annual planning and quarterly reviews.

In these, you should be reviewing both your gates and buffers and action plans. Be asking:

1. Are the triggers still relevant?
2. Did we learn anything from action plans we used over the last 90 to 365 days?

By structuring financial decisions around triggers and offensive/defensive responses, business owners can move from reactive to proactive decision-making.

And just to be clear: we don’t just automatically enact the plans when a trigger is hit. The plans are the starting point that stop us from making bad, rash decisions.

—

Most business owners wait too late to act. Sometimes it’s analysis paralysis, but other times it’s because they haven’t thought it through.

By setting up financial triggers and action plans, you’ll be prepared to act faster and smarter, and ultimately gain a competitive edge.

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