Due to the nature of my business, I get to see a lot of different types of businesses and some times its interesting to consider how far they've come and from whence they started. Every one of them has a story to tell. As an ex-Chemical Engineer, I've come across this simple truth. It helps me understand why some businesses fail and some don't... and it's never about the money!
Engineers worry about control systems. I spent a lot of time in school and in my former job with control theory. The whole subject is based on detecting when you're off course and making corrections to stay on course. You need a couple of things in place for this to work. First and foremost, you need an end-goal. Then you need a strategy for course corrections.There's no way to determine if you're off course if you don't know what you're destination is. Here's what's interesting: In control theory, you spend most of the time off-course! The thing that matters is how quickly you can correct and how fast you get to your destination - presuming you get there at all.
So? What's your end-goal for your business? It's a fairly benign question that for some is very difficult to answer. It's worth thinking about because once you've got THE answer, then and only then can you determine where your business is relative to the end-goal and what you need to be doing to make corrective actions to take your business to that destination.