When To Turn Down A Good Opportunity
The opportunities that hurt a small business are usually good ones: profitable on paper and close to what you already do. Three questions to ask before the next yes.
Naomi Withers
By Naomi Withers | Vancouver City News | October 28, 2026 Editor: Karalee Greer Subscription to WBN is Free
How many of the things your business does today did you actually choose?
A few can usually be traced to a plan. The rest arrived as opportunities. A customer asked for something next door to what you already do. A partner suggested a joint project. A supplier offered a second product line. Each one made sense on the day it was offered, and each one got a yes.
The Good Offers Are The Hard Ones
Bad offers are easy to turn down. The ones that cause trouble are good: profitable on paper, flattering to be asked, and close enough to your current work that declining feels like leaving money on the table.
Picture a twenty-five person landscaping company whose most loyal commercial client asks it to take on snow removal. The margin looks fine. The client matters. So the company buys two trucks, hires a seasonal crew, and spends its best supervisor's winter on dispatch. By spring the core business is short on attention at exactly the moment it needs to book the season.
The snow contract made money. Its cost showed up in the core business, which lost its best supervisor's attention for a whole season.
What The Research Says About Spreading Out
Economists have studied this at the far end of the size scale. In a well-known 1995 study in the Journal of Financial Economics, Philip Berger and Eli Ofek compared companies operating across several lines of business with focused companies in the same industries. The spread-out companies were worth 13 to 15 percent less, on average, than their separate parts would have been as stand-alone businesses.
Those were large public companies in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the figure should not be carried straight into a small business. The direction travels well, though. Every added line of business asks for management attention, and attention is the one resource an owner cannot hire more of quickly.
Three Questions For The Next Yes
Before the next good opportunity gets an answer, put three questions to it.
Does it make the thing we are best known for stronger, or does it sit beside it?
Who will run it, and what will that person stop doing to make room?
If we said no, what would we do with the same time and money instead?
The third question is the one that changes decisions. Every yes is paid for, and the payment usually comes out of the work you were already doing well.
A No Can Still Be Generous
Turning work down does not have to cost the relationship. Refer it to someone who does it well. Explain plainly that you are keeping your focus where you are strongest. Clients tend to respect a business that knows what it is for, and they remember who sent them somewhere good.
Why It Matters
Growth in a small business usually comes from doing a few things well for long enough that people notice. Each extra line of work makes that harder to see, from the inside and from the outside.
The next good opportunity is probably already on its way. Deciding now what you will ask it costs far less than deciding after the trucks are bought.
About The Author
Naomi Withers | Vancouver City News LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naomi-withers-7044491b/
Naomi Withers is the founder of Growth Consultant Services, where she advises founders, CEOs, and executive teams on AI strategy, executive coaching, and high-performance leadership. Her advisory and coaching work is at growthconsultantservices.com/services.
Editor: Karalee Greer Subscription to WBN is Free
Tags: #Naomi Withers #Vancouver City News #Business Strategy #Small Business #Business Growth #Decision Making #Leadership