As a business owner, chances are that at some point you would have experienced a number of obstacles that comes with running a business. You try to find a solution to these problems, however it can become frustrating when you find yourself dealing with the same issues over and over again.
So why do some of these business problems keep occurring?
The truth about facing problems in business is that many business owners are often only dealing with the symptoms instead of fixing the core issue. They end up working harder and harder only to have the problem remain.
This is not unique to business. For example, if a plant is not producing fruit, sometimes you need to fix a nutrient deficiency in the roots. You can treat the fruit or leaves as much as you like but without diagnosing the true cause (in this case, a problem with the roots) the problem will keep happening.
The same can happen when you go to a chiropractor with a sore neck. Correct diagnosis may reveal that there is actually a problem with the alignment in your hips and this is having a relay affect on your neck. It is not until the root cause is diagnosed that the problem can be correctly identified and remedied.
So how do you identify where the business problems come from?
Most often the recurring issues that surface are external symptoms that stem from the real underlying problem.
For example,
Businesses that assume sales is the cause of a business problem when, in fact, they have a marketing problem. If they had enough leads coming in, they wouldn’t have that so-called sales problem.
or
Businesses that assume cash flow is the problem but if they just looked at their pricing and margins (and sorted them out), their cash flow problem would disappear.
So rather than spending more time, more money and overall working harder to get back on track you need to look deeper at what the cause is. It is about taking the time to diagnose the problem and find the source of where these problems are coming from.One way to approach this is to look at the business as a whole to explore the different causes that can lead to the symptoms you are experiencing so the correct course of action can be taken.
For example, poor cashflow can be caused by:
- Poor sales
- Too much stock
- Outstanding debtors
- Too much debt
- Too many drawings
- Not enough leads
The list goes on and is often different for different businesses.
This is why we believe in equipping small business owners with the tools to correctly diagnose their business problems in order for the business to move forward.
