Good decision making has some of all three elements, gut feeling, analytics and experience.
Recently on Quora, someone posted a really great question to think about. It is real life, topical, timely and can have profound consequences to you and your business. The question was “To make a decision final, business decision, do you use your gut feeling, analytic skills or experience?”
- Gut feeling — does this decision make sense? Does it feel right?
- Analytics — what data is there to support the decision or kill the decision? Do you have all the data you need to make that decision?
- Experience — in a similar situation, what happened? …
You can spend so much time getting more knowledgable, technically, but it can take you away from your business which is what actually brings in the profits.
You might be saying to yourself, “This guy is always talking about learning more. Where is he going now? This doesn’t make sense.”
Yes, at first, this doesn’t mix with my message of learning. So let me explain — when we concentrate on one particular item, dig deep, get better at it, then get really great at it, we can forget to look at all of the things going on around us.
Companies…
Everything changed when I realized street smarts and luck only go so far.
My career and business have either stalled or gone sideways when I stopped learning or taken what I have learned for granted.
And learning doesn’t necessarily mean going to college. Education and learning have two different meanings. Just like street smarts versus book smarts have different meanings.
Research shows that a typical college education is obsolete before the loans are paid off. The “new” college curriculum is created usually during the fad portion of a trend. …
Start up businesses tend to be characterized by “go-go”. Get your business going, starting shipping, work out the bugs later, make improvements, get it out there again, come up with a complimenting product, get that going, hire, expand, and on and on.
This can also happen when a younger family member buys or inherits the business. “The old man was too stodgy. We need to make things happen.” New tech is needed, new blood, new energy. Yes, sometimes we older folks might take a little bit longer to come around. …
There is a Dark Side of Success that you don’t hear about much. You hear the rags to riches stories of people like Elon Musk or Mark Cuban. They will tell you that there was hard work all along the way. And yes, you need to put in the work to make your business a success just like they did.
But there are a lot of details they left out. Details that no one really talks about. Sometimes you need to be told those stories because they are the ones that can really help you when it might seem impossible.
…
When we concentrate on our business, we can forget about what is happening outside and around us. We can raise our own self defense mechanisms to blot out potential danger that could be lurking outside of our door. And when that alligator snaps his jaws, it can give you a wake up call.
A number of years ago, I went to a conference at a golf resort just north of Tampa, FL. My wife came along so we could turn the trip into a short vacation for us. …
When you are growing your business, whether it’s from 2 to 5 people or to 10 or more than 20, and even going from 250 to 500 people, there is an ugly truth that you need to deal with to successfully scale your business.
Issue — When your company grows, especially when it grows quickly, problems within the company pop up. Problems that you might not expect.
Whether you have built the company yourself, took the company over from a family member or rose up through the ranks, trade schools never teach you how to be the leader, how to…
Strengths and Opportunities
Each individual company has unique strengths and has the ability to take advantage of opportunities in different ways.
Strengths are those qualities and abilities that make you who you are. Think of them as the bedrock on which to build. They are the things that no one else has and are the tools of leverage for your future.
Some strengths are:
- Patented products or technology
- Unique products or technology
- Manufacturing capabilities
- Company finances
- Company name or brand
- Company purpose and values
- Cost structures
- Your people
- Ability to leverage customers
Strengths are manageable by you. Consider them as assets. And realize…
I like your post. I have a couple of questions. 1) Are you putting the entirety of the blog post in the email? I see people like Mike Kim and Jeff Walker put a few sentences in the email and a link to the article or blog. And that is their only call to action. 2) What is your call to action that you put in your emails? is it like the one at the bottom of this article?
There is an adage that says “nothing can’t be solved if enough money is thrown at the problem”. When it comes to growing your business you need capital to keep it going. But money alone, without looking at your whole business, is not going to save it.
A good business owner, once they have been in business a while, usually can see from the sales figures how much they can expect in profits. They have been running things smoothly and they know their business is fairly predictable.
But in today’s business environment, that is not sustainable to maintain success. Any…
