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Make decisions before circumstances force them to be made
March 2020 was a scary time to be a business owner. Things were still going well for us, but the future was very uncertain — for everyone!
Ali and I took some time that month to plot out two sets of scenarios for our business.
- Determining how long could we sustain the company if we lost x clients, or if recurring revenue dropped by a certain percent, or various other potential situations that COVID might cause.
- Setting “triggers” for various things to happen if things went very poorly. We’d dip into savings if scenario 1 hit, we’d lay off some of the team if scenario 2 hit, and a bunch of related ideas.
The plan was simply to be ready. If things went poorly business-wise because of COVID, we’d have already made the necessary decisions on how to handle the latest issue.
In his book “ Clear Thinking “, author Shane Parrish offers that exact suggestion, saying:
A good position allows you to think clearly rather than be forced by circumstances into a decision. One reason the best in the world make consistently good decisions is they rarely find themselves forced into a decision by circumstances.
Our primary goal was to avoid hitting any of the trigger marks, which we were able to do. 2020 turned out…
