The entrepreneur of the small and micro business sector, faces every day with endless challenges in terms of decision-making, each of them can have results and effects, both direct and collateral, in their finances, in your relationship with customers and surely in the future of your business.
Making risky decisions is a common factor among small entrepreneurs, since many of us do not take the time to analyze in detail each of our problems and we throw ourselves in hand with our instincts, we cannot deny that many times we are right, but those in which they do not affect the profitability and productivity of our business.
So how do we ensure that each of our decisions will be correct?
How to establish a pattern that allows us to have the highest probability of success in taking them?
The answer may be that there is no magic formula that works for everything, but the following elements will undoubtedly provide us with a more solid scheme and will facilitate not only decision making, but also lay the necessary foundations to be able to analyze in which we fail, in the event that things do not go as well as we would like, whether our company is made up of only one individual, is a family business or a small business with employees and collaborators.
Conviction, where are we going?
The first step is to be very clear about what you want, where you are going, what your objectives are, the success of what you do will depend a lot on this, running a business without being able to clearly focus on where we are going, it is like navigating without taking care of the helm.
I'm not going to suggest that you start developing a complicated business plan, but it is convenient to have an orderly procedure that allows you to visualize the objectives at all times and base your decisions on the established work plan, to This follows the steps that I indicate below.
Write in a document, preferably if it is a poster that you can place in a visible place, what are the main objectives of your business, remember that the objectives are those realistic goals, those that you are able to achieve and for which you are going to fight every day, many of us tend to confuse our goals with our dreams.
Procedures, how is it done?
Go putting together an action plan for each objective, describe how you are going to do to achieve each one of them, it does not matter that at the beginning you cannot fully clarify your ideas, the important thing is that you write it so that you can read it frequently and update it. As you refine the procedures, you will see how you evolve and little by little what was originally just a list of disconnected ideas, will become the operating guide of your business.
Keep a written log where you can write down your most transcendental decisions, write down those that gave you the best results, as well as those that produced losses and disasters, so over time you will have an excellent knowledge base for both you and your collaborators.
Flexibility, rules or guidelines?
Remember that you are an entrepreneur, that you differ from the traditional entrepreneur in many aspects, some that I want to mention in this article are perhaps your best tools to compete against much larger companies and with many more resources than yours.
The fact that you have defined a methodology or procedures for decision making does not mean that you should follow them to the letter, in a large company, changing a procedure often turns into an institutional conflict, in which they may have to intervening several executives and all that means bureaucracy, but above all time, time that affects decision-making, the company has an inertia marked by all its regulations, changing the course through a decision that does not adhere to them can mean that when the decision is finally adopted, it is too late and therefore the results that were sought or the opportunity that was intended to be seized, has been lost.
The small entrepreneur has in his hands the decisions, which taken in a timely manner can make him close a sale, get an excellent price, in short, take advantage of opportunities thanks to his flexibility. Continuing with the analogy of sailors, we will say that a small businessman is like someone who navigates in a small motor boat and sees an obstacle in front of him, turns the wheel, changes course and dodges it, visualizes a parking space near the dock in a great location, go and take it. Big business is like the Titanic, it sees the iceberg, announces the danger, but crashes into it anyway.
information
Do not lock yourself in your world, do your homework and inform yourself, there are thousands of ways today to inform yourself, read specialized publications in your line of business, (such as the one you are reading right now), participate in forums and communities, find out what other entrepreneurs are doing, learn about new experiences, both positive and negative, invest time in informing yourself, share your experiences.
Today, the Internet allows us to access endless documents, resources and knowledge bases, that there are no excuses to cultivate a new habit, which I guarantee will be very productive both for the growth of your business and for your Personal development.
Also be careful, remember that informing yourself is not the same as framing yourself, the suggestions are not orders that you must follow, the fact that something has worked or not for someone does not guarantee that it will have the same effect on your company. Find out, analyze and conclude, add to this recipe the seasonings of your experience and the pepper of your passion, in the end the responsibility and the fruits of your decisions will be totally yours, enjoy your triumphs and learn from your failures, so you will be each biggest day.
