As you watch the graph on your business rise as things get moving, you will no doubt be delighted, but then as you measure more things you may notice a few flat spots, or worse still some downhil slides on the graph. Check against this list and make a list of your options, before long you should be able to turn the graph around and make it head skywards again. As a guide the following retail scenario was used.

1. Closed - Due to a family issue and no sales were made, no one to run the business. This can be a flow on effect from a late opening day an early customer sees the closed sign and spreads the word that they seem to be closed all the time. Interesting perception, not really the truth though. Have a staff member, a temp or casual even to cover for you, if your sign says open at 9:00 then be open.
2. Marketing – In the case of a start up business it may be that friends caused the initial sales, then once they run out, a flat spot is reached as the lack of marketing (perhaps poor signage in a basic retail scenario). Revealing a hole in the system. Your aim is to find out what it is, and there is no excuse for poor signage, you want people to notice the business not avoid it. The same with all of your marketing materials, people should see your business as the number one choice.
3. Seasonal factors – Really hot or cold days can prevent people from coming to your store to buy, so there is not much you can do about that, so make sure you keep your business full of customers to make up for the quieter times in those seasons.
4. Lights not on – People drive or walk by, see no lights on and keep going, they perceive its closed. Some retailers see this as a cost saving measure. It’s not. If business is slowing down there is a good reason for it, do an assessment first and make other changes BEFORE turning off or down the lights.
5. Are you renovating? – Over time some operators develop “store blindness” where they can not see the deteriorating conditions of the store, dust on displays, things not where they are meant to be and so on. The prospective customer walks away. Remember they see retail outlets of all types during the day, if they have seen brilliant layouts and professionally displayed stock then come to your store and find things in a mess they will vote with their feet.
6. Bad service or bad attitude? – Over time bad service can damage the businesses reputation, most people do not set out to provide bad service but various factors can cause us to end up providing it. In fig b, people may have initially bought and had good service, but the second flat spot may be due to a staff member with a poor attitude being employed in the second rise on the success indicator, then the customer numbers and sales can flatten out as word spreads.
7. Personal factors – The business owner might start off working 6+ day per week and be very excited about it, then things start to sour as their family and friends become affected by the loss of contact with the business operator. They lose heart and become despondent, what looked great in the past is now looking like a millstone.
8. Bad attitudes – Okay for you to run the business 16 hours a day, but employees often don’t think like that and want to work reasonable hours… add to this the possibility that you may not be as great at managing people as you thought in the first place and that can cause a motivated employee yesterday to become disgruntled. The result a bad attitude that has an ongoing effect on your sales. Learn to lead, to coach, to mentor and support.
9. External factors – The local council decides to do road works outside your business, they hold up the parking and create a mess for a few months. The result, a slump in your success indicator.
10. No one wants it – Perhaps what you had in the store to begin with had some value at first, and now things have moved on e.g. a computer store would need to be ahead of the game and only stock things that are needed now old technology is just that, OLD.
11. Lack of innovation – If you want things to be consistently happening to be ahead of the game, you need to figure out how to innovate. Know what the competition is doing, be one or three steps ahead of them, and make sure you use the collective intelligence of your staff to make it applicable. If however you have collective stupidity and not intelligence you might need to work harder at your HR skills than you thought.
12. Poor sales skills – Its one thing to have a prospect walk in, and another to convert that into a sale. Make sure all staff that come into contact with the prospects have the ability to build the relationship – find out their needs – offer them a solution – close the sale.

Now you know what might be causing the flat spots, its time to turn things around so you can be ahead of the game. Assess your business carefully against each of these points and take action to make it succeed.