The Importance of Decision Making in Business

The Importance of Decision Making

Running your own business can seem a lonely place at times. Most days we need to make decisions about something or other and we are occassionaly paralysed by the fear of making the wrong one. But this doesn't have to be the case.

Decisions are a strange thing. There are good ones and bad ones. There are right ones and wrong ones. Ones that are good for you but bad for someone else. Ones that are bad for you but good for someone else.

If you read that last paragraph once more it is clear that, whatever decision you make, its not going to sit well with someone somewhere.

You see decisions are a junction point and outcomes can have dramatic effects on your life and the lives of others. Take your decision to look for help with your business. So few business owners manage to get this far for various reasons.

* They believe they know all thats needed
* They know about marketing
* They know about sales closing
* They know about lead generation
* They know about building a team
* They know about motivating a team

Consiquently when they take decisions in these areas they are doing so from a disadvantaged position. That is assuming they take a decision at all. More often than not decisions made in this type of situation are made based on our emotions and our own life experiences. This more often than not involves things like Fear and Greed. Rarely do these two emotions produce good decisions.

Take trading the stock market. I don't know if you have ever tried day trading but, apart from the stress involved, it is an amazing place where your fear and greed are exposed to their fullest extent. The received wisdom is to cut your losses quickly and let your profits run.

You place a buy on a stock item looking for it to increase in value and you watch as it ticks down. Loosing you money you don't want to cut and run because that will lose you money so you convince yourself it will turn around and you hang on. It doesn't and keeps sliding backwards. Now your losses are becoming significant. Too much to lose so again you convince yourself it can't keep dropping and you hang on.

You eventually close out and take your losses as a lesson. Which they are!. You have another tip and once again buy into a stock looking for it to go up. It does start to tick up it makes a good gain and you begin to get fearful that this can't continue. You watch it as it rises again and the stress is too much you close out and take the modest profits. Phew.

So using Fear and Greed as your guide you managed to let your losses run and cut your profits quickly.

The moral of the story? Get yourself a mentor / guide / coach

You see, without help and guidance from someone who has experienced what you are going through, making a tough decision can be a paralysing experience. You don't want to jump either way in case it's wrong. You see the merits of both sides. You just don't know what to do for the best so you end up doing nothing.

This is the biggest mistake of all. We all make wrong or bad decisions, the secret is to recognise when its wrong or bad and change it quickly. This is called learning and getting things wrong is the best teacher we could ever have.

The best way to make a decision is from an informed stand point. You may still get it wrong at times but your strike rate will be better. It won't be fear or greed that is making your decisions it will be experience and knowledge.

One point I would make though is that making any decision in business is better than making no decision. If its wrong you learn quickly, change tack and move forward. If its right that's great.

Remember, it's the same as stock trading. Cut your losses quickly adn let your profits run. Change a bad decision as soon as you can and power ahead with the good ones but above all make a decision.


By Steve Wardle - Founder of TheBusinessBuilderClub.com
http://www.TheBusinessBuilderClub.com