Don't allow your business growth to go unchecked. Fast unmonitored growth can be just as dangerous as no growth. Pay attention to signs that indicate you may be growing too fast, and take all necessary steps to control that area.

1. Computers, desks and chairs become hard to find. You outgrow your office gear and employees find it hard to work with the space shortage and furniture scarcity.

2. You take on orders much larger than you should take or handle. Don't turn orders down, but don't sacrifice service and quality either. Make sure you can deliver on your promises.

3. You don't know most of the faces of your staff. Once you become unaware of the people working for you, things become impersonal and you will have lost contact with your business most valuable asset - your staff. Good staff is worth gold. Keep close to them or they will go elsewhere.

4. Employee morale is low, turnover increases, productivity drops. These signs show that the business and its management are growing to a level where staff are not being looked after or listened to. Watch your employees and discuss problems and take steps to resolve before they escalate.

5. You don't know what your competition is up to or what's happening in your industry. Never take your eye off your competitors or you will find yourself in major trouble.

6. You have more temporary staff employed than permanent ones. Too many temporary staff is not good for many reasons. Permanent staff is more likely to take an interest in the business and are more productive and loyal. Temporary employees leave and sometimes take important business and confidential information with them.

7. You have received customer complaints and negative feedback. Complaints from customers clearly point to something that is not going right. If you don't have customers you don't have a business. Repair this relationship quickly.

8. You continually operate in crisis mode. Dealing with an occasional crisis is one thing, running your business like a war zone is something else.

9. You're running out of cash all the time, Rapid growth can play havoc with your cash flows. Keep control of that cash or your business will quickly fold.

Watch the Dangers of Fast Growth

Is your company on a course leading to disaster? Some small businesses are often faced with the "too much, too soon" syndrome, where their business grows far too quickly for its founders to handle. While it is admirable for a well-planned and well-executed new business to grow, some small operations grow too quickly because management becomes flushed with early success.

The growth of a successful small business should not be measured by sales alone, but also by profitability. A small business can easily grow too fast. When this happens, cash-flow problems are the first warning signs.

A lack of adequate profitability, especially in conjunction with such infrastructure problems as rising inventory and receivables and declining employee skills will always result in cash-flow problems at best - and survival problems at worst.

While the founding entrepreneurs would have built a successful business, they would also have created a challenge beyond their expertise, management and abilities.

They launch into new product lines or services, expand into unfamiliar fields, employ too many employees, purchase expensive plant and begin plans for an IPO without the necessary experience, business skills, capital or support. As a result expenses start to exceed revenues at an increasing pace each new month and the business finds itself with huge problems to fix.

The company then begins to haemorrhage - and dies.

Growth Must be Based on Sound Evaluation

Often the decision to expand is based more on ego than on sound financial assessment, market studies or economic planning. As a result, the business charges ahead to take advantage of available opportunities even though there is not the required capital for the new direction. Being undercapitalised soon causes serious issues that hurt the business.

The owner and managers find themselves growing out of touch with their key employees on whom they must rely and production inevitably falls. Management becomes so involved with trying to administer all of the new operations acquired that it losses track of its essential core business functions.

Mounting overhead soon begins draining cash resources.

Cash Shortage Only the Start

These cash-flow problems are only the tip of the iceberg. Just below the surface are other more subtle indicators associated with too-rapid growth: unhappy customers, unhappy employees, strained systems and controls, and burned-out entrepreneurs.

Customer complaints increase and satisfactory servicing becomes a problem. Over dependence on a key customer, supplier, lender, or contract is another pitfall for growing companies. Small companies have to diversify their product lines, trading areas, distribution channels and targeted markets in order to prevent disasters.

Like it or not, as your business grows, your role within it must change.

Instead of making things happen yourself, you must now convince someone else to make them happen. Instead of you spending time with your customers, you must now spend time with employees who in turn spend their time with customers. Instead of moving among the employees and doing the small things you like to do, you must now teach, train and move on to manage those things you don't always like to do. Learn the Lessons about Growing Too Fast

Growing a business too quickly is dangerous. If the business lacks the capital, staff, time and expertise to deliver quality products and service customer requirements, then substantial losses in money and name will result to the business. The business must put in measures to prevent fast growth and put in strategies for planned growth.

It is absolutely critical for the business to be built on a steady and strong foundation at all times. Even though management may be tempted to grow the business quickly because the demand is out there in the marketplace for its products, it must aware at all time of the need to fund any such expansion. It is good to get high sales at rapid speed but uncontrolled growth would put the business into serious trouble.

The lesson to be learned is that growth is fine as long as it is done sensibly and slowly. It has to be planned. It cannot be hurried. It must involve all staff and resources.

It is far better not to take anything on, than to take it on and find that you cannot finish it off well.

Healthy Growth and Unhealthy Growth

There are basically 2 types of growth: Healthy Growth and Unhealthy Growth

Healthy Growth

A Healthy situation can be easily confirmed by the business profit-and-loss statement and balance sheet. The Profit & Loss Account would show that the business's percentage growth in profitability was greater than the rate of growth in sales. A review of the balance sheet would show that any increase in the liabilities of the business would easily be offset by a greater increase in the company's net worth.Unhealthy Growth

You can identify Unhealthy Growth by taking a look at the business's financial accounts. Here the profit-and-loss account would show that the company profitability growth is less than the increase in sales. The balance sheet would show that the increase in net worth (equity) is falling behind the increase in total liabilities.

Business Can Grow Far Too Fast

The growth of any successful small business cannot be measured by its sales growth alone, but also by its profitability. A small business can grow too fast taking with it many problems. A lack of profitability, especially in conjunction with problems such as rising stock levels and increasing accounts receivables plus unproductive employee would eventually cause cash-flow problems and threaten the business's existence.