Part of being an entrepreneur is making tough decisions about how you want to run your business. This can be very scary for some people. What if you make the wrong choice? What if you don’t have perfect information to help you make the decision? What if someone has lied to you? What if your decision kills your business? These are questions that can paralyse small business owners and keep them from moving ahead with the actions that can help them grow their business.
Weighing the Pros and Cons
When making any decision, it helps to weigh the pros and cons, and it’s no different in your business. It is very helpful to write down all of the reasons in favour of and against taking an action and all of the potential results, both positive and negative. Weighing your decision carefully in this way can boost your confidence that you are really taking the best course of action for your company. It also helps you look at your business more objectively, and lets you avoid confirmation bias.
Listening to Advice
Funny how when you have a decision to make, there are dozens of people out there willing to give you advice and it’s true that you get what you pay for. If you have to make a decision but you feel unqualified to make it, don’t just go and ask your buddies; seek out a professional and pay them to help. If you need advice on public relations, pay a public relations specialist. if you need help with a taxation issue; pay an accountant who specialises in taxation. Listen to the right help. Tune out the noise of all the other unqualified people out there so you can make a confident decision based on knowledge and skill.
Stop Procrastinating
It is funny how when we are scared of something, we find endless ways to avoid dealing with it. Decisions get put off because of ‘urgent’ busy work that does not have much importance but is conveniently there to help us take our minds off important things. If you find yourself taking care of ‘urgent’ items on your to-do list such as buying and alphabetizing office supplies instead of important items like making a decision about whether to approach a bank for a loan or a line of credit to fuel your expansion, you are procrastinating.
If you put off making the important decisions, you will run out of time to weigh the pros and cons, you’ll have less opportunity to get advice, and you will be left with no choice to make at all!
And that’s much worse than the alternative.
Image Credit Anne-Lise Heinrichs under Creative Commons License