The Most Expensive Business Decisions Are Sometimes the Ones You Make Too Quickly
A prospect questions your price on Tuesday.
By Wednesday, you’ve reviewed your pricing six times, run the numbers again, considered how three competitors might be charging, and started wondering if maybe you got a little ahead of yourself.
Or business is unusually slow for a few weeks, and suddenly the lead generation strategy you were perfectly happy with last month is looking suspicious. You start thinking about what else you could try, what you should change, whether you need to do more.
This is how we end up solving problems we don’t actually know we have yet.
And I see smart, experienced women do it all the time.
Sometimes Something Happened. That’s All.
One person thought your price was too high. One webinar didn’t perform the way you hoped, or you had a month that came in below where you expected.
Of course I want to know about those things. I want to pay attention when something changes in my business, but I don’t necessarily want to do anything about it yet.
Because one result doesn’t tell you very much on its own. Maybe that prospect was never going to spend $10,000 on this kind of work, or maybe you hit a weird week when everyone seemed to disappear at once.
There could absolutely be something worth changing. You just don’t know yet.
This Is Where Smart Women Can Get Themselves Into Trouble
Most of the women I work with are excellent problem solvers. Give them something that isn’t working and they immediately start looking for what they can adjust.
That instinct has probably served you extremely well. It’s also how you can end up changing something that hasn’t had enough time to prove itself.
I’ve watched women rethink their pricing after one objection or abandon a lead generation strategy after a few slow weeks. Then suddenly they’re working with a whole new set of variables and still don’t really know what caused the original result.
And that’s where this gets expensive. You can spend months fixing problems you never actually had.
I Want to See a Pattern
After 30+ years in sales, I’m much more interested in what keeps happening. If one person pushes back on your price, make a note of it. If qualified prospects keep raising the same concern over several conversations, now I want to understand what’s going on.
Same with lead generation. A slow month gets my attention, but a consistent decline over several months gives me something I can actually work with.
There’s no magic number here, and I don’t think there needs to be. I just want enough evidence that I’m making a decision based on what’s happening in the business, rather than how strongly I reacted to the last thing that happened.
Maybe Don’t Touch It Yet
There’s a lot of business advice about knowing when to pivot, and for good reason. Sometimes you do need to change the price, rethink the offer, or admit that the strategy isn’t producing what you need it to produce.
I just think we could spend a little more time talking about the other skill: knowing when to leave something alone long enough to see what it can actually do.
So the next time you feel that immediate urge to fix something, give yourself a little more information first. Ask yourself whether you’re seeing a pattern, and whether you have enough evidence to make the decision you’re about to make.
After decades in business, I’ve learned that restraint is a business skill too. Sometimes the smartest decision you make is the one you give yourself a little more time to make.
Before you blow up your strategy, do this first.
My free Lead Generation Strategy Workbook will help you take a closer look at what’s already bringing people into your business and where your energy is best spent next.
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