Chapter 1 - The 7 Vital Signs
Creating a high performance businessStarting your own business is a challenging and rewarding adventure but it's not long before you realise that it takes on a life of its own.You might find yourself and your business in one or more of these situations:• The more successful you have become the more voracious the appetite of your business for more resources, people, overheads, marketing, cash, thinking time, meetings etc.• The levers you feel you need to pull are bigger, the consequences of the wrong combination of inputs become more serious and the precise decisions you feel obliged to take become less clear.• There are daily concerns and frustration that are causing you a level of uncertainty which give you cause for concern because the usual solutions do not seem to work quite as well as they used to.• After a number of years' success the business has slowly begun to plateau, with sales levelling off and profits in decline as overheads move inexorably upwards.• The resultant effect is a degree of uncertainty about the future and a growing feeling that there are not enough hours in the day. You are constantly dealing with symptoms rather than root causes and experiencing higher levels of stress resulting in persistent sleepless nights.This chapter is designed to help you narrow down your understanding of the difficulties that afflict your business and begin to focus on relevant solutions.