Zombie Business

To celebrate Halloween, we have a tale of horror, the tale of the zombie business.  They walk among us, not alive, not dead, staggering on. Read on if you dare.

Everyone knows, if a business is to survive it must make money, it must have investment, its owners must believe in it.  Without these things it should die.  Sad to say but that doesn’t always happen, usually because the business owner cannot face up to reality.  Enter the zombie business.  On a serious note, it is a real issue, sucking the oxygen from the business environment, demoralising staff and inflicting suffering on investors.

It’s not that a business must always make money.  Amazon did not make money for nearly a decade.  That’s ok, Amazon was investing.  As we are fond of saying at Co-, profit comes from risk.  No investment, no risk, no profit.  A company can also have a bad year, maybe a bad few years, that can happen.  Sometimes times are tough and no amount of commitment and investment can make a difference.

The outward signs of the zombie business are lack of investment.  The carpet is stained and scuffed but no-one is replacing it.  The computers are out of date, the website screams for a refresh.  These are the outward signs of the zombie business but to know truly if a business should die we need to look into the soul of the business owner.  Do they have the stomach for the fight?  Do they believe this business can work?  Do they have a credible plan to turn things around?

When the answers to those questions are ‘no’, the business is already dead, its trading just hasn’t caught up with it.  It is being carried forward by the momentum of its former self.  It’s never a happy story.  I have never heard of a business being started without a huge slice of optimism and belief by its founder.  And perhaps the hardest thing for a business owner to admit is that they no longer believe.

Businesses in this state need putting out of their misery.  Zombie businesses are not only bad for the business owner but for the business community.

Have you been infected?  Here are 3 signs it is time to stop or join the ranks of the living dead:

• The business makes no profit

• You have stopped taking risks

• You have stopped believing

Finally, to end on a more positive note, closing a business can be a highly liberating and productive thing to do. In our experience it is rarely the end of the story. Optimism, creativity and forward momentum return and before you know it the business owner has a new venture.