Last week, I met with a client who owns three retail locations in the Midwest. He showed me a stack of insurance renewal documents with premium increases across the board—health up 22%, property up 15%, and liability nearly 18% higher than last year. "I have to make some tough calls here," he told me. "But I'm already drowning in decisions every day."
Sound familiar? In today's challenging business climate, decision fatigue compounds the weight of significant business challenges.
In Today's Email:
- Rising costs forcing tough business decisions
- The hidden productivity killer: decision fatigue
- Treasury provides relief on small business reporting
- AI tools offering new solutions for small businesses
- Three proven strategies to make better decisions under pressure
- How I can help you implement these strategies
The Small Business Pulse: What's Happening Now
Insurance costs skyrocketing: Small businesses are facing steep increases in insurance premiums this year, reports the Wall Street Journal. Nearly half of small business owners surveyed experienced health insurance cost increases of 10% or more, with some seeing jumps of 25% or higher. Commercial auto, liability, and property insurance costs have also risen by 10%+ for over 30% of small businesses, forcing tough decisions around hiring practices and price increases.
Regulatory relief: The U.S. Treasury Department recently scrapped a reporting requirement for small businesses under the Corporate Transparency Act, according to CNBC. Originally, the rule would have required over 32.6 million businesses to report beneficial ownership information to combat money laundering. The revised rule now exempts all U.S. citizens and companies, reducing affected entities to just about 20,000 in the first year.
AI revolution accelerating: Meta's Business AI head Clara Shih told CNBC that AI tools are now evolving "multiple times a day," with their open-source Llama LLMs downloaded over 800 million times. Meta is developing business AI assistants specifically for small businesses, predicting that "very soon, each of those businesses are going to have these AIs that can represent them and help automate redundant tasks, help speak in their voice, help them find more customers and provide almost like a concierge service."
What this means for you: While insurance premiums create cost pressures, regulatory relief and emerging AI tools present opportunities to streamline operations. The challenge? Making smart decisions about where to invest and where to cut back during this time of rapid change.
Making Better Decisions When It Matters Most
"The quality of our decisions determines the quality of our lives—and our businesses."
— Tony Robbins
With insurance costs soaring and tough choices looming, your decision-making ability has never been more critical. Yet as the WSJ article highlighted, business owners are making difficult calls on everything from hiring practices to healthcare coverage to keep their companies profitable.
The challenge? Your brain isn't designed to make endless decisions. Studies show the average person makes approximately 35,000 decisions daily. For small business owners, that number can be significantly higher—and it creates a condition psychologists call "decision fatigue."
Decision fatigue explains why that insurance renewal you review at 4pm might receive less careful consideration than the one you analyzed at 9am. Your mental resources are depleted, making you more likely to:
- Make impulsive choices
- Stick with the default option (even if it's not optimal)
- Avoid decisions altogether (which is itself a decision)
Here are three strategies I've implemented with clients to make better decisions when facing today's complex business challenges:
1. Create Decision-Free Zones
One manufacturing client facing a 20% insurance premium increase freed up mental bandwidth by establishing "decision-free zones"—periods where routine decisions are eliminated through systems and preparation.
- Prepare tomorrow's schedule before ending today
- Pre-plan meals and snacks for the workday
- Create templates for common emails and communications
- Use checklists for opening/closing procedures
By eliminating hundreds of minor decisions, he preserved mental energy for critical issues like renegotiating vendor contracts and adjusting pricing strategies—ultimately offsetting 60% of his increased costs.
2. Implement the "One Touch" Rule
When New Jersey-based client Jay-Hill Repairs faced a 20% jump in insurance costs (as mentioned in the WSJ article), they implemented a "one touch" decision rule:
- If a decision takes less than 2 minutes, make it immediately
- If it requires more consideration, schedule a specific time to address it
- Never "partially decide" something
This approach prevented the constant mental cycling through unfinished decisions that drains cognitive resources. The company successfully switched insurance carriers and implemented more stringent hiring practices, maintaining profitability despite rising costs.
3. Leverage AI for Decision Support
With Meta's business AI tools rapidly developing (as noted in today's news), forward-thinking small businesses are offloading routine decisions to AI systems.
A retail client recently implemented an AI assistant that:
- Analyzes inventory levels and suggests reorder quantities
- Drafts responses to common customer inquiries
- Generates social media content based on business guidelines
- Provides data-driven insights on pricing strategies
The result? A 34% reduction in routine decisions and 12 hours weekly redirected to strategic thinking—exactly what's needed in today's challenging business climate.
Quick Reflection: Which area of your business consumes most of your decision-making energy? Which of these three strategies could you implement this week to free up mental bandwidth for the tough choices ahead?
How I Can Help You Make Better Decisions
When you're ready to strengthen your decision-making process and navigate today's challenging business environment, here's how I can support you:
Book a Strategic Decision Audit: I'll help identify where decision fatigue is impacting your business and create custom frameworks to address your specific challenges, from insurance cost management to technology implementation. Schedule a call
Join my Small Business Mastery Community: Connect with other business owners implementing these systems, with weekly Q&A sessions on timely topics like insurance negotiation strategies and AI implementation. Learn more
Until next week,
Micah
P.S. Insurance costs keeping you up at night? I did a YouTube interview with a business insurance specialist - Watch Here
