Elements of Decision Making in a Home Based Online Business

Why is Decision Making Important?

This is the first in a series of short articles on decision making, as it may affect the progress, or otherwise, of your home based online business. The main purpose of the articles is to get you thinking, more than you might have done, about decisions that affect your business. It is not possible in short articles to cover what is really an endless subject, but I hope by the end of the series you will be more conscious of the decisions you make which may affect:

1.The profitability of your online business.

2.The scope for expansion.

3.Your efficiency.

4.The productive use of your time.

5.Your family.

6.Your enjoyment of working online.

plus many other aspects of working at home online, in your own business.

Why is decision making important? You only need to consider that for a moment to realize: that it is a dumb question. From the moment you wake, you are passing through a series of tens of thousands of little decisions. You are not very aware of most of them, they are routine, semi or sub-conscious decisions. Any one of those "little" decisions could have a major influence on the future path of your life.

For example, you are in a hurry and decide to cross the road at a certain point. A car comes hurtling around the corner, and knocks you into the air. Thankfully you are still alive after you land, but are taken to hospital and are there for a couple of weeks, at one point in Intensive Care. You are employed, but your employer is not sympathetic, will not pay you, and for a few days you lie there worrying about losing your job. You have no insurance, so how will you pay the bills?

Was crossing the road at that point, at that time, a bad decision? On the face of it, yes, it was stupid to say the least. But what if, in the two weeks in hospital, you fall in love with a nurse? Later, you marry and have several wonderful children? Was that still a bad decision, crossing the road then and there?

Not only did you meet your future spouse, the person in the next bed turned out to have some good business ideas they wanted to put into practice. You got chatting about them as your condition started to improve. The two of you found you saw eye to eye on lots of things, and it was clear that you would both benefit from the synergy of working together on a business project. The other person had the ideas and money in place, but needed you as a partner to take it forward. When you were both fit and well again, he subsidized you while the business was set up. It prospered, and within months you were earning 4 times your previous income. Was that still a bad decision, crossing the road then and there?

That is fiction, but is it unrealistic fiction? No. There are probably many thousands of very similar stories. And there are countless millions of true stories about seemingly little decisions that have altered the course of people's lives.

What I have been referring to are almost random events. I say "almost" because the decision to cross the road was not random. An adult crossing the road like that had sufficient information to make a correct decision. They did not make use of their knowledge and information. As decision making goes, it was a bad decision, regardless of what random events followed.

Making decisions in your every day business needs to be more focused, more scientific, and much more aware, than you may have been used to in your life as an employee. Most of us have, at some stage, passed through a zombie like existence of repetition, working for a company or other organization. It may even be that you have had little scope to make decisions other than when and where to cross the road, what to eat for dinner, what to watch on tv, and what to wear today. Now, though, with your own online business, there is massive scope for making key decisions, every day. How you do that will have a serious impact on the future of your business.

I believe that just by being more conscious of your decisions, your business will benefit, and so will you. Relying on the business equivalent of crossing the road at the wrong time, meeting the love of your life and your perfect business partner, is not an option if your are serious about your business. You cannot rely on random events, although undoubtedly some random events will affect you in the future. Business is often a percentage game, and you want to make decisions that tilt the odds in your favour.

Decision making in business is about bringing together as much relevant information as possible, in a structured and understandable way, and consciously reviewing that information before arriving at a decision. It is about assessing possible outcomes, probabilities, future trends, past experiences and all other relevant factors. Ignoring those factors may not put you in hospital, but would harm your business.

I will cover elements of business decision making in future articles. In the mean time, if you are in search of a new loved one and business partner, please do not step out in front of a car. Your local hospital may not be the place where they are currently waiting for you.

Roy Thomsitt is the owner, webmaster and author of http://www.change-direction.com , a new website in late 2004, about working online in a home based business. He has a background in offline advertising, with practical experience of working from home in marketing since 1995, plus 2 years of experience with online marketing. Professionally, he was trained as a management accountant and has substantial background in financial and project management, implementing new office, accounting, computer and management systems.