What’s the cost of doing nothing?
Does inaction have a cost? The easiest thing for most people is to do nothing different. Keep going the direction you’re already going, don’t rock the boat. Is that the best course of action, or are you missing out on more by taking no action? I’ve spoken about opportunity cost before and this ties in with that discussion.
Listen to this new 7-minute episode for some perspective on what you may be missing out on by not acting or by passing up on an opportunity.
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Below is a full transcript. If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at [email protected] or contact me via text, use the short form on this page, or call 732.422.6362
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– What’s the cost of doing nothing? Listen to this episode and find out. When opportunities come your way, there’s often a cost: time, money, personal capital, whatever, but there’s a cost to doing something. Well, what’s the cost if you don’t do anything? What’s the cost if you choose not to do anything different, not to do anything new or not even to decide? I’ve spoken about opportunity costs before, and this is really the same thing. You get an opportunity, you take a look and you say, oh, I’m not going to do that because, fill in the blank. I don’t have the time. I don’t want to spend the money, whatever it is. But really, it comes down to what’s the cost of not doing it. Very often, someone will reach out to me about doing a website review or coming for training. And the fact that they’ve reached out to me means there was a need. There was a pain, there was something that was not right that they wanted to make right. And they say, “Well, maybe Alan can help me with that.”
And very much like when someone reaches out to you, the need is already established. But then if somebody chooses not to do it, do they choose not to do it because it was more money than they were thinking of spending? But did they look at the other side? So in the case for me, if somebody comes to me about sales training and then chooses not to do it, it doesn’t fix whatever the problem was. Whatever made somebody reach out to me hasn’t been fixed. So not converting leads, getting ghosted, website not converting enough, not following up the way that you should or whatever it is. There’s a cost to that, which is the opportunity cost. Meaning, yeah, you save the money by not investing it, but you don’t get the return. If someone chooses to reach out to you and chooses to go with someone else, whether they’re less expensive, same price or more expensive, they don’t get your results.
That’s the choice of making a different choice. That’s the results of making a different choice. But what’s the opportunity cost for you to just do nothing, to not decide? And to me, that’s letting somebody else make the decision for you. Make a decision not to do something, that’s fine. That’s a conscious decision. I’m not going to do this because, whatever. I’m not going to go to that conference because I have a gig that weekend or I’m not going to block off that time, just in case I get a gig. I run into the same thing. I have speaker conferences and I’m going to a speaker conference this summer. I haven’t been to one in a few years, obviously, with what’s been going on. And I always block that time off. I will not take a gig during that time because the value of what I’m going to get out of that conference will always be more. It may be direct value that I make more sales because of it. It may be an idea that turns into a new product or service or it may just be someone that I meet that’s a new connection. And that’s why it’s important for me to go to these because I can’t get that benefit if I don’t go.
I can choose not to go, but for me, I choose to go. I actually don’t even look at the schedule of who’s speaking and what’s going to be going on until I’m on my way there, because it doesn’t matter. I’m going to block off that time and I’m not going to take a job because of that. That time’s going to be blocked off. There are secondary conferences that I’ll put on my calendar and I might go to if I don’t have a job or a gig that particular date or weekend. And that’s okay too, because I’m saying, listen, I’m going to go if this doesn’t come up. If it’s that much of a priority, it has to get blocked off and that has to get done. Now that could be the same thing for personally. It could be date night, you block off date night. It’s date night, doesn’t matter, we’re going to do that. Vacation, same thing. I’ve been pretty bad at that over the years. I travel a lot, so for me to travel for vacation, I’m already going to places. My wife isn’t and she doesn’t often choose to come with me. So when she does, that’s great. And I’m going to block that time off. And I’m not going to take a gig during that time.
That’s different than adding on to a weekend where I’m going away already, and then we’re going to add on more time to that. That’s kind of a work/vacation, but still whatever time is personal, we’re going to block off because that’s important to us. We’re saying no to whatever else might happen because we want to have that time together. So what’s the cost to you of doing nothing, not raising your prices, not adding a new product or service, not scaling your business up or down? If you’ve been listening to the guest episodes that I have. If you just keep doing what you’re doing, what happens is things are changing around you that might affect you. You might not be marketing the way that today’s couples or customers, you need to. You might miss a particular product or service or something that you can do for your business that’ll help you sell more, profit more, or whatever your goals are. So by choosing to not do anything different, by putting your blinders on and saying whatever else is going on, I’m just going to keep plugging away the way that I’m doing it, that has a cost as well.
There are times that might work out for you. There are times it might not. And that’s when people come to me and say, “Hey, what happened?” It’s like I blinked, and all of a sudden, everything changed around me. Well, it was changing. It might have been changing gradually, but you just weren’t paying attention to it. So what’s the cost of doing nothing? Think about that and make a decision. Decide to do something, decide not to do it, but make it a conscious decision, so you can own that decision. You can own the success when it goes well. You can own the failure if it doesn’t go well, because that’s important as well to know that, “Hey, the reason I failed is because I tried something and I just didn’t get the results that I wanted.” So make your decisions. Don’t just do nothing. Choose to do or not do. Make it a conscious decision and then weigh what’s the opportunity cost. If I don’t do this, what is the cost to me? If I do do it, what’s the cost, then where’s the greater benefit to me? Or like I said to my son recently, what’s the worst that could happen? And it’s usually not that bad. Keep the suggestions coming. Thanks.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:
- Apple Podcast:
- YouTube: www.WeddingBusinessSolutionsPodcast.tv
- Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3sGsuB8
- Stitcher:
- Google Podcast:
- iHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/31C9Mic
- Pandora:
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