Emotions aren’t necessarily bad, but they are an integral part of being a human being. Unfortunately, emotions can get us into trouble when it comes to making good business decisions. The idea that following “gut feelings” is a good way to make business decisions is one that works only on television. The truth is that the best business decisions are made by removing emotions from the equation. Here are several tips for helping to remove emotions from your business decision-making process.
Practice Patience
Frustration and desire often lead to impatience and impatience can lead to disaster. Finding the right property to invest in often takes a great deal of time, research, and commitment. You may buy a pristine property from a seller only to return to find it a mess by the time they move out. It may be so bad that you have to hire Purple Rhino Render Cleaning to deal with the problem, but don’t let that frustration get to you because it will only hinder good decision making. In order to improve your ability to deal with frustrating situations, practice patience in your everyday life. By mastering the ability to deal with everyday frustrations, you will gain the skills necessary to deal with the very large frustrations that often come with real estate investing.
Acknowledge Fears
The most important way to overcome your emotions is to acknowledge your fears. Whether you have a fear of the unknown, a fear of missing out on a good deal, or fear of losing your investment in a shady business deal, acknowledging a fear is the first step to coming up with practical solutions for dealing with it. For the most part, your fears are grounded in reality and should never be ignored. When it comes to fear, your goal should be to understand what generated the fear in the first place so that you can address it intelligently. By addressing your fears, you turn them into healthy business practices, such as performing due diligence or learning how to wait for the right opportunity to arise.
Eliminate Excitement
It may seem odd to be told to eliminate excitement from your business, but the point is not to eliminate joy or prevent you from celebrating a great deal. The point of this tip is to help you focus on consistency. An exciting real estate business is usually one plagued by disorganization, dramatic highs and lows, and unpredictable excesses and losses. While this excitement may become addictive, it can also destroy your business. In general, real estate thrives through consistent marketing, regular daily offers, dredging up leads on a regular basis, and repetitive and predictable business practices.
Forget About Effort
It is typical to want to see results after investing a great deal of effort in something. Unfortunately, effort does not, in and of itself, constitute a valid deal. More to the point, is critical to avoid the mental trap that leads us to believe that if we invest a great deal of time and effort into researching an investment, then we should make the deal. In truth, you’re going to invest a great deal of time into researching every deal, whether it ultimately comes to fruition or not. Your efforts shouldn’t be viewed as lost hours or money if you pass on a deal, but rather as time and energy put into ensuring that every dollar you spend is well invested. You aren’t investing effort into making a deal, you’re investing effort into making a good deal.
Confront Your Biases
We all have biases and often we can’t do anything to change them. That said, we can confront our own biases so that we are aware of them and take them into account when making decisions. When it comes to business, confronting your own biases is a good way to help you look more critically at aspects of a deal that you might otherwise gloss over. By identifying biases, you can be sure that you take the time and invest the effort to determine if your biases are correct in that given situation or if you need to set them aside because the evidence tells you to do so.
Investing with Your Head
In truth, there is nothing wrong with being emotional. When it comes to business, your goal shouldn’t be to eliminate emotion completely, but rather to understand your own emotions so that you can turn them into strengths. This process of putting your emotions into check helps to ensure that you make good financial decisions. One of the best ways to put your emotions in check is to have a partner or mentor who can help guide you through business decisions. The two of you can act as counterbalances to one another and improve business decision-making.
Darran Smith is the Founder and Managing Director of Purple Rhino who are exterior building cleaning experts who clean buildings throughout the UK. Darran started cleaning windows back in 1985 and quickly became the fastest growing window cleaning company in his home town of Bradford, which saw him gain contracts with local councils, hospitals, police and fire stations as well as high level corporate headquarters such as Red Cat. Through his own design and innovations Darran has created products and equipment to clean and maintain modern and older buildings exterior surfaces.