For any business owner, being able to make quick and educated decisions on behalf of your company can be the difference between whether you succeed or fail. Of course, not every decision you make will have the same impact on your bottom line, but making an informed choice can never hurt your chances of success. For this reason, it’s important to recognize the importance of both making quick decisions and deciding quickly to achieve your long-term goals. If you can’t make quick decisions, you risk facing issues that will damage your business or have you falling behind on opportunities that could have made your business more successful. It’s important to understand the benefits of being able to make quick decisions if you want to keep growing your business in the right direction. Also, studies make it clear that indecisive business owners have much higher employee turnover due to the frustration it causes for employees. Forbes also has written covered the issue of indecisiveness in business owners.
Are you indecisive as a business owner?
The first and most important step is to realize if you are indecisive in your decision-making process. There are numerous ways to figure this out and most likely you know already and that is why you are reading this article. Here are 5 signs for you to consider and they should help you paint a clearer picture of your decision-making abilities.
1. Are you worried about what other people will think when you make a decision? We often as business owners worry that we are going to offend someone if we make a decision or stand by it and they do not agree with it. Your primary reason for the decision must be that it is the best decision for your business.
2. Are you worried enough that you would just prefer to not make any decision? This is a big tell-tale sign your business growth will suffer if you do not start making decisions more quickly and acting on them quickly. Your business can not move forward unless you make quick and educated decisions, it is that simple.
3. Do you meticulously focus on every single tiny detail? When we get stuck in a decision-making cycle we like to focus on every little detail and can easily waste hours upon hours just reviewing minor details without ever reaching a final decision. This is what I like to call paralysis by analysis and it will kill your business growth if you do not break out of it quickly.
4. Do you question your ability to succeed and are terrified of failure? If you are not a confident leader because you constantly question your abilities it will turn into you questioning your decision-making as well. This in turn will hurt your business because failure to decide will result in only one path – failure.
5. Do you seek advice from others to validate your decisions? Business owners are smart to seek advice about major business decisions but be sure to get that advice from people that will be upfront with you and are experienced enough to give you solid and long-term advice. Do not seek advice from someone that will just agree with you and not give you honest feedback. Most importantly, do not seek advice after you have made a decision. Once you decide, go for it.
If any of these are familiar and a habit you follow then it is time for you to begin working on your decision-making abilities. More realistically, if the initial question of “are you an indecisive business owner” took more than half a second to decisively answer then you likely are more indecisive than you think.
Understand the importance of your decision
Every decision you make as a business owner should be focused on making your company better in the short and long term. However, some business owners spend more time on minor business decisions than major business decisions. As a business owner, you need to learn how to trust your employees and also be able to weigh the decisions that are going to be the most valuable to your company. As an example, there are dozens of companies that offer business phone services for your office. In most cases, they all share similar prices and services, some are bad and some are good. The person deciding this will spend hours setting this up and yes it is important to the business – but would this be time well spent as a business owner? Or would it be better to have an employee do all the work and present you with a quick recommendation with reasoning so that you spend 5 minutes choosing versus 5 hours doing all the work?
Those 5 hours you saved by delegating a simple task to an employee could be spent interviewing 5 different marketing companies that you need to grow your business. Marketing your business is much more vital to your long-term success and something that you should be much more involved with versus finding which telephone company is offering the best rates for your office. I do understand this is a quite obvious and drastic difference – but you would be shocked how often this type of thing occurs. It is important that as the business owner your limited time available is spent bettering your business long-term and performing tasks that require your decision. It is important that as a business owner your time spent is focused on improving your business which includes everything from daily operations, customer service and new strategies. When a new task becomes apparent it is vital that you weigh the significance of the task and if it is something you have to do or something you can trust to delegate to an employee. Delegating tasks will always benefit your business in either one of two ways:
1) You gain more time to work on more important tasks like expanding into new markets.
2) It reduces your workload allowing you more energy to focus on other tasks like your daily operations, sales efforts, training employees, and long-term decisions.
3) Involving employees in smaller business decisions makes them more committed to your business and also allows you to better understand the scope of projects that particular employees can handle.
Set Realistic Deadlines and Stick to it
Indecision will often lead to issues in your business and can even cause failure. You must ensure that if you make a decision you stick with it. Be realistic about how long it may take to see benefits but make sure that you don’t drag out your decisions until they no longer have any impact on your business growth. This is common – waiting so long to make a decision that your competition beats you to the punch. This is where some careful planning ahead can come into play as well as setting realistic expectations when making any big decisions about your business going forward.
When setting a deadline to decide and implement you need to have confidence in the process you set up. I recommend always using the same process for all major business decisions and having a set procedure to follow makes the process much simpler and the decision easier. The secret is finding a process that works for you and building a checklist or system around it. The key with any type of execution is to execute consistently and stick with your decision. The fear of failure can hurt your decision-making and implementation after you make a decision. It is common for business owners to try to change strategy if things do not go exactly as planned. It is important to understand that rarely things will go exactly as planned but it does not mean changing strategies immediately is the right choice. You must stick with the original plan and implementation unless there is some extremely obvious and clear reason to stop.
Develop a Plan on how to approach decision making
When you’re starting a business, it is important to consider all possible outcomes of decisions before making them. To make good decisions, you need to take in all available information on a situation. However, there are many times when making a decision is necessary and you may not have the time or resources to invest in further research. If a decision needs to be made quickly, it helps if you plan out how you will handle these situations beforehand. This way when it happens you have a clear plan of action on how to decide. It seems minor but plays a major role in simplifying the process.
Every personality is different so every person’s decision-making process is also going to be different. It is important though that you make choices that focus on streamlining the process which best fits with how you operate. I have a friend that is a fellow business owner and he has an actual hourglass on his desk. Once he has reviewed all the information he flips the hourglass and gives himself that much time to make the decision. This works for him quite well and his decisions over the past 40 years in business have been great. It is important you find what works for you and then use that as a model for every business decision you make that needs time and research. To restate, this is primarily for major business decisions however if you are finding yourself unable to decide on minor business choices it is wise to follow the same process.
Develop a list covering the Positives and Negative outcomes of your decision
Whether you are just starting or have been running your business for years, indecision can be a constant issue. From experience, it does get much easier and simpler. You don’t want to do anything wrong and are afraid to make a mistake, but at some point, you need to decide whether making a move is beneficial or not. Having too many things on your plate could even potentially lead to more problems than there were in the first place. It’s important that you look at both sides of any situation before making decisions; most entrepreneurs will say that having gone through an indecisive period has helped them identify problem areas that need to be fixed.
It is important and helpful to make a list of positive and negative possible outcomes for your major business decisions. This makes it easier for you to visualize all aspects of your decision and allows you more time to think about each decision thoroughly before you act on it. With these lists in hand, any confusion or questions are easily answered if they arise during the review process after an event takes place. Having these lists available helps guide your final decision when faced with a difficult situation in which there are no clear answers or correct actions. It is important that when you develop the list you spend some time brainstorming all aspects and writing everything down. As the decision-making process continues, you will cross off things that no longer apply but too much information is never a bad thing while starting to evaluate a business choice that can impact your business for years to come.
Make the decision and Stick to it
This is simple and self-explanatory. Do not make the very common mistake of finally making an educated decision and then second-guessing your decision shortly after. Once you make a decision, stick with it and trust the process you set up.
Consult with a trusted advisor
As a small business owner, you have hopefully already learned you cannot do everything and that every decision you make will not be the right one. It is in your best interest to surround yourself with people who have different strengths and experiences than you do. Sure, you’ll still have to make tough decisions—but getting input from trusted advisors can help prevent some costly mistakes down the road.
A professional consultant is always a smart choice and wise investment. There are certain things that an experienced consultant can bring to the table that others cannot. Investing in a professional business consultant is typically one of the better overall business decisions you can make because it ensures you have a professional with experience giving you unbiased honest feedback. With an experienced consultant, you can get a fresh perspective on any business issues, ranging from the training of your staff, to your pay-per-click advertising budget or even your website design. A professional business consultant will be able to help you see things from a different perspective and give you advice on how to move forward. They have experience with making decisions in similar situations and know what worked well and what did not work well so they can help guide your decision-making process based on their own experiences and the experiences of other clients they have served. They also have knowledge of resources that are available that could help solve your problem or answer questions about your issue or situation. Professional business consultants can provide objective feedback regarding what is happening within your organization, industry, market, etc…and how it affects future opportunities and the direction of growth/development of your business.
Written by David Phillips, CEO and Founder of SayWhat Consulting.
With over 20 years of experience, Mr. Phillips has consulted with small, medium and large businesses in marketing, SEO, reputation management, business management, staff training and day-to-day operations. SayWhat assists clients in numerous industries including cosmetic surgeons, plastic surgeons, med spas and attorneys in family law and criminal law. We also assist other industries as well and our primary clients are small and medium-sized businesses.