The Painful Cost of Indecision

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Exactly what everyone didn’t want to happen has happened, a hung parliament – the first in 36 years. In a time when stability was the catchword of each of the main parties, a hung parliament offers us all the exact opposite of this. Indecision at the ballot boxes had the immediate effect of wiping £35bn off the value of the shares of some of the UK’s largest companies, a painful reminder to us all that indecision can cost us dearly, whether you’re talking about politics or business.

Business investors know that clarity of direction, dedication to defined goals and a decisive individual at the helm could mean the difference between the success and failure of an organisation and this will certainly influence their investment decisions.

As an entrepreneur you need to show business investors that you are such an individual to win their confidence and ultimately their capital.

Pre-investment decisiveness
Indecision is the enemy of all entrepreneurs. When launching a business there are so many choices to be made, and without the ability to quickly and effectively conclude which direction is best for your company, your venture will not get off the drawing board let alone make it to a room full of business investors keen to fund its future.

Now some people are just indecisive by nature, but others simply lack the confidence to follow their convictions. The problem is that no matter how brilliant your ideas are, if nobody hears about them they won’t make anyone money, which after all is what business investors are looking for, and what any venture requires to survive. All too many ingenious concepts have been consigned to the scrap heap of history because of this.

A decisive pitch
For most entrepreneurs the chance to pitch their venture to business investors is a once in a lifetime opportunity to change their corporate destiny. A few minutes of time could mean the difference between struggling along as they have been or winning over one or more business investors to help both financially and as mentors to teach them the “ways of the great profit”.

Of course there are many things you must remember when pitching to business investors such as knowing your facts and figures inside out, understanding your competitors, being able to clearly present the investment opportunity, and so on. However, all this will mean nothing if you do not prove your decisiveness by quickly and confidently answering questions, presenting a clear corporate direction, and concisely explaining how the goals you’ve achieved are markers on the road to success.

A decisive pitch is many times more likely to bear financial fruit than an indecisive pitch, so which do you want to give?

Post-investment decisiveness
Gaining one or more business investors as partners in your venture is just the start of your rise to corporate stardom. All the decisive attributes that you have shown to get to this point need to continue or you run the risk of losing the confidence of your new partners.

A successful future for us all
If the UK is going to achieve that much coveted “stable” status anytime soon we need to start showing some decisive government. So man (and woman) up all you politicians out there. Yes, you may have completely failed to convince us one way or another in the election, now do better. Be decisive in your plans to stabilise our economy.

Image © Septillion