DECISIONS, DECISIONS

Yogi Berra once said, “When you come to the fork in the road, TAKE IT”. In his own way, Yogi was telling you a secret to success.

Just about everything we do is linked to making a choice. It starts in the morning just as you take your first breath waking up, you immediately decide if you want to get out of bed or roll over and go back to sleep. Depending on what you decided, your decision will lead you to your next decision. If you decided to roll over and go back to sleep the decision is “how long should I sleep”? If you decided to get up, the decision might be to take a shower or have breakfast first. Every decision you make will lead to your next decision and so on for the entire day.

Life is a series of choices. Very seldom do we have a situation where there is only one choice, and many times we have more than two choices. This is where decision making starts to get very complicated. Or maybe not! It will depend on what you use as the “deciding factor” to make decisions. (Say that 3 times fast). Your personal values come into play. Do you always do what is right? Do you always do what is right for YOU? Do you always do what is right for your company? 3 answers to the same question and none of them wrong answers. So how will you decide?

Just about everyone has their own idea as to how to make decisions. As a matter of fact I have my own idea, the good news (at least for me) is, because this is my blog I get to share my ideas. Whenever I have a decision to make, I first think past the decision. I try to think about all the consequences that “COULD” happen with each decision I can make. By looking to what some call the next level, you can sometimes see what works out to be the best decision to make.

If the next level doesn’t help me I then look at each decision from the customer’s point of view. I ask myself, “If I do this, what will it look like to my customer” or “What will the customer think”? By looking through the customers eyes you can sometimes see your best decision very clearly.

Finally, if everything is equal at the next level, and through the customers eyes, I think, which decision will give me BRAGGING rights? In other words, which decision will give me the best story to tell to my other customers and perhaps persuade them to buy more from me? Which decision will make me a better “Sales Story Teller”? I have always told the reps I train that if you do something for a customer and they don’t know that it was you who did it, it is like not doing it. For instance, if you go to a customer and rearrange their displays without them knowing it, you may as well not have done it. They will never give you credit for it, they will think that one of their people did it. You need to toot your own horn, and having a GREAT story to tell is a very loud TOOT!

Now let’s look at absolutely the worst decision you can make. Do you know what the worst decision is? The worst decision is NOT MAKING A DECISION! Without making a decision there is no progress, there is no movement, and nothing is accomplished. No decision means that things are left unfinished, or half way done. No decision may tell a customer that you are not sure of yourself and that can make them loose confidence in you. Since I already used a Yogi Berra quote, let me stay with the baseball theme. Any coach will tell you, there is nothing wrong with striking out swinging at the ball, but to strike out standing with the bat on your shoulder is never acceptable.

I wish I could tell you decision making was fun. To be truthful, it seldom is fun, what I can tell you is decision making is crucial and the best decision makers seem to always be the most successful people.

Am I right? YOU DECIDE!

Lorin