Paul Barnhurst and a fellow speaker argue that saying no to projects, even lucrative ones, protects your business. Desperation for revenue pushes consultants to accept flawed work that wastes time and money. The best decision is listening to your gut and choosing long-term health over short-term cash.
One of the most important lessons you have to learn as a business owner is when to walk away, when to say no. You're like, but the revenue's good, but it's just not worth it in the long run sometimes. Not surprised to hear you say when you get some models that you're auditing, it's like this thing just needs to die and reborn. We've all opened a spreadsheet before and we're like, what were they thinking?
It's a challenge as a consultant, particularly working for myself, where you might be at a, just a point where you're desperate for the work and desperate for revenue, and so you'll say yes to something that you should have said no to, or you'll agree to do it the client's way when you should have pushed back harder to do it a different way or something. And then you just get yourself into a real hole and you either painfully get through it or you admit defeat far later than you should have and pull the plug on the thing and just wasted everyone's time and money for a little bit. So my learning from that is to listen to the little voice in your head that tells you you should say no to something, even if you're really desperate for the work.
Trust and Leadership Lessons for FP&A From 100+ Top Leaders with CFO Jon Laudie
