Some people are naturals when it comes to making decisions. Give them about 5% of the relevant information and they will make a decision and move on.

Unfortunately for most of us it’s not that easy! For me, my natural style is to make a decision pretty quickly in my head, but then I’ll spend all sorts of time gathering information to support and rationalize that decision.

A great realization I came to a few years ago is that most decisions that are significant are highly emotional. Whether it’s deciding to make a big purchase or change the strategy of your business, emotions play a big part in most decisions.

Over the past few years I have made a conscious effort to adjust the way I make decisions, primarily to make them faster. Here are a couple of things I have done to make this happen:

1. Set a deadline for making the decision: some decisions I can make immediately, others I’ll need time to analyze and consider more deeply. I found that if I set a deadline, this forces me to schedule time to consider and make the decision vs. constantly procrastinating on it.
2. Keep the significance of a particular decision in perspective: most decisions are not potentially life changing or fatal by themselves. I take comfort in the fact that it’s a combination of decisions that lead to big changes.
3. Learn not to think about the same thing twice: this was a big one for me. I often felt like I was having the same debate with myself over and over again. Constantly running around in circles in mind and getting stuck in the same place with no decision being made!
4. Practice accepting my initial opinion as the final one: after analyzing several recent decisions, I came to realize that I usually would decide something very quickly in my head and then delay a final decision so I could gather more information to support my initial reaction. In every case, I still went with my initial reaction, so I figured why not just save myself the time and stress and just go with my initial reaction on most things and move on!
5. Learn to make a decision based only on the most important criteria: I love to gather information and analyze it, but it’s important to weight that information based on its relevance. I sometimes fall into that trap that all information is created equally!
6. Learn to separate facts and my opinions when making decisions: this is that emotional thing again. Keeping a clear focus on the facts vs. my opinions helps to move things along.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m still not one of those natural decision makers. It still requires effort on my part to do some of these things. But I’m getting better at it all the time!

If you’re looking to make faster decisions, start by picking one of the six things listed above to try and see how it goes. Would you hurry up and pick one already so you can get started!

Have you ever embarked on what seemed like an insurmountable task? Something that seemed so big and daunting when first starting out?

Maybe it was an athletic achievement like running a marathon or climbing a mountain. I saw a profile a few months ago about a young man who was diagnosed with cancer twice and survived. He became the first cancer survivor to summit Mount Everest. As if that wasn’t enough, he went on to summit all 7 of the highest mountains on each continent.

So where do I start? This is a question we hear from our clients and prospects all the time.

Here are a few tips for how to figure out where to start.

1. Figure out what you want to accomplish. Now, as simple as this sounds, many people can’t clearly explain what they want to do. Something as easy to understand as “I want to run in the Boston Marathon” or “I want to grow my company to $3 million in sales and sell it.” The more clear and concise you can be the better.
2. Do some research. Chances are you’re not the first person who has set this goal to accomplish. Certainly other people have run the Boston Marathon or grown their company to $3 million in sales and sold it. So start with some basic research. Things like reading books and searching the Internet. Try talking to some people you know to find people who have done what you’re looking to do. You’d be amazed how much information you can get from people if you are focused on what you want and you just ask for some help!
3. Write it down. Write what down? Your goal and a basic outline of the key milestones to reach it. This should be pretty easy after completing steps 1 & 2. Why write it down? Because it’s easy to get confused, overwhelmed, frustrated, you name it. Writing things down provides a road map to anchor you. Something to come back to when you aren’t sure what to do next.
4. Pick something to start with. What’s the most important thing? Usually a couple of things will pop up as a good place to start. So pick one and get started. If it’s running a marathon, it may be changing your diet or starting to run a certain amount each week. If it’s growing your sales, it may be getting better definition to your market or tracking the number of leads you receive from your various forms of advertising.
5. Don’t be afraid to adjust. Just like any journey, you’re going to have to make adjustments along the way. The key is that you’re out doing things, not paralyzed by the fear of making the wrong move! If you’re going to drive from Cleveland to Los Angeles, chances are you will have to adjust your course at some point. Take great comfort that even if you make a wrong turn, while it might take time to get back on course, you can get back on course. And, hey, who knows what you might bump into during those wrong turns. That’s how Columbus discovered America!

Many times simply getting started can be the most difficult thing. Once you get started though, you usually build up some good momentum. Don’t be afraid to ask for a little help along the way. Now get out there and start!

Interesting question. The first thing you should ask yourself though is, “Why do I want to buy a business?”

If you don’t have clarity on the “why” question, the “how” question is irrelevant because you won’t ever wind up buying a business.

We have quite a few clients with whom we’ve had this discussion. In fact, several have engaged us to help them do just that…buy a business.

What we’ve found is that the ones who have a very clear answer for “why” are typically more successful when it comes to actually buying one. The “how” part is a lot easier to figure out!

Here are a few of the reasons to buy a company (if you already own one):

1. Add Products or Services: your current customer base may be asking for related products or services that you don’t currently offer. Many times, it is quicker and cheaper to just buy this capability vs. developing it in house.
2. New Customers: a big part of what comes with most businesses is a list of current and past customers. It may be easier to sell your current products and services to someone else’s existing base of customers than to go out and market and find new customers directly.
3. People: instead of trying to grow your business one talented person at a time, you may be interested in buying an existing “team” that has been successful and can add a lot of value to your business.
4. Enter a New Market: the “new market” could be a new geographic market or it could also be a new business market. If you’re not terribly excited about the growth opportunities in your current line of business, one way to evolve out of that is to purchase an unrelated company.
5. Boredom: many business owners who have been in business for a while get to the point where their companies basically run without them. When they get to that point, it is often intriguing to think about what it would be like to run another company.

Answering the why question is the first step in the how equation. If you don’t know why you’re trying to buy a business, how are you going to recognize the right opportunity when it presents itself?

This cartoon does a great job of capturing the frustration of many small business owners. They feel they’ll never be able to understand their financial statements. Most times they’re not even sure where to start.

They hear lots of terms that can be both confusing and intimidating. Their accountant uses terms like debits and credits, journal entries, and profit. All the small business owner really cares about is cash flow and money in the bank!

Next thing they know, their accountant shows them what a great profit the business had for the year. The owner thinks to herself, “It certainly doesn’t feel like we’ve been profitable this year. It’s been a constant scramble to meet payroll and keep my vendors relatively current.” So the owner asks her accountant, “So where’s all that money?!?!”

Our helpful accountant begins a diatribe about the differences between accrual and cash basis accounting. And while the company shows a terrific profit “on paper,” the business has lost money on a “cash basis.” Huh?

Our friend the accountant means well. He’s just lost site of the fact that he knows this financial stuff so well that he’s talking in what’s perceived by the business owner to be a totally different language!

Let me try to demystify this accrual vs. cash basis thing and “paper” profit vs. cash profit by using an example. Let’s talk about a construction company.

There is a new construction project that takes the company three months to complete. For the sake of this example, let’s assume that the only cost for the construction company is the labor because the developer has agreed to pay for all the material and supplies needed up front. As part of the contract, the construction company is allowed to bill the developer once a month for work done by the construction crew. Because the developer is a large and well-known national firm, they don’t pay their bills for 90 days from when they receive invoices. Let’s assume the cost of the construction crews is $10,000 each week and that the construction company bills the developer at twice that rate (i.e. for each week of work, the construction company bills the developer $20,000). This is the only project currently going on for the construction company.

Now based on those assumptions, let’s look at how things differ on a cash vs. accrual basis.

1. Cash Basis: this tracks when the actual cash comes into and leaves the business. For the first month, the construction company shows expenses of $40,000 for the 4 weeks it paid its crews to work. The construction company also shows $0 in revenue from this project, because while they have billed the developer $80,000 for work done in the month, no actual cash has been received. So on a cash basis, the company will show a loss of $40,000 for the month ($0 in cash received as revenue less $40,000 in cash expenses to pay the crews).
2. Accrual Basis: this matches the “activity” in the business that generates both the revenue and expenses. For the first month, since the construction company had crews working for 4 weeks and they billed the developer for those 4 weeks of work, on an accrual basis the company will show $80,000 in revenue (the amount of the invoice) and $40,000 in expenses. This results in a net profit of $40,000 for the month on an accrual basis (i.e. a “paper profit”).

This is how our accountant concludes that it has been a profitable month and the owner is complaining about having to draw on a bank line for $40,000 to pay his crew and not having any money in the bank!

On the flip side of this, in month 4 when the developer actually pays our construction company $80,000 for the first invoice from month 1, our construction company will show revenue and profit of $80,000 on a cash basis and $0 revenue and profit on an accrual basis. That’s because even though there was no activity in month 4 (and thus no revenue or expenses on an accrual basis), cash of $80,000 came into the business and no cash went out.

At the end of the day, assuming that all money billed is actually collected, the difference between the accrual basis and cash basis is just a timing thing. What many business owners don’t realize is that in addition to their main business, they are also in the banking business. They’re in the banking business because they are funding the operations of many of their customers by offering them credit!

In the case of our construction company, they have funded the project for 120 days from the first time they work on the project (30 days of work before they invoice plus another 90 days to collect the money). No wonder so many small businesses, while profitable, are always strapped for cash!

There are lots of “networks” out there. There are computer networks, TV networks, and social networks, just to name a few.

When I first hear the word network, I think of my business network. This is the network of people who help me in my business. Most people are aware of them. Some people have unbelievably broad networks. They’re the people who seem to know everybody!

I got to thinking about this the other day when we were discussing with a client how to help them teach their younger staff how to build a network as a way to develop new business. It got me to thinking about how I have built mine.

Here are some initial thoughts on how to go about building your network:

1. Decide you want to build a network. As simple as this sounds, it’s like most other things that happen in your life. Not many things just “happen” until you decide you want to do them.
2. Define the purpose of the network you want to build. Examples might include, i) you want to generate new business, ii) you want to meet other professionals who can help you in your business or your customers in theirs (e.g. a computer expert or a patent attorney), or iii) you want to meet your peers who are in the same or similar business as you. It could be all of these!
3. Find network groups that exist in your geographic area. For our purposes here, network groups can be defined as any group of people that meet on a regular basis. You want to find groups that are a fit for your purpose. Some examples of groups you may want to consider are i) referral groups to help build your business, ii) Chambers of Commerce or service clubs to meet other business owners and professionals in your local area, and iii) professional associations to meet like-minded peers.
4. Pick a group to start with. Now that you have found several groups to potentially join, pick one to join. Start out slow so you don’t get overwhelmed. Remember that building a network is more like a marathon than a sprint.
5. Engage! Don’t just join and expect things to happen. You have to get active in these groups to see any significant results. I’ll define active as getting involved in helping to run and lead these groups. Since most of these groups are voluntary by nature, they are always looking for people who are willing to help out. Try volunteering to head up a committee or an event to get your feet wet.

I’ve been going through a similar process over the past couple of years since returning to the Cleveland area after being away for 12 years. I started building my network by joining a referral group called BNI. This has been a great avenue to help generate referrals for my business, but has also helped me in other ways. I’ve met a ton of other local business people and I’ve gotten better at presenting and explaining my business.

The next group I joined was an alliance of business coaches called the Professional Business Coaches Alliance. This group has been great from a professional development standpoint, but I also now have a network of business coaches throughout the U.S. as well as a handful of other countries.

The most recent group I joined was my local Rotary Club which is involved in service in both our community and throughout the world. My primary objective for joining this group was to help me give back to my community and to do so with other local business people.

With all three of these groups, I have taken active leadership roles which have helped me get the most out of each group. I’m a past President of my BNI chapter. I’m actively involved in the training of new coaches and the strategic planning committee of the PBCA. And I’m the President Elect for my Rotary Club.

There are other groups that I have joined that didn’t pan out so well. The beauty of these groups is that there are so many of them. If you know what you’re looking for (i.e. your purpose), then you’ll be able to figure out pretty quickly which groups work for you.

While I wouldn’t put myself in the class of someone who knows everyone quite yet, I do get a lot of phone calls from clients, friends, and associates when they’re looking for someone. These are calls I wasn’t getting a couple of years ago!

I’ve now seen a couple of episodes of this show on A&E called Intervention. The show is focused on people struggling with various addictions mainly related to drugs and alcohol.

What’s so powerful about the show is that it highlights not only the activities of the addict, but the impact of the addict’s behavior on friends & loved ones. Most of the addicts admit they have a problem, yet they continue their destructive behavior.

So this got me to thinking about the addiction that many of us who own small businesses suffer from…the addiction to our business!

Now you may think I’m a bit nuts here, but stick with me for a minute. Here are some telltale signs that you may be an addict:

1. Your first thoughts in the morning have to do with your business.
2. You fear vacations because you can’t bear the thought of being away from your business for so long.
3. Even when you’re spending time with friends and family during the evenings or weekends, you have difficulty living in the moment since many of your thoughts are about your business.
4. You’re constantly checking email (or wishing that you could).
5. You often dream about situations in your business.
6. If you had your choice to do anything on a given day, you’d choose to work.

Like with any addiction, the first step is to admit there is an addiction. While many addictions are more destructive than others, there are still ill-effects of any addiction.

Now, by no means am I suggesting that an addiction to your business is anywhere near as destructive as an addiction to say crystal meth. I mean, unless your business involves sweets of some sort, you’re unlikely to lose your teeth (a common side effect of crystal meth)!

There are, however, potentially severe impacts on your personal relationships including your spouse/partner, children, family, and friends. If nearly all your waking hours (and even some of your sleeping hours) are dedicated to your business, then you need to make sure you spend enough of your other waking hours fully engaged with those people in your life who are important to you.

Isn’t that a big reason why you got involved in your own business in the first place? To enjoy more quality time with those people who are important to you and doing things other than working?

Look for an opportunity this week to get fully engaged in the moment with someone who is important to you outside your business, even if it’s only for 15 minutes.

I was at the driving range the other day with a good friend of mine who was preparing for a long drive competition. Since I only play a handful of times a year at this point, I haven’t purchased a golf club in nearly 20 years. Why throw some new technology into the mix and screw up the game I’m comfortable with, right?

Then my buddy gives me this high tech competition driver he uses and by the 10th swing I’m hitting the ball further than I ever thought possible, probably an additional 50-70 yards over my old driver! Same golfer, same swing, just different technology.

Are you missing similar opportunities in your business to improve your results by using new technology? Do you often utter the phrases “we’ve always done it this way” or “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?” Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you should adopt technology for technology’s sake, I’m saying you should consider adopting it if it will help your business.

Here are a few ways to consider where technology might be able to help your business:

1. Look for ways to get rid of paper. A great example of how this came into play for me and Jack at MVP is with the basic day timer calendar. I’ve been using a Palm Pilot for years to keep track of contacts and appointments, while Jack had been using his trusty handwritten day timer. Things were getting to the point for Jack that we would have changes to our schedule and he was continually scribbling out old meetings and replacing them with new ones. It was getting so bad that he often had trouble reading his own writing between the scribble marks! On the other hand, all I would do was make a few simple clicks on my Palm and the date and time would be moved with no mess! So in December 2006, we each purchased a Palm Treo so Jack could stop the scribbling and I could combine my phone and PDA.
2. Review your use of newly implemented technology every 2 years. For instance, if you crafted the first version of your web site 2 or more years ago, now is a great time to review it. Start with redefining the purpose of your web site. Is it to provide information to prospective customers? Should someone be able to actually purchase from your web site? The purpose of your site may have changed since you first did it. Even if the core purpose of the site hasn’t changed, there may be new technology available to improve it.
3. Stay on top of what your competition is doing. This can be done in several ways. Be sure that you are involved in one or more trade associations for your industry. Notice I said “involved” and not simply join. Getting involved can be as simple as participating in online forums and chat rooms or attending continuing education courses or the annual meeting. Another good way to stay abreast of some new technology is to review your competitors’ web sites at least twice a year.
4. Find new uses for “old” technology. Something as simple as using a call-in bridge number to have conference calls with the key members of your team who may not all be in the same location can be a great way to use the “old” technology of phones. Is email a blessing or a curse for you? It can be great for both internal and external communications when managed properly. What I find helpful is to only check it at certain times of the day (e.g. first thing in the morning, end of business, and end of the day) vs. always feeling the need to respond in real time.

Technology is a wonderful tool to help manage the information that impacts your business. Whether it be the contacts in your network, or making sure all your employees know what needs to get done today, technology can have a tremendously positive impact on your business.

At some point, I may actually purchase that new driver or set of golf clubs. The key for me will be making sure that I actually use that new technology vs. buying it and letting it sit on the shelf. Make sure you do the same thing with technology in your business. Don’t introduce so many new things that nothing or very little gets adopted by you and your employees. It’s pretty easy for all of us to get overwhelmed!

Does this sound like you, “We tried that 5 years ago and it didn’t work!” Anyone can be an old man. It doesn’t matter if you’re a 15 year old female or an 87 year old great grandfather. Being an old man is more about your attitude than it is about your age or gender. Jack and I have this discussion all the time. Usually it’s triggered when we meet a lot of old men or a lot of old men not acting like old men!

We’ve seen it in our business coaching practice, usually with companies that are struggling. We also see it with several groups we’ve been involved in. There’s no mistaking the energy sucking power of an old man. When the old man speaks, it’s like the oxygen has been sucked out of the room! “No, you can’t do that” or “It’ll never work” are a few of the old man’s favorites.

On the flip side, there’s also no mistaking the energy that’s injected by the antithesis to an old man. The energy and excitement that is created by focusing on the future and possibilities is unmistakable.

I was reminded of this the other night when I saw a Saturday Night Live rerun. The main character for the skit I saw was Debbie Downer (a woman in her 20s). No matter what someone said, she was always able to put a negative spin on the situation.

A good way to determine if you or somebody you know is an old man is to understand what you/they focus on. Here are a couple of questions to ask yourself. Do you focus on:

1. Past vs. Future: do you spend a lot of time pining for the “good old days” and for how things used to be? Or do you embrace the impending changes in the world? As I’m sure you’ve heard numerous times, the only constant in life is change.
2. Problems vs. Solutions: how do you approach a potential opportunity or challenge? How do you counsel others? Are you busy finding reasons why you or somebody else shouldn’t do something or are you trying to figure out how something can get done. Are you so focused on identifying problems that you can’t see the solutions? Nothing great has ever happened by focusing more time on the problems vs. solutions.
3. Negative vs. Positive: if we asked your closest friends or someone who just met you, would they say you’re a negative or positive person? In case there’s any confusion, being “realistic” or cynical is not a positive thing. Your attitude is a choice. There is a positive and negative side to every situation.
4. Yourself vs. Others: if you’re self-centered you miss what other people want or need. The way to engage and inspire other people is to take a true interest in them. Take an interest to the point where you try to see a situation through their eyes first. If you do this, you will have long and engaging discussions with people instead of people doing their best to get away from you as fast as possible!
5. Attendance vs. Productivity: do you concern yourself with whether or not someone is showing up at a certain time of the day for work (i.e. 8-5) or attending weekly meetings or do you focus more on people getting stuff done? Great things and ideas don’t always fit into a rigid schedule. The end result is the most important thing, not who’s clocking the most hours or who has perfect attendance.

Take some time this weekend to first look in the mirror to see if you are already or are on your way to becoming an old man. Do this before you start looking for other old men. Now that you’re aware of this, do your best to surround yourself with other young men who will give you energy and ideas. Look at your family and friends. Analyze the groups you are involved with whether it be for business, social, or charitable purposes.

I’ll give each of you a challenge. Once you’ve identified an old man in your life who you care about, do them a favor and help them become young again. Not only will you be doing them and the world a favor, you will feel great about yourself for helping someone you care about.

There’s a great quote I saw this week from Norman Vincent Peale that I’ll leave you with today, one in which he invents a new word. “Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities – always see them, for they’re always there.”

That’s a pretty unnerving question to ask someone as they’re getting ready to hit their approach shot to the green. It’s as bad as telling someone they have the wrong line while standing over a putt.

I used to get a lot of credit from the people I caddied for over the years when they would hit a good approach shot to the green or sink a putt. I guess I deserve some credit for making sure I gave them the right club in addition to the yardage on the approach shot or that I read their putt for them and pointed out the line to use. But how can I get credit for what they did? They’re the ones who hit the shot or the putt after all!

These thoughts came flooding back to me the other day when I was playing in a scramble on a course that I know very well. I shared that local knowledge with my playing partners as it came up and they’d try what I recommended and once in a while it worked out. When hitting that extra club on a certain hole worked out or the putt went in, they gave me all sorts of credit.

What I came to realize is that confidence is a very important thing in golf. Whether it’s confidence that you have the right club in your hand for an approach shot or that you have the right line for you putt, if you’re confident that it’s right then you tend to relax and make a better swing or stroke. Otherwise you’d be distracted worrying about whether you should be hitting a different club or aiming an additional six inches to the left and chances are things won’t work out so well.

So I guess what I’ve been getting credit for all these years is providing the folks I caddied for the confidence that they were doing the right thing. I mean, I wasn’t actually hitting the shots for them!

As is often the case, golf is a great metaphor for business. While most business owners have the outward appearance of being confident in what they’re doing, most will often worry if they “have the right club” or not when it comes to making decisions in their business.

Whether or not you have a caddie (i.e. business coach) for your business, here are a few tips on what to do to gain the confidence you need to make solid decisions in your business (or on the golf course):

1. Consider all the relevant data: on the course that includes the yardage, wind, slope of the green, grain of the grass, etc. When is the last time you saw Tiger Woods just walk up and hit a putt without studying it from every angle? Each decision you make in your business will have similar data to consider. Feel free to ask your caddie or playing partner for help.
2. Trust in your ability to interpret the data correctly for your situation: while you may want to hit your 7 iron from 165 yards because that’s what your playing partner (i.e. competitor) is doing, you may be best suited to go with a 5 iron instead to get the same result. For example, don’t just put your name on a billboard because your biggest competitor does it. Make sure what you do will have the desired results.
3. Commit to your decision: once you’ve assessed the situation and chosen your club or line, commit to executing the shot. If you’re busy second guessing yourself you’re likelihood of a positive outcome decreases significantly.
4. There’s always the next shot: a round of golf is not made or lost with one shot. Your business is the same way. A good round of golf is made up of many good shots and good business consists of many good decisions. Don’t dwell on the last shot (whether good or bad) because the only thing you can impact is your next shot. Follow the same rule for decisions you make in your business, focus on the next one not past decisions which you can’t change.

Even if you do all the things listed above each time, not all your shots will work out as you want. What I do know is that if you do those things with each shot and decision, both your golf game and business will improve!