A huge part of running a successful business and embracing your role as CEO of your business is learning how to become a good decision-maker. But let's be honest: knowing how to make the best decisions for both your business and your life can be super hard.
In this episode NJ and I are exploring a few thoughts and strategies for determining what things should get your "yes" and what things should get your "no" in business.
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Specifically, we are diving into how you can best decide which opportunities you're going to pursue, and which opportunities you're not. NJ and I both have different internal default settings and varying strengths and weaknesses, so you're going to get a great, well-rounded perspective into this tricky subject!
Here are a few solid questions to help you in your decision-making process.
1. Do you have the capacity?
Knowing your capacity and bandwidth is SUPER important, because if you aren't honest with yourself and others in this area, you're going to consistently over-promise, under-deliver and overwork yourself at the expense of what matters most (typically your self care, your family, etc).
2. Does it align with your business goals?
You can't (and shouldn't!) say yes to everything, so be really clear about why you're saying yes. Does the opportunity you're considering make sense with regard to what your business goals are? Ask yourself three sub-questions here: What are my business goals? How would this opportunity support my goals? Will this opportunity set me back from meeting my goals in any way?
3. Will it move your business forward?
This stems from the last question about aligning with your goals. When you know what your goals are, then you can determine if the opportunities you're considering will significantly move your business forward in any way. At the very least, you don't want to set yourself back. Ideally, you want to save your "yes" for those opportunities that will really move you and your business forward.
4. Does it fit within your schedule constraints?
This is an obvious one, but we too often act like our schedules have no limitations (when really, the exact opposite is true and time after time we sacrifice things of great importance.) Consider whether your schedule can really accommodate the opportunities you're considering. What will the effect of saying yes have on you? What about your family? Others?
5. Is the cost worth it?
Determine how much it will cost to say yes to an opportunity, and work backwards to figure out whether the tradeoff will be worth it. Maybe something that has a high initial cost is worth it because of a beneficial long-term payout. But maybe it will just be a lot of money spent with nothing really substantial to show for it from an investment perspective. Be rational when considering whether something is worth investing your time, energy and finances in.
6. Is it going to serve your position as an expert in your niche?
You want to be strategic in everything you do and sometimes opportunities will arise that won't serve you and the platform you're trying to build for yourself. Think about how saying yes to something will position you to look to others. Will it improve people's perception of you or damage it?
7. How will you be able to leverage it?
Know with a decent amount of certainty the specifics of how you will leverage an opportunity long-term before you say yes. If you can't leverage something, it's probably not going to be worth your "yes."
Referenced in the Show:
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