How I Grew My Business Despite Uncertainty

This expert opinion by Voyo Popovic, founder and CEO of Piece of Cake Moving and Storage was originally published on Inc.com.

When I started Piece of Cake Moving & Storage in New York City in 2018, my goal was to become the fastest-growing mover in the U.S. After the pandemic hit in 2020, a significant number of customers reached out asking if we could move them to other markets, primarily in Florida and California. As a two-year-old business, our attitude was grow, grow, grow. We took on the moves, but we bit off more than we could chew. There were operational hiccups, and I knew we had to find a better solution.

I was faced with the decision of whether to open a Florida and California hub, which was a risky move at this point in the business. Opening new hubs is a significant investment, and we needed very qualified people to run the hubs, which would dilute our workforce and leadership. We ultimately decided to move forward and sent a few of our top leaders to run the hubs. Being decisive—while being agile and flexible—was key to helping our business grow.

Weighing the pros and cons

Decision-making is critical for the growth of a business, and companies succeed or fail based on decisions they do or don’t make. The worst thing for a business is decision paralysis, which prevents forward movement and leads to stagnation. It’s also common. In fact, according to a study of more than 14,000 employees and business leaders, 85 percent of business leaders have suffered from decision distress—regret or uncertainty about a decision they made in the past year. But making a tough choice is easier said than done.

I start by weighing the pros and cons of the decision. I play out the worst-case scenario, then look at where it would leave the business. In this case, the worst-case scenario would have been making a big investment to open two hubs, diluting our NYC talent which would have slowed growth. Then, if it didn’t go well after 6-12 months, shutting one or both of the hubs down. That would have put us a year behind but wouldn’t have killed the business. Once I know the worst case, it’s easier to work backward to make the decision.

After I make a decision, I sit with it for a few days and then revisit the choice. It gives me better clarity. The whole process can be intimidating since it comes with risk, but ultimately making the tough decision can help the business grow, stay ahead of trends and reach its goals more quickly. It certainly worked for me.

Balancing short- and long-term benefits

All short- and long-term decisions must be weighed against the company’s vision to make sure they’re in line. If a decision is made in a vacuum, it will ultimately feel disjointed and customers will know it’s out of place. For every short- or long-term decision I’m assessing, I hold it up against our vision and ask if it will bring me closer to it or farther from it. It then becomes easier to make a choice. The most important thing for us is to bring in new customers every day and to provide excellent customer service, and we only want to make decisions that help us achieve that goal.

Short term, this decision to open the two new hubs enabled us to take on more moves. Long term, it served our vision to scale in other markets and helped us to better serve our existing customer base, while building a new customer base.

Incorporate customer feedback when making decisions

Customer feedback is critical to growing a business. Knowing what your customers do and don’t want allows you to make decisions about what to lean into and lean away from. In the case of this decision, customer feedback fueled the fire. We wouldn’t have come to this point without our customers articulating what they wanted.

Build in regular check-ins

When you make a decision, plan to check in regularly on how that choice is playing out. This could be done daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on how you’re measuring the decisions' impact. If things are playing out as expected, you can reduce the frequency of check-ins. If something isn’t working, it’s OK to pull the plug. Time, energy, and resources spent on something that isn’t working can be spent trying something new. Even if it doesn’t turn out as well as you thought, it’s a good learning experience.