What Are The Warning Signs That All Is Not Well In Your Business?
When you are running a business it can be easy to miss the warning signs that all is not well in your business. You may be too busy in the day to day of your business, not have the right information available, be focusing on a new project or other things may be happening in your business that mean you miss the warning signs.
Here are some warning signs to look out for that all is not well in your business?
Sales and customers
* Declining or stagnant sales
* Losing market share
* Lack of repeat purchase
* Losing regular or long standing customers.
* Increasing customer complaints
* Customer satisfaction reducing
* Clients asking for products or services that you don't provide
* Uncompetitive prices
* Increasing stock levels
* Enquiries slowing down
* Unprofitable customers
Financial and cash flow
* Stagnant or declining profitability or making a loss
* Reducing bank balance
* Increasing overdraft and borrowings
* Customers taking longer to pay
* Increase in debtors
* Suppliers putting their prices up
* Suppliers asking for up front or earlier payment
* Increasing interest charges
* Costs rising faster than revenues
* Balance sheet position declining
* Struggling to pay your suppliers
* Not having any spare money to invest in the business
Employees
* Staff leaving
* Demotivated or disengaged staff
* Unhappy employees
* Poor relationships between employees
* A fall in productivity and efficiency
* Staff performance issues
* Employees having spare capacity
* No clear direction for staff
Other business issues
* No clear business strategy
* A lack of or failing processes and procedures
* Bottlenecks or backlogs in production
* Problems with IT and equipment
* Lack of a contingency plan or plan not up to date
* Poor quality or lack of information on the business
* Lack of insurance or policies needing reviewing
* Communication issues in the business
What you may be doing?
* You are feeling very stressed, worried, frustrated and/or negative
* You are spending all your time troubleshooting or solving problems
* You don't know what to do next
* You are internally focused
* You are having disagreements with your fellow directors, managers and staff
* You are not enjoying running your business
* You are struggling to solve business issues
* There are too many problems and issues all at once
* You are working longer and longer hours but having little impact on the business
* You are justifying things to yourself against your better judgement
* You are being indecisive
* What worked before is not working now
* You feel you need help in running the business
* You cannot see the wood for the trees
* You are taking risks out of proportion to the business
If you notice the warning signs that all is not well in your business early enough you can do something about it but if you don't notice them or notice them when it is too late getting your business back to where you want it to be will be a lot more challenging.
Author: Liz Makin
Published: April 2013
Makin It Happen has a range of personal development online courses to purchase, created by Liz Makin, including anxiety management, communication, resilience, soft skills, stress management, time management and coaching. Liz Makin also provides personalised business coaching, business mentoring and stress management services to business owners, directors, managers and professionals.
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