Success in business is a wonderful thing. And too much of it can lead to failure.
When a business is successful in some areas, many others become less important and failure can be hidden or masked. When sales are high and profits are good, most people tend to become comfortable and with comfort comes complacency. It’s normal to feel good about your direction and to think you are doing everything right when you are realising success. But it’s critical for you to understand that in reality you are probably be doing some things very right and other things very wrong. The things you’re doing right may well enable you to survive the immediate future, perhaps even prosper, but at what cost?
Your present success can often prevent you from achieving even greater success. It can even lay the groundwork for the ultimate demise of your business. Think about the buggy whip manufacturers of the last century. There were extremely successful and not at all threatened by the invention of the motor vehicle because they saw no immediate decline in business. The rest, so they say, is history. Or at least, the buggy whip manufacturers certainly are.
Even if you don’t continue to question your own success and how you could do things better, you can be absolutely certain your competitors will.
And they will win, every time.