Posts Tagged ‘Decision Making’

I seem to have an issue around money. So my business coach tells me.

I don’t mean in the traditional sense. Of course, like everyone, I’d like more, and on occasion I worry that I don’t have enough. No, my money issues revolve around my work. Namely, what to charge, and lately, whether to accept speaking engagements that don’t pay.

One of the primary reasons I hired my business coach was to help me set pricing. Hands down, pricing is one of the hardest things to navigate, at least for me, in terms of running my own business. I obsess -literally- in every session, phone call and email about pricing issues, which I’m guessing is why she continues to point out that I “have a thing” around money.

Hmph.

For a long time I didn’t understand what she meant. In my defense, I don’t feel I have an issue with money, per say, it’s that I fear making the wrong decision. If I speak for free, then that feels unfair to the groups that pay. If I don’t speak for free, I might lose the client. (Or at least, the future clients that are practically guaranteed by the person requesting the engagement.)

It’s become a real problem as of late, since, with my rising visibility, we are getting bombarded with requests to speak for free. Val and I have discussed this at length, how, it makes sense on one hand- speaking in front of people continues to raise my profile- but on the other, it devalues what I do. Unlike a coach or author who speaks for free to bring in coaching business or sell books, my primary source of income is from speaking engagements. And rarely, if ever, do we see the promised clients after speaking for free. “Free begets free,” Val likes to say, and I agree. At least I think I do.

Instead of recommending I see a counselor, -which I’m sure is her next suggestion- my business coach asked me to call a successful speaker friend of hers and ask for advice. “You might be interested in her perspective,” she said.

I called, having no idea what to expect. I thought perhaps she would tell me taking free gigs was a great way to grow my business, or that there was a way to utilize free speaking so that it led to paying clients. I explained the reason for my call, saying that I struggled with how to balance the free speaking requests with my need to make a living.

“I don’t speak for free,” was her response. “Ever?” I asked, somewhat confused. “Ever,” she said. She then asked, “do you want to do this for a living?” I meekly said, “yes,” thinking, I already do this for a living, lady. “Then don’t speak for free,” she said, adding, “ok Bonnie?” and hung up.

As I sat there, phone in hand, wondering how the heck she confused my name for Bonnie, I realized why my coach had me call. It wasn’t to stop me from accepting free speaking engagements. I highly value her advice- one word from her and the matter would have been closed. Instead, she hoped I’d see there was no “right” answer. I can take free speaking gigs or I can turn them down. But doing things out of fear just creates more confusion because the matter is never really resolved. There’s always something new to be afraid of. Which is why I keep obsessing. Good business decisions don’t come from a place of fear.

So I talked it over with Val. And we decided that I don’t speak for free. For a variety of reasons. And that doesn’t mean we won’t someday change our mind or that people who do speak for free are in the wrong. But as we carefully instituted our new policy this week, you’ll never guess what happened. People decided that, well, they might be able to pay after all. Choosing to do something in the absence of fear translated into confidence which, turns out, is something people are attracted to and want to pay for.

I have a problem making decisions. My assistant, whom I adore, has pointed this out on several occasions. I get the feeling it annoys her.

["You get the feeling?" Val says when I read this to her. "Honey, it IS annoying."]

Every time I need to make a decision – how much to charge for a service, what to wear at a workshop, or even where to go to dinner- I run it by my assistant, best friend, business coach, husband, and on occasion, my dry cleaner.

I pay my assistant and business coach, and due to those pesky wedding vows, my husband has to put up with me. I’ve tried to pay my friend for her help but she won’t accept money. Because I feel so bad for always asking for help and advice, I give her thank-you-for-still-liking-me gifts. I take her for pedicures and lunch, and lately, I’ve given her furniture from my house. It’s amazing I still have a sofa.

Indecision is ingrained in my DNA. My father shops five hardware stores for a new hammer, and after buying one he often takes it back only to start the entire process all over again. Somewhere along the line, we learned that gathering all available information before making a decision is what you’re supposed to do in order to avoid making a mistake.

Turns out it isn’t. Malcolm Gladwell in his best-selling book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking calls this into question. He says quick decisions can be just as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately. We tend to over-think, and that gets us into trouble.

Tell me about it. My spare bedroom is missing a bookcase.

Can quick decisions be as good as thought-out ones?

Gladwell says our ability to “thin-slice” can often deliver a better answer than if we research and weigh all of our options before making a decision. He defines thin-slicing as the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience. He says our unconscious sifts through the situation in front of us, throws out all that is irrelevant and zeros in on what really matters.

Nonverbal communication plays a big part in our ability to thin-slice. We subconsciously pick up on nonverbal cues that alert us to the authenticity of an interaction. We scan the faces of people we are talking to to look for congruence between what they are saying and what they are nonverbally communicating, and we watch body language to help clarify the verbal message.

As a nonverbal communications coach I train people to use it systematically. It translates the majority of face-to-face communication, so it’s important to understand what we communicate nonverbally so we can adjust our approach based on the needs of the situation. Which really means I train people to make decisions.

And therein lies the confusion. I trust that the information we receive and send nonverbally assists us in making decisions, especially if we know what to look for. So why is decision making so hard?

Gladwell says that we’re innately suspicious and tend to assume that the quality of a decision is directly related to the time and effort that went into making it. If something comes easily, we tend to distrust it. I see this over and over again in our nonverbal workshops. For example, our number one skill for giving negative information – have the information on a visual and look at it instead of the person- sounds too simple to be effective. People are amazed -and truthfully, a bit skeptical- that small things make such a huge difference. Until they try it and it works.

Like nonverbal communication, our subconscious is powerful: it collects and stores information from all of our past experiences, and within a split second gives us what we need to make a decision. We’ve been hard-wired from birth to read and interpret nonverbal cues, and our subconscious holds onto information over the span of our entire lifetime. This information helps us make decisions – literally – in the blink of an eye.

Gladwell points out that there are times when thinking through a decision is warranted, and I plan on exploring this in another post. But in general, I think it’s time I started trusting my ability to make good decisions on my own. My new decisiveness couldn’t come a moment too soon. I adore my end table and was not looking forward to giving it up.