Whether you are just starting your business, or at a crossroads in growing your company, it’s important to make the best decision and act on it, even when it’s difficult. Most decisions involve conflicts or dissatisfaction. The challenge is making a selection that increases the positive and decreases the negative.

Virtual assistants face many opportunities for decision making. Should you offer general administrative assistance or focus on a niche area? What is the best marketing tactic for you to build your business? How can you balance family and business demands without becoming overwhelmed in either arena? How do you determine if you should take on a particular client or drop one that has been difficult to work with? Should you subcontract assignments that are outside your realm of expertise but would produce a satisfying income? The list goes on.

Good decision making, like any learned skill, requires knowledge and practice. Following these steps can help you make informed choices that work for you.

1. Identify the problem. Should you keep a problematic client?
2. Gather information. What value does the work you do for this client add to the success of your business?
3. Brainstorm possible choices with your peers. Exploring different perspectives gives you a feeling for your most desirable options. Decrease the interaction time with the client. Stand your ground only on key issues. Accept that which you cannot change. Dismiss the client and move on.
4. Determine the pros and cons of each alternative. What are the risks of each? Keep in mind, decision making is choosing from among alternatives, not between right and wrong. Weigh the impact your choice will have on your workload, your income, your reputation, your sanity.
5. Keeping your goals in mind, commit to a choice or course of action.
6. Take action on your decision. Start to make it happen.
7. Evaluate the outcome.

Conclusion:

Circumstances change. A past decision may no longer be the best path for you to follow. Ice cream or pie choices won’t change who we are (unless we decide to indulge too often). However, the result of our business decisions will reflect our work ethics and impact the value we bring to our clients.

Now, what about that ice cream and pie choice? Recent studies conducted at the Cornell Food and Brand Lab directed by Dr. Brian Wansink showed that people underestimate the number of food related decisions they make each day, by an average of more than 221 decisions! This study found that the average participant made an estimated 226.7 food related decisions per day. That’s more than 10,000 food choices we face each year. Happy eating!

The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.

Flora Whittemore

Submitted by:

Rosemary Yourtee
Mark It Done Freelance Proofreading and Copy Editing Specialist
859-384-4572
www.markitdone.com
proof+@markitdone.com

You see, we all get into business to fulfill our dreams.  I’m fulfilling dreams of financial freedom, time independance, and changing the world.  I haven’t reached those goals yet, but I work towards them every day.  I want to make smart decisions in the process too.  I don’t have time to deal with huge setbacks or starting over when I could have kept going.  That’s why I love the book “The Dip.”

Last year, I changed my target market to what I figured would be a more lucrative market.  So, I changed my brand, I invested in a new website, and I launched a new business name.  I thought within 6 months, I’d be able to start attracting those kinds of clients.  There I was 14 months later and I didn’t even have ONE on the roster.  I was beginning to wonder if I’d made a wise choice.  I wondered if I had picked a market I could never get my hands on.

In reading the book, I realized that this is what “The Dip”  is all about.  There are others who have chosen this path.  Others who didn’t stay the course.  They left, moved on, and never got to reap the benefits.  After reading the book, I know that I’m totally IN that dip and I’m leaning in.  I’m creating things that I believe will be beneficial to these clients.  I’m heavily investing in my own education on how to reach this particular niche.  I’m also making sure that my team and I are ready for when we get to the other side and these clients DO start coming in.  It may be slow right now, but I know we’ll get there.

Sometimes it’s not the best idea to stay.  Sometimes you have to get out when the gettin’ is good.  Seth talks about that too.  He describes my previous career to a tee!  There came a point where I looked at my odds, I looked at where I was, and I closely examined what I really wanted.  That’s when I decided that I didn’t want to BE in the dip.  I wasn’t willing to lean in.  I didn’t want what came with being there.  Seth says it’s best to get out the moment you realize you don’t want to make it through to the other side.  I hadn’t read the book yet, but I’m grateful I figured that one out before I spent another 10 years living a life I didn’t want to live.

I think there comes a time in every virtual business, like ours, that you wonder whether it’s worth it to continue.  I’ve recently spoken with several Virtual Assistants who are revamping their business or leaning into the dip as they continue to move forward on their paths.  All of them are choosing their paths and making sure they WANT to be where they are.

If you are wondering what direction you want to go, I highly recommend Seth Godin’s book.  It makes a whole lot of common sense!

Are you in a dip?  Are you leaning in?  Read the book and share your experience of “The Dip” with us.

Kristen Beireis

Kristen Beireis works with affluent coaches who are expanding their business to include a marketing implementation team.  Kristen and her team help these coaches earn hundreds of thousands of dollars more, while working less.   For Kristen, her work is all about helping coaches change more lives in hopes that someday it will bring peace.  For more information, visit http://www.coachesmarketingsource.com.