Step 1: Understanding the Situation
In Unit 3, you read a little bit about Rhonda, a woman who runs a small website development business that has annual revenues of about $500,000. You learned that Rhonda pays herself an annual salary of about $100,000.

While Rhonda’s business is doing pretty well and allows her to live comfortably, she has encountered a problem—she doesn’t know how to grow the business at this point.

Rhonda has been considering hiring some new salespeople to find more customers because her current staff have the availability to take on more work. However, hiring more salespeople is expensive and the cost would come out of what Rhonda pays herself. On the other hand, it could eventually lead to more business in the future and a higher salary for herself in the long run.

Step 2: Working through the Process
Rhonda is facing a complex situation and needs help figuring out what to do. Imagine that she hires you to help her tackle this challenge and make the right decision.

You will use the steps of a rational decision-making process to explore, evaluate, and ultimately offer Rhonda your professional opinion on how she should handle the situation.

For the purposes of this activity, you should list all seven steps in the rational decision-making process and provide an evaluation of the situation according to each step. For example, for Step #1: Defining the Problem, you would do exactly that. Briefly explain and define the problem that Rhonda is facing and trying to solve.

For the last few steps of the process, testing the solution and implementing it, you will obviously not be able to actually do this but you should hypothesize what these steps might look like if this were happening in real life. Furthermore, some of the steps may require only a 1-paragraph explanation while others may require 2–3 paragraphs. Please make sure to fully and comprehensively explore each step; if you do this, then whatever the length each answer is will be appropriate.

Step 3: Reflecting
Once you have completed all steps in the process, please compose 2–3 paragraphs reflecting on how and why rational decision making is essential to running a successful business.

Please refer to the rubric below for more information on how you will be graded.