Even business owners don’t always recognise when their business is in serious trouble. Sometimes they may have an inkling that something is going wrong. But they may underestimate just how bad things can get. They get too confident about the company’s ability to pull through the problem.
If your business is facing any of the below issues, then don’t just shrug it off. They’re not always signs that your company is on a severe downhill course or on the brink of collapse, of course. But they do need to be taken extremely seriously and investigated as soon as possible.
Bills aren’t being paid on time
Often, such issues are just left to the financial controller. The business owner may not always know that bills aren’t being paid on time. After all, that’s why you hired a financial controller – so you didn’t have to worry about it!
This is why it’s important to keep an eye on your bill payments. If they’re being paid late, ask your financial controller about it. If there’s a cash flow problem, you need to know about it. You may even need to look into getting help with cash flow management and loans.
No salary increases
If there haven’t been any salary increases in the past year, then this could also be a worrying sign. This is another thing that is often left in the hands of financial controllers, as well as specific line managers.
However, business owners do usually specify a budget when it comes to dishing out raises to employees. If you do this every year, then you’ll be aware of a cash flow problem early. If you leave it to others, then you may only realise there’s a problem when employees start complaining about the lack of raises.
High employee turnover rate
If you have a high employee turnover rate, it means you have employees leaving and new ones starting quite often. For some reason, a lot of business owners see this as a good thing. But even if it’s not a sign of some impending financial crisis for your company, it should be a great concern to you.
For most companies, it means that your company is not a particularly fulfilling one to work for. This all affects employee morale, which hampers production. But it could also be a sign of restructuring attempts, which could betray a loss of focus or footing. Remember to keep an eye out for employees who leave but aren’t replaced quickly.
New company getting a lot of attention
Are the news kids on the block getting a lot of positive buzz? The ones who are offering a product similar to yours? At first, you may have been pretty confident about your market position. You may have assumed you’d be able to retain customer loyalty. But these new guys seem to be getting a lot of attention and a lot of sales.
Are you losing customers? If not, why aren’t all these other customers going to your product, if they’re in need of something like it? This is a sign that something is wrong with your product or your marketing. Research the rival company and consider getting a marketing audit.
