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The Speed of Business | Getting Things Done | Redneck Success

Speed of Business
Speed of Business

The speed at which business moves always amazes me.  When you least expect it or when you don’t want it to, business will move at the speed of light.  Yet when you expect business to move faster or hope it will move faster, it usually seems to take forever.

I’m writing this post because I seem to run into a lot of people that have a false expectation of how long business transactions take.  For example, it may seem appropriate that tasks like reviewing and signing a contract only take a day or two, but the reality is that it can often take a week or longer to fully review a contract and to be comfortable signing that contract.  This is the same with negotiating points of business.  Where it may seem feasible to negotiate terms in just a few hours can often take weeks, especially if done over email.

Peoples expectation in how long it takes to get business done will often create unnecessary tension in a deal or within a company.  Having an unrealistic expectation of how long it takes to get business done can also cripple a startup that’s just getting going.  If that startup underestimates the time it will take to form a partnership or close a sales deal then they could end up not budgeting their resources appropriately.

If you leading a group of people, it’s important to set expectation appropriately so your team can make the right decisions and not get discouraged.  If you’re not sure how long it can take to finalize a specific type of business you can often ask the other party how long they expect it to take, or ask someone that’s done a similar transaction before, or take the amount of time you think it will take and double it.