There was recently a bestselling book that discussed decisions that had to be made that affected all of us as individuals in this country as well as other countries. The decisions made, had and still are having an effect on us as a nation as well as the entire world. That book entitled "Decision Points" was by President George W. Bush. Decisions, as we well know, by someone in an authoritarian position of our government have always affected our world.

It is no different in our world as small business owners. When we become an employer, we have a direct effect on our employee's lives as well as the lives of their family. We have several members of our own family that are employees of our company. This even makes our decisions a family matter. However, we have always considered everyone that works at A-1 as family and refer to them as our A-1 family. That became true recently in a very real sense. Nic (our Grandson) has been fighting for survival for over seven weeks at Riley Children's Hospital here in Indianapolis. Our A-1 family has been there for each other in a true family way. One employee has been going down before work at 7:30am to take Toni (our daughter) breakfast! But the list doesn't quit there because everyone has done their best to do their own work as well as to fill in for Toni and Martin (our son-in-law).

This example shows just how important each of us is to each other in the world of small business. Trying to build a business is a never-ending process. A small business is always in need of decisions that need to be made in order to grow more business, or add new employees, buy new equipment, or even add additional space for producing or distributing your products. How can you ever know if these decisions are the best moves to make? I have always found that we never know for sure about anything in small business. However, making decisions as the owner or manager, we must always aim for the best for everyone. No decision or idea is one hundred percent foolproof. I feel confident that anyone that has been in a small business for a number of years would agree.

I want to share the process that we went through just recently as we toiled with the idea of adding additional space for warehousing and production. We have added on to our business of 52 years several times. Once again, an opportunity arose to consider more space. The opportunity to add to our square footage was the sad closing of a business next door to our building.

Besides family, we have two of our employees that have been with us for several years. One is in our accounting department and the other one is in our graphics department. We often go over anything to do with spending money with the accounting department but this time we included another employee because of his expertise in helping us to grow our operation. We invited both to offer any ideas or suggestions as to how we could utilize this additional space. Both offered good sound advice and were in favor of us taking the opportunity to grow our business to another level.

Because of your decisions as a small business owner, your employees reap the results of your good or bad decisions. I'm not suggesting that it is always a good idea to depend upon your employees to help you make business decisions but in this case we knew both of them would offer their pro's and con's to the venture. They did just that. We had a couple of meetings with the two employees and also with the employees that are family members. I believe in our case it let these two employees realize that we truly value their opinion. This, of course, helps them to realize they are valued and their opinions are both welcomed and appreciated. Everyone likes to have the appreciation of their peers as well as their employers. Always keeping your business focused on growing your sales volume is a good goal. However, being the company that has the concerns of those whose lives we touch foremost in our thoughts will come back to us in many ways.

Due to each of our decisions, we establish the ownership of our own success or failure.

Harry Truman's quote "the buck stops here" lets us know that he took ownership of his decisions as President.

Your daily business decisions made does affect everyone at your operation. These decisions, if made with your heart as well as your head, lets everyone know that regardless of the outcome, good or bad, your main thoughts was the desire for all to succeed. The end result strengthens the bond between the entire business family. An old song about bonding comes to mind "Blest Be The Tie That Binds". In business, each person involved is drawn together with a common bond that supports harmony and growth not only in business but in their personal life as well. Our conscious choices always affect our walk as well as our talk.

Nora O. Capper, CRM

A-1 Awards, Inc