Two e-business partners were working together to start their business. The senior partner was out at a meeting with a vendor. The junior partner was serving some of the online customers. At one point, the senior partner's cell phone rang. He answered it. It was the junior partner saying, "A customer has a request that we bundle together two of our services for them." The senior partner replied, "That sounds like a junior partner problem" and he hung up.

That's a true story. The senior partner knew the right answer from years of experience, but he also knew that the junior partner needed to learn to develop his own decision making skills for himself rather than relying on the senior partner to do all of the thinking. There are many times in the daily life of the e-business owner when something happens that needs to have a decision made.

How do you make good decisions in your e-business?

Here are the steps you'll want to follow in order to make decisions for your business:

1. Define the situation. Is it a situation involving a customer or a vendor? How will your decision impact your company - and theirs? Will your decision affect your income, either adversely or positively?

2. Collect necessary information. What research is required to help you make your decision? Do you have the information that you need to make good business decision? If not, where do you look for that information?

3. Brainstorm alternatives. Don't barrel ahead with the first thing that comes to your mind. Consider as many options as you can think of that will get you to the result that you want. Don't be afraid to get creative.

4. Choose the best alternative. Always choose the best alternative that provides the most positive, long-term growth opportunities for your business. That may mean some short-term pain, and it could mean higher costs, but the best plan for your business is usually the one that will mean higher profits in the future.

5. Outline the steps that need to be taken. Once your alternative is in place, schedule each of those steps. Making sure that it's in your planner is going to ensure that you actually do it!

6. Review. Periodically review the decision through the implementation process and make sure you review the final result. Knowing how your decision impacted your business will help you with making future decisions.

These decision making steps will help you in any decision, whether it's a major business decision or a small customer service problem that needs to be rectified, and you can even use it for personal decisions as well.