Home topics news News News How to make big decisions Rick Mapperson August 1, 2011 Lately I have been making some big choices that I have never made before. This is always an uncomfortable thing! Decisions involving money or long-term investments are always hard. For you that might mean increasing your business’ marketing budget, purchasing property, altering your budgeting or spending, agreeing to take out personal insurance, committing to an ongoing donation to a charity or taking on a new project. Part of the difficulty in making these kinds of decisions is that they contain an element of risk and uncertainty. Risk-taking is an integral part of business and life, particularly in small business, but so few people know how to manage it properly. The key is to not eliminate risk, but to reduce risk and plan for the worst-case scenario. The most intelligent risks are those where the potential downside is limited, but the potential upside is virtually unlimited or a big leap ahead. Follow these three steps to determine whether or not to take an intelligent risk: 1. Establish what the potential downside is. If you do not have the time to determine what the downside is, pass on the opportunity. 2. Ask yourself and experts what can be done to reduce the risk. Although it may appear so at the time, risks are seldom fixed. If you look at the opportunity creatively and objectively, there are often many ways to decrease the downside and reduce the risks.