So many times, a business owner can miss the warning signs that their business is heading towards trouble or worse, failure.   But these signs are obvious but often overlooked.

1. The owner doesn’t delegate and often handles too many processes themselves resulting in the business to rely heavily on the owner and no succession plan.
2. The company has excessive debt and not enough capital and cash to sustain.
3. Too much revenue on too few customers or on a single customer puts the company at great risk.
4. Operating systems, controls and reporting are inadequate to support the management team in making decisions.
5. Decisions are self motivated versus business based.
6. No written business or strategic plans for the company or departments to follow.
7. There is very high employee turnover, meaning staff is not staying with the company.
8. Too much growth that is not properly managed resulting in increased production costs.
9. Sales begin to slow and market share begins to deteriorate.

The business is assumed to be self sustaining and there is no effort to enhance or diversify the business.