MBA1600 Q&A Wednesday: How do I make important decisions faster?

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Visit Dell.com deals. Hey O. Welcome to the $100 MBA show. Because business keeps on moving. That's why you ought to keep on improving every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online and today's episode is a Q and A Wednesday episode. On our Q and A Wednesday episode, I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you have a question you want to ask, just email me over at Omar MBA Net. Today's question is from George and George asks, hey Omar, love the podcast. I got a question for Q and A Wednesday. I take forever to make important decisions. Sometimes days, even weeks. I end up just making a decision out of frustration of how long it takes me. How do I make important decisions faster? Thanks for your help Omar. Love the podcast George. I love this question from George because as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, your job is to make decisions. That's what you do. You make decisions all day long to solve problems, to improve your business, to improve the experience for your customers. So in theory, the more good decisions you make, the better your business will be. But if it's taking you very long to make decisions, maybe more than you would like, then this is hindering the improvement process of your business. But if decisions are taking a long time for you to make, then this is going to hinder the progress of your business. You're just going to be always one step behind the competition. So in today's episode, I'll be answering this question. I'll talk about some strategies to know exactly how long it should take for you to make a decision and when it's actually a good time to give yourself more time and not just make a quick decision in a moment. We get into all that and more in today's Q and A Wednesday. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. So George is concerned that he's taking too long to make important decisions. So the first thing I want to say is you qualify this question by saying important decisions. So it's good that you're not taking a long time for any kind of decision, making smaller decisions, but important decisions. But you need to make sure you classify what important is. And in my book, important are critical decisions to the business. The trajectory of the business, the future of the business, decisions that will affect the success of my business in a big way. For example, a big decision is the market you go after or the type of product you sell. Why are these big decisions? Because choosing a market and choosing a product or building a product for. For a market is gonna take some time and investment. And reversing that decision will cost you a lot of time and money versus the price you set for your products. Prices are an experiment. You can set a price today and change it tomorrow. You can change it in five minutes. It's not permanent. And if you learn that that decision was not the right one, you can make a change and you can pivot very easily and quickly with very little damage done. So in today's episode, we're gonna focus on how to take the right amount of time for important decisions. Because important decisions deserve your time. But you can't take forever, right? So it's important for you to put some time boundaries around your decision. How do you know how much time you should give yourself? Well, ask yourself with this particular decision, how long is too long? When will your delay affect your success? Will affect your business, affect your customers? For example, over a decade ago, I had my own clothing line business. It was an e commerce store.

It was custom clothing.

And I had to make a decision about a new clothing line for men, a new type of product that I was going to release. Now, this is a big decision because to create a new product, I would have to have inventory. I would have to have the time to kind of build out that inventory, to perfect the product in the first place, to photograph the product, to market it and get it into the store. I was considering this new product in the fall and this product was a winter product. It would be part of our winter line. So I had to make a decision about this product within a couple of weeks because that would be the deadline for me to start production on that product to be ready for winter launch. So two weeks was my timeline. Right. That was the minimum. In fact, I gave myself a week because I wanted a week prior to, to the time I needed to start production, to get the right suppliers and all that kind of stuff to make sure that the production was smooth. So the first thing I do in this week is I decide what's going to make the decision for me, what's going to make me feel confident. And this is what I advise you to do when you're making decisions. What's going to make you say, hell yeah, what's going to make you say, this is definitely the right decision? And for me, that is data. You need to have data on your side. You can't just make decisions off hunches and, and your gut. And just to say, oh, I just feel like this is gonna be a great product or a great decision. I like to get data and that's why I surveyed all our customers about this product. I came up with a prototype, a mockup from our designers. I actually took it a step further. I actually did three days of surveys and then once I got a response from the people that said yes, I would buy it. I sent those people pre order offers and it was actually a discounted offer from the actual price of the product that would retail when I launch. But I just wanted to see if people are willing to give up their money to pre order this product, because if they are, then I knew this would sell, it would be a good product for our company. So when I got the response and we got pre orders, it allowed me to say, yes, this is definitely the right decision. I gotta go with it. It's very hard for you to make a decision in a vacuum. You need data. Now sometimes you're going to make decisions internally with your team. Making a hire or making a decision on a supplier or technology you're going to use. It's good to get other voices, other teammates to give their take, to get an expert, maybe even an advisor, an external advisor, get the data, get the information, get the advice and sit down and understand, hey, this is the deadline. I need to make a decision by this time. So with all the information I have in front of me, which way am I more likely to be successful going with this decision? Yes or no. Now, depending on your personality, some people are just like, yes, let's do it. They're just a yes person.

Right.

But be careful about what you say yes to. Okay? If it's not a hell yes in my book, then it's a no. Why? Because when you say yes to a big decision, to a commitment, you're saying no to anything else that you could be doing. And this is called an opportunity cost. So to go back to my example of my clothing line back in the day when I decided to launch that product in the winter line, when I say yes and we start production on that product, I'm giving up resources, money, manufacturing, time spots on my e commerce store, on the website, exposure, eyeball to this product that could be for something else. So always factor in opportunity costs and make sure you know, hey, hey. When I'm saying yes to something, I'm saying no to other things. This is why I like to get as much evidence as possible before my deadline. And a lot of times, I get all my evidence, I get all my data. And when it's time to make a decision, I say, you know what? This is just not enough for me to say, hell yes. This is just not enough for me to go ahead with this idea. What's the next idea we have? What's the next thing we can do? And no is a possibility. Understand that no could be the right decision. One of the other things that helps me in making big decisions quickly is reminding myself of the mission of the business.

Why are we trying to do this.

In the first place? What is the mission? What are we doing this all for? What am I trying to accomplish here? For example, anytime we launch a new feature or do a new update to our software, webinar Ninja, I go back to the mission to be the world's most loved and used webinar software. Will this update, will this feature help people? People fall in love with a product all over again, Use it more. If not, it's probably not a good idea. Now you might be thinking, omar, what about money? What about, like making money? Maybe the decision makes money or makes dollars and cents, right? Well, if it helps your customer, it fulfills your mission. It will make money. That's the thing. When you create something that people actually want and need and are dying to use. The money will follow. There's an ice cream shop called Messina in my town. They that is packed always. Every single store is packed. Their gelato is amazing. It's delicious. It's better than anywhere else. If they raise prices by 50 cents or even a dollar, most people wouldn't bat an eye because it's that good. If you're giving value, then it's a no brainer. People will buy. So when you're making decisions, remember your mission. Remember what you're trying to accomplish here. And if it's aligned with that, it's a good indication you should go with that decision.

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Important decisions are important, so make sure you define the time you need to take and can take to make this decision. Get as much data as possible to confirm if this is a hell yes or hell no. Get as much external advice as you can from experts, from people that know what they're doing, that have been there before, that can make this decision or help you with this decision because they're experienced, not people that have no idea. A lot of us, we ask our family members and friends and they have no idea. They're not experts. I wouldn't ask for a second medical opinion from my sister. Love her to death, but she's not a doctor. Same thing with your business. Okay? From there, make a decision. Understand there's opportunity costs here. It's aligned with the mission of your business. Go ahead and make that decision. And remember the difference between an important decision and one that's not, one that will impact your business for the long run, will be hard to reverse. That's an important one. It's a big one. Thank you so much for listening to the Hundred Dollar MBA show. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe right now so you don't miss an episode. By hitting subscribe, you get the next episode automatically on your device, whether you're on Spotify or Stitcher Radio or Apple Podcasts or Himalaya. Doesn't matter. We're on every single platform. So go ahead and hit that subscribe button right now. Also, by hitting subscribe, you get access to over 1500 business lessons in our archives. It's the only way to get access to all our lessons. It's absolutely free, so go ahead and hit subscribe. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I love the fact that George asked this question today because it's not easy to say, hey, I'm not good at this. I need help. And by asking this question, he has helped a lot of other people listening to this episode. So part of being a great entrepreneur is understanding you can't be great at everything. And you're going to need help from time to time. And it's okay to ask. It's okay to ask for help and assistance. This is why we have a network. So if you want to ask a question, if you've been struggling with something, if you are in need of some advice, send me an email over@omar00mba.net and I'll make sure to answer it right here on Q and A Wednesday. Thank you so much for listening to the show. I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. Until then, take.

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