It's gone. The first quarter.  It's gone.  So, how'd you do? Business on track? Still holding to those New Year's resolutions?  Take a moment and take stock. Take stock of where you are because let's face it, things move fast. Things that are trending in the wrong direction tend to go that way faster. It's hard to reverse or make up for a bad first quarter. Heck, it's tough to recover from a bad week.  But we always believe we can. Of course, if we didn't believe we could we'd be in even bigger trouble. But that doesn't mean we can get by just thinking that we can make corrections we have to do it. There is a giant trap at the beginning of the year it's what I call the "there's a whole year in front of me syndrome." It's procrastination at its fullest.

So, if your first quarter was fantastic and I hope it was, you should be effective and stop reading this now. But if not, take a couple more minutes and see if you're willing to do some self diagnostics to reverse the course.

Here's a short list for you to consider.  Or in more forceful terms if needed, just suck it up and commit to changing. I'd start with the Holy Grail, cash flow.  A shortage of cash flow is a giant indicator that something is wrong.  If things are so tight you're borrowing like the federal government to fill gaps and hold you over, it's like living from paycheck to paycheck.  It's ok once in a while, but if it's chronic, it's time to do some self assessment. Take a look at your cash flow.  If it's anemic, a number of things could be causing it and it's a symptom to take seriously because like a cancer, it leads to a breakdown of one system after another until it eventually kills your chances for having a good year.

Poor cash flow is a symptom of:

• A pricing system that doesn't recognize true costs, or competes on low price.
• Labor expense that is high due to worker inefficiencies.
• Slow collection of money owed or worse, noncollectable, bad debt.

Poor cash flow causes further system breakdowns because:

• Business development takes a back seat to cash-management headaches.
• You and your employees' motivation drops and so does performance.
• The company can't hire the best and right people.
• Credibility is lost with vendors, bringing tightened terms (C.O.D) and soured relationships.

So, diagnose the root cause - fast!  If you don't, it's likely you'll run up a big bill and lose your chance for a recovery by years end.   As they say, "The longer you wait to begin the healing process, the more difficult the cure."  

If you or your company is experiencing slow cash flow, under performing business systems probably are the culprit.  Sometimes the systems are your personal habits and sometimes they're "corporate."  No matter. You have probably got some systems that have served you well for years and so you're not even considering that they could be the problem. Don't fall in that trap. Look at systems that served you well in the past and could be failing now.  Look for symptoms you're ignoring because you've gotten used to them. Are there ailing systems in marketing? collections? production?  operations?  Or are all your systems fine and it's just the economy?

Use the end of the first quarter's results and decide if you need to change your meds.  While I'm not one to rely on drugs, a strong dose of self diagnosis and a script of dedicated improvement to your vital business systems and processes might be in order. Don't delay another day!