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Entrepreneurs – Signs That You Have Expanded Your Business Too Quickly

By: Lee Lister - The Biz Guru

You have been running your business for some time and things are going well, but you are starting to notice that you are getting some problems and maybe your profits and turnover aren’t so good. Could you be expanding too quickly? Here are a few symptoms and some suggestions as to what you can do about it.

The biggest sign is that your internal systems are starting to creek a bit. Where you could rely on a paper or spreadsheet system or notes are left on yellow stickies that doesn’t work any more. Messages are missed, orders are forgotten so your customers are unhappy. Payments to your suppliers are late so they are not delivering as quickly as you would like. Worse still you don’t chase your debtors very often and they are taking advantage of this, so there goes your cash flow.

You are promising your customers things that you cannot deliver – because you are just too busy. Your company standards slip because you don’t have the time or staff to deliver to and look after your customers like you used to do.

You hire more staff to help but you don’t have the time to train them properly so your business standards are slipping and your customers are complaining. Your office or shop is creaking at the seams and there does not seem to be enough space for them all.

You order in more stock and the space seems to get even smaller. Not to mention the car park that is so full of staff cars that your customers can’t get in!

Lastly and this is what usually brings it home to you – your partner and family start to complain that you do not spend enough time with them.

So what do you do? Well dust off your business plan and discover all over again what you wanted to do with the business.
• Take the day off – lock yourself away in your office or your home and plan out how you are going to handle customers, staff, stock, accounts and systems.
• Call your staff together tell them what you are going to do to make your business more efficient and enlist their help.
• Take your most trusted member of staff and ask him/her to help you.
• Put your less trained staff with a better trained member of staff and start a mentoring programme.
• Contact your customers and tell them about the new improvements and offer them a discount on their next purchase.
• Contact your suppliers and apologise and make arrangements to pay any arrears and pay on time in the future.
• Ask your staff for ideas about improving your systems and install an accounting programme if necessary.
• Put a member of staff in charge of chasing your debtors with a vengeance. Ensure that all future invoices say that a % charge will be made for late payment. Ditch the bad payers if necessary.

Keep focussed and good luck!

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© Copyright 2009 Biz Guru Ltd

Lee Lister writes as The Biz Guru, for a number of web sites where she provides advice and assistance for the business entrepreneur. She is a published author – her books Entrepreneur’s Apprentice and How Much Does It Cost To Start A Business? can be found on www.StartMyNewBusiness.com

With over 20 year’s management and business consultancy experience with businesses large and small as well as being a serial entrepreneur, she now helps others set up, develop and market their businesses. If you require assistance in setting up your business and writing your business plan the visit www.BizGuru.us

This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

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