John Briggs from Incite Tax says confidence comes from deciding with what you know now, not waiting for perfect information. He walks through a three-step framework: define success upfront, imagine the worst case and whether it kills the business, set a date to check progress and decide to stay or leave. He sold an unsustainable gym when the lease deadline forced the choice.
How can I be confident in making the best decision for my business? This was a question recently posed to us, and they further explained that they tend to have hesitancy when making big decisions. So look, you can only make decisions based on the information you have. So after you make the decision, sometimes new information comes into your purview, it's okay if that new information means you need to change your mind. Changing your mind is totally allowed and appropriate sometimes, right? For me personally, I know that in the moments I lacked confidence in making decisions, that was happening because I thought others would think I look like an idiot if I made the wrong decision. People don't need to agree with you, and it shouldn't matter to you if others expect you to be perfect. You don't really want people like that in your life. That— I mean, you don't have control over how they look at you, and it's also really exhausting if you're trying to please someone who's expecting you to be perfect. And for me, I also realized like, look, I'm just not that important. I think, I mean, my perception is they're gonna think I look like an idiot. In reality, they're not thinking about me at all. I'm not that important in their life. So I had a lot of stuff that I worked through. Shout out to Kelly Ruda. She's a business psychologist that I worked with for years and really great at helping me uncover some incidences in my past that led to that type of scenario where I didn't want to look like an idiot. I wanted to people-please people. I wanted them to all think and look at me as like, oh, look at John. Not a healthy way to live life. So live your life, make mistakes. That's totally okay. The ones you want in your life are going to extend you grace in the moments of your mistakes. And that advice includes you. You need to give yourself permission to be wrong. It's okay, especially if you're making decisions for your business. Guess what? Other people didn't even choose to create a business, so who cares what they think about the decisions that maybe you are having a hesitancy to make? So a couple tips though. When you are making a big decision, determine ahead of time what success is going to look like after you make the decision, right? Because usually we make a decision to improve something, to get us to a place where we're not currently there. So what is that place? Have that defined ahead of time so that you know when you get there, And you compare it to where you started, that you're like, wow, look at this progress. This is great. Also, when making a big decision, it's good to know what does worst-case scenario look like? Is worst-case scenario going to put me out of business? And I would argue, interacting with our clients and consulting them over a decade, I can tell you very rarely will these big decisions that owners have hesitancy over end up bankrupting their business. So what does worst-case scenario look like? Now, you also want to know, okay, assuming I hit worst-case scenario, how long of a time period do I give my business to get past worst-case scenario before I cut it off? As an example, more than a year ago, I sold a gym that I had owned for 3 years previously. And I am not a good gym owner. I'll tell you that much. We— my passion is with accounting and tax services and helping gym owners stay in business. But yeah, I was not a great gym owner. And the business failed because We just weren't really good at getting in new clients. Amazing staff, great products, but we just needed more business. Me and my business partner in that gym, we had reached a point where we're like, okay, at what point do we say we're done? Because we were in worst-case scenario, which was putting money into the business every month, effectively subsidizing other people's memberships because we had too big of a space. And not enough members. So for us, we had a lease coming due and that was our— we decided let's have a cutoff date. The lease, I don't remember the exact dates, but the lease is ending July. We're going to give ourselves until March. That way, if we are not at least breaking even by March, That gives us 3 months to find a buyer or sell the assets before we have to be out of the space. So we give ourselves a cutoff date to reverse the decision of running the gym. Same with you. If you're hesitating with making decisions and you're fearful that you have to make the best decision before you move forward, give yourself some permission. Think about worst-case scenario. What does it look like? And then give yourself that cutoff date because you do want that as a protection for you. So those are some ideas, right? Look at both ends of the spectrum. If I make this decision, awesome scenario that makes me feel successful looks like this. Worst case scenario looks like this. A lot of times the worst case analysis helps you realize, all right, there's not too much risk by making this decision. I can move forward. And ultimately, I mean, if you just look at the question the way it was posed to me, How can I be confident making the best decisions for my business? Stop assuming you have to make the best decision for your business when you make a decision. Make a decision and move forward, and then change things as you get more information to see if it's working or not working. That's the best advice I can give you. Remember, profit is a choice. Have the courage and wisdom to choose it.
