"We have a choice: to plow new ground or let the weeds grow."
Jonathan Westover

WHEN IT COMES TO PROBLEMS IN BUSINESS, SOMETIMES IT'S BETTER TO MAKE A FAST DECISION THAN THE BEST DECISION

Implementing the second-best idea now is often a better strategy than waiting a week or a month or a year to come up with the perfect idea.

That’s how I’ve operated in my career. So you can understand why I liked reading what Stanford University Professor Charles O'Reilly said in a recent issue of Entrepreneur magazine.

Growing businesses create hundreds – even thousands – of opportunities for decisions. Some are large. Some are small. Some are critical. Some are insignificant. When you put them all together they determine your success or failure.

To make your business grow up fast and strong you have to become very good at making these decisions. You need to develop a skill at figuring out, first of all, which decisions to make yourself. which to delegate and which to ignore completely.

You also need to be able to make your decisions in a timely manner. The right decision made too late is sometimes worse than no decision at all.

Almost all of the successful entrepreneurs I know had an instinct for moving quickly – and that included decision making. When faced with a problem or opportunity, they remained restless until they could answer or take advantage of it. Although they often understood the importance of consultation, study and contemplation, their natural tendency was to make the decision quickly and move on.

That is a good instinct to have.

It works the other way too -- people who muddle over problems and delay decisions endlessly are very seldom successful in business.

When challenged by a daunting task executives whose first reaction is trepidation (see "Word to the Wise," below) and whose instinct is “let’s analyze this” are good team players (often very good at pointing out problems) but very seldom the leaders that start businesses and/or push them to new heights.

I know dozens of business people who are very talented, very smart and very capable – but who end up working for people less talented, smart and capable then they are. Why? Because they don’t have that instinct to make quick decisions and move forward. Their desire for success is less than their fear of failure.

It’s also a problem in making career choices. I'm thinking of a buddy of mine who has refused to relocate his business. He really wants to make the move. His wife is going to move without him. But he's frozen with fear over what might go wrong. He gives himself the feeling that he's making progress by endlessly going over the pros and cons.

Success comes from experience. You make mistakes. You have some triumphs. You learn from both of them and move on. The secret to advancing quickly -- to having a shining career -- is to accelerate that learning process. And that means ready, fire, aim.

Figure out -- quickly -- if the idea is worth testing. Test it. If it works but only marginally, kill it or fix it. Then move on to the next thing.

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VISUALIZE YOUR SUCCESS

You can overcome obstacles and sometimes even achieve goals that seemed impossible by exercising your imagination.

Picturing yourself making that winning shot or accepting the raise or receiving applause for your speech can help reduce the anxiety that comes with challenging yourself. I used this technique recently to prepare myself for the North American Grappling Association national championship.

Being a fifty-two year old in a young man’s sport, I had to delete a lot of scary movies in my head (of bones broken, humiliating defeats, etc.) and invent some better ones (of MMF taking his opponent to the ground, passing his guard, achieving a cross side, and then finishing with a spinning arm bar). Guess what? It helped. I came in second in my category..

Substituting positive fantasies for negative ones reduced my stress and allowed me to think about possible winning strategies.

Of course, visualization isn’t enough. Not nearly enough, in fact. Most of success comes from doing. And most of my good fortune at the competition came from hours and hours of practice. Still, it helps to create some positive mental images.

There are all sorts of books written about visualization. And in sports, at least, it’s practically a science. In business, visualization is probably best at helping you do things you are afraid to do -- preparing for a tough negotiating session or important presentation, for example.

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COMMUNICATION TIP: DON’T GET TOO HOOKED TO E-MAIL

E-mail has made executives more accessible than ever before (I don’t see lines outside offices any more) -- and that’s a good thing. But you shouldn’t fall into the habit of doing all your talking on the computer. As I've said several times before, difficult discussions and bad news should certainly be done in person. And those are not the only conversations that are better that way. The most important example: the casual, “What’s up?” You should be walking around and talking to you key employees at least once a week. The element of surprise and the casualness of impromptu discussions sometimes reveal things that would never come out via e-mail.

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MARKETING DURING A RECESSION

Your marketing efforts aren't pulling like they used to. What do you do? Here's some advice from Bob Bly:

1. Take massive action. Figure out what you think you need to do to generate the level of leads and orders you need. Then do twice that amount.

2. Don't rely on only one promotional vehicle, like direct mail or cold calling. Do three, four, even five things. Send out mailings … advertise … regularly e-mail your list … write an article … give a speech.

3. Make every communication a direct-marketing communication. Offer a premium with a high perceived value. Stress your free offer in your promotion.

4. Test different offers, ideas, copy, formats, and media to see which work best. Roll out with those promotions that work. Scratch the others. If they don't do well in a small test, mailing more won't help.

Editor's note: For more advice on marketing in a recession, see Bob Bly's new book "Fool-Proof Marketing,".

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HEALTH TIP: CUT THE GRAPEFRUIT

Grapefruit, according to something I read today, can multiply the effect of certain drugs by up to 1,000%. This dangerous effect has been documented for anti-anxiety drugs, Viagra, statin cholesterol-lowering drugs, calcium channel blockers, and blood thinners such as warfarin.

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IT'S GOOD TO KNOW: ABOUT INSECTS
Killer Bees

The aggressive, easily agitated Africanized bee -- a.k.a. "killer" bee -- was accidentally introduced into the wild in 1956 by Brazilian scientists who were trying to create a hybrid that would produce more honey. The scientists did not succeed. The bees that escaped (and started to work their way toward North America) began to dominate the honeybee. As a result, Brazil went from fourth in world honey production to 27th by the early 1990s.

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WORD TO THE WISE: TREPIDATION

"Trepidation" (treh-puh-DAY-shun) is a feeling of alarm or dread.

MMF

Copyright ETR, LLC, 2003

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