The 5 Decisions That Stall More Businesses Than Anything Else | Ep 7

After 15+ years of building businesses and working with established owners, Meagan has identified five specific decisions that appear again and again — the ones that quietly stall growth, drain energy, and keep capable owners stuck longer than they need to be. In this episode, she names all five and explains exactly why each one is so hard to make.

Transcript

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Welcome back to Amplify and Act. I'm Megan Van Wort, and today we're shifting gears into a new series. We are going to be talking about five decisions that stall more businesses than anything else. And I'm going to be doing three consecutive episodes to talk through these. And I have seen these decisions come up again and again with my customers across all industries, across all revenue levels, and these businesses have been in years for a really long time. So let's go ahead and get right into it. Now you have survived the startup phase. You've proven the model you're working in. So why do these certain decisions continue to come up and they keep blocking you from getting to everything else? Now these aren't random and they're actually predictable and they show up for a reason. So let's get right into it. Here are five decisions that stall your business more than anything else. All right, hold on to your hat because these are good ones. And I'm confident that these decisions, at least one or two of these, will come up for you, if not all of them. Okay, that's how compelling these are. So the first decision we're going to talk about is the pricing decision. Now, you may be known you are undercharging for a long time. Maybe there are certain areas of your business where you know you're charging the right amount for, but there's new services or there's maybe old services that you need to revise the pricing. Now, some of you may have a service-based model, or some of you may sell products. It's different for everyone. Now you may have a fear of losing clients if that keeps you from adjusting that pricing, whatever it is, and something may be resonating for you right now. Meanwhile, you're trading your time for less than it's actually worth, whether it's the time you're spending with a client or it's the time you're putting into a certain product, right? Or service in that case. Now, here's the kicker. What keeps you stuck is conflating your price with your worth. Now, when I think about this, I like to think about that you're not modifying your pricing because you don't want to miss out on a certain sale or an opportunity. Another flip to consider is that you maybe you don't want to miss out on a certain connection or an opportunity to work with someone. That's something that has come up many times for my clients. Well, I really, I want to, I really want to work with this person. Maybe I'm energized by them, or I really want to make this product for them, even though it's custom and it will take a really long time and they have a budget. It's really hard to say no, or it's really hard to modify or or hold that firm price if you're running into some of those, you know, more personal constraints. And it's really hard to overcome if you're stuck in your mind of like keeping a price for what it is based on what it's actually worth. Um, another way I love to think about it is how is this reflecting as growth in your business? You know, we make a lot of small and big decisions for our business, and the more you get comfortable with it, the more you say you think about the amount of time and the amount of personal investment that go into your product or service. And it's really important for you to consider, you know, where your worth comes in and the amount of time you're spending on something and how much you should be getting for it. So that's our first decision that you may be stuck on, okay? And it happens to all of us. I can think of three or four clients right now that they struggle with the price thing. And I've been in business, you know, for over 20 years, and I have constantly struggled struggle with this. It may have been, you know, when I was first getting started, I used to build websites 20 years ago, and I still do websites today, and I used to charge only like 500 bucks for a website. And I'm spending how many hours, even after 10 years of experience, and I'm, you know, for friends or family, I may do, you know, may help people out. And sometimes you have to just say no, or you say, you know, I really need to be charging this for the website. You have those conversations with yourself. So we all have those examples that come up and that resonate for us. So you're not the only one going through this. You know, you have people like myself and others to help you work through these decisions, whether it's just kind of like boosting your confidence and helping you identify your self-worth, like that's all a part of this process and it's very healthy. Let's get into decision number two. Decision number two that you may be facing is to hire or not. So you may need help. You may be convincing yourself that you're almost ready to hire. And that almost has been happening for like the past 18 months or so. And what keeps you stuck is the fear of being responsible for someone else's livelihood. Um, one of the things I love to think about is you think about your fat business moving faster or you're maybe you're missing out on revenue. It's really interesting to think about if I hire, what is actually gonna be delivered at the end? What is that person gonna be doing? What is the value they're gonna be delivering at the end of the day, and is it gonna be worth it? So instead of being in fear of the responsibility of what they're doing or what they're going to do, be intentional and think about the strategy up front. Evaluate, hey, what are the responsibilities that I need someone to do the work for me, right? And identifying what those are, thinking about the hours associated, but getting that information out and in front of you helps you eliminate that fear of you making the wrong decision. Because once you're confident in those decisions you're making, it will really help you boost and promote the growth of your business. Think about how much faster your business could be moving. Think about your missed revenue. I love to consider if I had this one person do this thing for me, or if I hired a service to do this SEO work, or if I hired someone to help me make better decisions, I could move much more quickly in my business. Think about the confidence I could give you as a business owner. Think about that personal and professional growth around hiring or not. Those are all aligned to our goals. So if you think of a goal you have to generate revenue, to um execute a new product or service, to grow your business in X, you know, X or Y ways, hiring someone to help investing in a service, um, whether it's a person or whatever, those are the things that can actually move your business forward and it can re-energize you as a business owner. So again, what keeps you stuck from not making a decision to hire or not is the fear of not knowing what's gonna happen or being responsible for an output. But if you have that confidence and you have that framework up front, you're gonna really feel the energy that can follow. Now, decision number three is around service clarity. Now, I love this one. Um you as a business, product or service, you may offer too many things to too many people. And narrowing this down feels like you're leaving money on the table, but it's actually the opposite. Now, what keeps you stuck here is the belief that more options is more revenue. Now, I've learned this uh the hard way over the past years, and I I'm thinking of another client that constantly is running into this. Um, is that it's being specific and doing one or two or three things really, really good, or doing more things just to make yourself look really knowledgeable, really talented. All those things that people like really don't care about. People want to know that you're really good at what you say you do, and if you say you do those one or two or three things, they're gonna know that you're really good at it. It's gonna allow your business to shine, whether you do products or services, it allows your business to shine. It also allows you to focus on a certain skill set or a certain design or a certain product or a certain service for you to get really, really good at. And guess what happens when you get really, really good at something? You don't spread yourself too thin, you actually become more successful, you become more profitable, you have more eyes on you because you've created a name for yourself for doing that one or two or three things really, really good, versus you um creating eight different products or offering eight different services where you're just like mediocre at. Um, I've seen this time and time again in service-based clients and product-based customers um who make things um and that spread themselves too thin uh to kind of dilute the really good work they're doing. So think about that. How does that resonate for you? The belief that more options could be more revenue. That's a decision that we run into often. And if it's not something that you're doing too much of now, sometimes another way to reflect on that is like should I should I take on more to add value to my portfolio or to my service offerings? And if it's aligned and it adds value, you could absolutely consider that. But consider about staying focused in ways that allow you to generate the revenue that you deserve versus spreading yourself a little too thin. And we can always dig into that more. All right, let's dig into decision number four. Are you ready for this one? This one's around the exit or doubling down. So here's an example. Uh, something isn't working the way that you hoped for your business. You haven't fully committed to fixing it or letting it go. So it just continues and kind of lingers within your business. Now, what keeps you stuck here is the sunk cost. So things you've invested in it and the identity wrapped up in a thing that just isn't working. Now, one example of this that resonates for me with a client is she makes custom products and it takes a ton of her time to make these custom products, even a custom service, right? If you want to think about it from the service-based industry. Now, say it takes her 10 hours for this custom product, and it takes and she's charging the same amount versus saying, you know what, I really shouldn't be doing this custom product or service anymore, is taking twice as amount of my time and I'm getting the same amount of revenue or profit from this. And that's the decision where you are the decision maker. You are letting this linger versus saying, I am not doing this anymore. Now that's the exit decision, right? Now, if you're doubling down, you can say, what do I need to do to make this more efficient or I want to keep this? You say, I'm willing to put the work in for the 10 hours, but I cannot charge you X amount, I need to charge you Y amount, I need to charge more for this. And those are decisions that come in with making a decision to say, I'm not gonna do this anymore, or I am gonna get what is the value or the worth for doing this work. And that comes up so often, and it is so hard sometimes to make these decisions on your own. And I just want you to know you're not alone. Every single business owner struggles with this, and that there are people here to help you work through that. Okay, so there is hope, I promise. All right, let's talk through decision number five. I love this one for so many different reasons. It is the what do I actually want decision? Now, this one sits underneath all of the others, and until you can answer this honestly, there are the other four are really harder than they need to be. And what keeps you stuck here is the fear that the honest answer requires a change that you're not ready to make. Now, I um I faced this personally a lot over my career. It could be a professional decision you're making, it could be personal decisions that you're making. As an entrepreneur, I and I'm a very creative entrepreneur, I always had ideas of things I wanted to do, ways you could make money, customers I want to connect with, products or services that I want to offer. And when you spread yourself thin, you you aren't as productive like we talked about before of like getting your worth, like becoming a master, doing something really well versus like not doing everything really great, you know? And that comes down to the what do you actually want to do conversation. And that's this decision that we have to make um for ourselves. Now, one of the best ways to tackle this, and if you haven't done it, I do it annually, like religiously. I have this honest, what do I actually want decision. You could do it every six months as a business. I have these conversations with my clients quarterly as these strategic strategic decisions sessions, um, saying, okay, what are my goals? What do I actually want for the next three months, or what do I actually want in the next six months? For me as a business, I always do it annually. I do it myself because I'm disciplined enough to do it by myself. And I you think about what is the time that you have in your day, what are the goals you have for your business? And if you have an idea of strategy, great, you can break strategy into it. But you can take strategy out really until you make those decisions. And that's some of the things that we work through. So, how do I actually make decisions around what do I actually want? And it starts with making a list, what is important to you and why? And it's about having that honest conversation with yourself. What are the things that are most important to you and why? And prioritizing them. Now, there's a lot of ways to go through about these exercises, but once you hold the time to go through this process, you can re-energize yourself and then you can make time management decisions on how much time to invest in those certain things. And then the things that are less important, even if it's one thing for you to let go of, it is so empowering to say, I'm not gonna spend my time on this for these reasons. And I do that as a business owner, and it feels so good to know that I've sat down, I've written things down, I've prioritized, and I'm making strategic decisions for myself and my business, but also for that personal happiness, um, whether it's revenue-based or if it's saying, hey, I'm just gonna focus on the things that are most important right now. And again, you could do this quarterly, you could do it every six months or annually. It's absolutely up to you. And if you haven't done this, I highly encourage you to consider it. It's a really important thing. Now, I just want to highlight this that most of these decisions feel like business decisions, but they're actually personal ones, and that is what makes them so hard, and it's why they are so important. No, I want you to think about which one of these is on your plate right now, which one of these resonates the most for you. And I want you to know that the next two episodes and my podcast are gonna go deeper on the two hardest ones around pricing and hiring. And we're gonna get more into that. Now, I want to share something with you. What surprised me the most is that about these decisions is that it's almost always the same five that come up. And I get really energized about this, which you can probably hear in my voice, is because they'll come up in your business at different times in different ways. And some of them may land a little harder than others, but these come up for everyone across all industries, different revenue levels, and again, the years in business, these will come up over and over. But there's a pattern underneath all five, and they're not really business decisions, they're honest conversations that owners haven't had with themselves. The decision isn't hard because it's complicated, it's hard because it's honest, and I can actually fully admit to that. It's easier for me to make those, have those strategic decisions with myself because I've recognized the value in doing that. Because I am sitting down and looking at myself in the mirror, saying, What is the honest approach that I want to take for my business, for my personal life? Those are the things. And it feels so good when you can just sit down by yourself or even with someone else to dig into those details. Now it's really powerful to do this. Now, one of the things you can do is you can look at your list. If you listen to my episode four from the lead domino, and you have if you haven't listened to episode four yet, go back in my podcast and listen to that. But which of these five decisions that you've learned about today is your lead domino right now? And I want you to write it down. And for anybody that doesn't know what the lead domino exercise is, is that you write down five decisions or whatever, four or five decisions that you have top of mind, and you um grade them based on um and you grade them, and then you prioritize your decisions based on the grading rankings. Okay now I want you to write down which of these decisions are most relevant for you right now, and uh we're gonna go deep into it over the next two episodes. I hope that this was insightful for you. I hope that you are energized to think about which of these decisions are top of mind for you right now. If you need any support, do not hesitate to reach out. This is why I am here. I am here to share my expertise, give you these tips, and support you where you need it. But until next time, I want you to amplify your thinking. You can do it, and I want you to act on it. Now, next week, we're gonna be going deep on the pricing decision, the one I see stall more established businesses almost than any other. And until then, have a great rest of your week, and I look forward to seeing you all soon.