4 Steps for Solopreneurs to Make Objective Decisions Using Siegel's Method

The email open rates were back on top.

Chris relaxed and started thinking about the next steps.

While she was working to increase the open rates, she had time to chat with some of her students. The course was great: a good length, and it covered all the topics her students wanted to learn. There was no need for another module.

What then?

Chris had flirted with the idea of advertising her courses for a while, but was that the best use of her funds?

Wouldn't the time spent building another course be better? That one student said something about that other topic.

What then? After checking the average cost of advertising, she knew she couldn't do both.

She needed to choose one.

Should she differentiate the product? Set up a paid advertisement?

Knowing there was only one way to approach this, she sat back and put on her Siegel's Universal Reasoning Hat.

Decide objectively with Siegel's Universal Reasoning Hat.

Step 1: Establish objective criteria.

Before looking at the data, she decided which metrics were the most relevant.

She wanted to ensure that her biases would not affect her decision. If she had looked at the numbers and then decided which ones were the most important, her opinion on the most important metrics might have been affected. She was afraid that she might choose metrics that would validate a particular decision — she really wanted to chart a new course!

To avoid letting her gut feelings influence her, she built a decision matrix to help her decide in step 4.

Step 2: Gathering data.

She compiled all the relevant data: past course sales, profit margins for existing courses, estimated costs and potential revenue for a new course, ROI from past advertising campaigns, etc.

She tagged the results as either "pro-advertising" or "pro-new course."

For example, the estimated advertising costs are higher than the production costs for a new course.

Step 3: Eliminate bias.

To ensure she wasn't influenced by any biases, she compared her values with industry benchmarks.

Benchmarks are great because they provide an objective basis for comparison.

Chris began revising the tags based on the benchmarks.

Step 4: Make the final decision based on an objective evaluation.

After filling out the decision matrix, her choice was clear. Black ink over white.

An objective decision.

She looked at the results, took a deep breath, and started working on her new task.

And the well-reasoned task was...

It doesn't matter what she found.

What matters is what you will find when using this method.

Sometimes it matches your gut feeling.

Sometimes it doesn't.

That depends on whether your gut feeling, which is basically super-fast decision-making, was biased or not. Slowing down the decision-making process allows for a better check of biases.

For the success of your company.

For yours.