As I write this, my wife and I are in the middle of building a cottage on a lake in Wisconsin’s northwoods. By the time you read this, it will be complete.

For more than a year after we bought our lot, we agonized over decisions. Should it be big enough to have potential as a full-time house? Small enough for just a getaway? Basement or crawl space? What floor layout? Add a screen porch? How many windows?

And so on, and so on. We kicked it around until finally we had to make a decision on the best information and best gut feel we had – or else dither for another year, and we’re not getting any younger. Of course, every decision meant spending more or less money.

It’s a bit like that when considering a business expansion into a new service line or line extension and adding the necessary equipment. Instinct and hunches aren’t substantial bases for major investments, yet too much analysis can lead to paralysis.

When it all fits

So you perform due diligence, weigh the facts, trust your gut to a certain degree, and ultimately make the commitment. When it all works out, it’s like a baseball player catching a fastball square on the bat’s sweet spot: It’s a beautiful moment.

A case in point is the subject of this month’s “Money Machines” feature in Cleaner. Business manager Felipe Lofaso and the team at Florida Flow Control in Wellington, Fla., made a decision to add a valve exercising system to expand the company’s range of services to municipal customers.

In no time at all, the machine was paying for itself, while also eliminating lots of physical stress and strain on the company’s employees. Soon, the company was looking into pursuing ongoing contracts to perform communities’ routine valve exercising.

Here’s a case where an equipment decision meshed perfectly with the company’s existing business and future plans. And as a bonus, the machine apparently turned out to be the right make and model at the right price point.

A big market

No matter what market you decide to enter, you’ll have equipment choices to make. Name almost any basic technology and you’ll find three, half a dozen, or more manufacturers offering their own versions.

It’s not so much a question of which one is better than the others. It’s a question of which one is right for you. There’s only so much research you can do, only so much comparing of features and specs, before you have to make a decision.

So it is with most big decisions, business and personal. By the time you read this, my wife and I will have moved the first sticks of furniture into our new cottage, and we’ll be finding out, for certain, which of our decisions were right. I hope most of them were, as I hope your choices in your latest or next business line expansion turn out to be everything you expected.