Every Yes Has a Cost: Your Guide to Choosing What Really Matters

As entrepreneurs growing businesses, we chase opportunity every single day.  But when you are growing towards an eight-figure business, success often depends as much on what you choose not to do as what you choose to pursue.

Choose Your Winning Horses

When our business was growing at Mabel’s Labels, one of our challenges was in how to choose the winning horses.  We had more opportunities than we could take on, and we lamented it.  But  we also knew that if we took on too much, our team would be fragmented, their work scattered, and eventually we would risk them burning out or leaving us due to the chaos.

That didn’t stop us from hashing and rehashing the options.  We had started the business with just one kind of label.  Then we added options for more shapes, colours, pictures, and fonts.  We saw an endless range of products that we could create and personalize so that, with more choice to meet their tastes and needs, parents’ lives would be easier.  But carving an achievable path was important to us.  We wanted each project to be ambitious and something that we’d be able to succeed at. 

Over time, we realized that if we chose fewer projects and did them with excellence, good things happened.  That product launch?  Execution was great, product quality was high, production processes were in place.  We could sell it and WIN!  And so we did.

Every “Yes” Has a Cost

Now this doesn’t mean we were perfect all the time.  We certainly made mistakes, and, when we did, we worked to learn as much as possible from them.  This helped us realize that every yes has a cost.

That cost isn’t just about time:  it’s also attention, energy, team capacity, and momentum.  Even good opportunities can be the wrong ones if they detract from the other, already established priorities.  Every yes is also a no – to something else.

The Difference Between “No” and “Not Now”

We all worry about saying no and having a door close forever.  And that does happen with some things.  But many, many other times, the “not now” decision simply moves the option into a parking lot.  

At Mabel’s Labels, we had lots of our ideas parked. There were some where they stayed there for years – because we loved them, but not enough to give them a green light.

Sometimes we simply need to say “no” to protect our current priorities.  And while that might not feel good, it’s absolutely the right thing to do.

Why Is It So Hard to Say No?

For entrepreneurs, opportunities feel like validation of the reasons we started our businesses.  Someone wants to partner with us, or a retailer wants our product.  Maybe a client wants to hire us.  We always have that little voice that asks us “What if this is the one that changes everything?”  Turning down an opportunity can feel counterintuitive, or even irresponsible.  But chasing every opportunity pulls our attention away from the things we have already decided matter most.  Saying no isn’t always turning down growth.  Sometimes, it protects that growth.

Create a Filter for Opportunities

Before you say YES to our next opportunity, ask three questions:

• Does this move us towards our big goals and priorities?

• What will come off our plates to make room for this?  Or, what will we stop doing?

• Is it the best use of our (likely constrained) resources at this time?

While it’s sometimes right to let go of something you’re working on to chase a new opportunity, taking the time to filter, question and really decide is key.

Success Requires More “No’s”, Not Fewer

When you’re at the helm of a growing business, the opportunities in front of us seem to multiply.  And, when faced with a seemingly endless buffet of choices, it can be hard to move from finding opportunities to choosing among them.  

It’s important to remember that not deciding is also a choice.  Your team is relying on you to take into consideration the whole picture and make decisions about what to prioritize.  When you aren’t prioritizing for the team, they will begin to make their own priorities to manage the work.  The cost?  Different people are making different choices.  Focus at the top creates the focus throughout the company.  The bigger your business grows, the more selective your “yes” needs to become.

Saying “No” Creates Room for the Bigger YES

Saying the bigger “yes” and chasing our biggest goals means leaving a lot of “no’s” behind us.  That can feel difficult, and sometimes even disappointing, but it’s part of growth.  Growth isn’t always about doing more.  Sometimes it’s about choosing less in exchange for bigger opportunities.

At Mabel’s Labels, we tried to find a system that helped us choose those winning horses.  Most of the time we did a good job with it.  I imagine it also meant that we did miss some great opportunities to grow our business and do even more interesting things.

We moved from the thinking that success meant pursuing all opportunities, to realizing that our capacity was finite, and when we ignored this reality, things broke down.  So, we worked to choose the winning horses, and saying lots of “no’s” allowed us to execute the important things with excellence.

The goal is not to say no more often.  It’s to save your “yes” for the things that matter most.