Edition 479 – Tough Calls

Sometimes, things don’t work out in business. You come up with an idea. You scope it out. You put it all together. You roll it out. Then, no matter the reason, it simply doesn’t fire. It doesn’t generate the response that you had hoped for, even though you’ve given it time, which leads you to making a tough call.

One client identified an area of their business that had real opportunity to grow. Their existing staff, had limited capacity, to devote to this potentially lucrative revenue stream. When the budget numbers were done at the outset, it was determined that a dedicated resource would be hired, to really embrace not only the potential for this service line to truly flourish, but to ensure it didn’t detract from the existing team’s ability to do their work.

It was determined that a 1 year trial would ensue for this service. 12 months might seem a long time, however, given the nature of the business, that’s what was determined would be needed, to ensure the gradual ramp up of both the level of client enquiry, and the skillset of the dedicated resource employed to come up to speed.

Throughout that year, some issues were identified, that slowed down the rate of success of the project. Some of it was systems driven. Some of it was client driven. Some of it was employee driven. There wasn’t a particular factor at play, but the sense was, if there was a renewed focus on each of these areas, perhaps the results would be different.

So, in the interests of ensuring not only that the right decision was ultimately made for the business, but that the project had the opportunity to really succeed, a 1 year extension was resolved. Perhaps, a little tweaking here and there, might be the difference needed to lock this into the business, long term.

Eventually, at the end of the second year, things hadn’t improved. In fact, they’d deteriorated more than anything else. So, the tough call was made, to terminate the project, restructure the service offer, and let go the individual recruited to specifically look after this project. It was an emotional decision for the owner of the business for many reasons, one of which is the very high level of compassion they have towards their staff.

In the end, whilst numbers didn’t drive the decision, they certainly led to the asking of a wide range of questions, that created the conclusion that was arrived at. By the way, these weren’t just financial numbers. Often, they were non-financial numbers, on their weekly dashboard report, that bore it out. Numbers such as:

1. The ebbing and flowing of appointments for the dedicated resource, over time.
2. The opening up of appointment capacity for the other employees of the business, which aligned with the onboarding of the new resource.
3. The revenue generated by the dedicated employee, vs. the cost.
4. The very short list of potential clients that wanted to take up the project.

Invariably, and ultimately, what led to the tough call being made, was dedicating uninterrupted time, out of the normal work day, to completely review what was happening. This uninterrupted time involved me, in my advisory role, working through a series of questions, with the owners.

Whilst it was easy to arrive at the decision from a logical viewpoint, the most difficult aspect was the emotional – how the conversation was going to be framed not only to the individual concerned, but to everyone else in the business. That took a greater amount of time simply as a result of the fact that, when a business owner truly cares about the people inside their business, they still want to ensure they’re doing the right thing, by everyone involved.

When it comes to tough calls, never underestimate the emotional capital invested in arriving at the decision, then implementing it.

This Week’s Tip

“Logic makes you think – Emotion makes you act” – Alan Weiss.