How to Tell If Growth Is Helping or Hurting Your Business

by Sean Foster | November 7, 2025 | Business Coaching

Speaking from personal experience, when your business grows, it's massively rewarding. New clients. More sales. Bigger goals. But growth can be a double-edged sword. Not all growth is good growth, and sometimes it takes a while before the damage shows up.

If you’ve noticed more stress than success lately, it might be time to stop and ask: Is this growth actually helping my business, or is it hurting it?

Growth Isn’t Always a Sign of Health

It’s easy to assume that more revenue means more success. But that’s not always the case. Research from CB Insights found that 38% of startups fail because they run out of cash or fail to raise new capital, highlighting how financial mismanagement often becomes riskier during periods of rapid growth.

If growth happens without structure, it can:

• Drain your cash flow
• Overwhelm your team
• Dilute your culture
• Create inconsistent customer experiences
• Mask inefficiencies

Growth without the right systems or team capacity often turns into chaos.

This is especially true when cash flow becomes unpredictable. Cash flow problems are one of the most common side effects of unmanaged growth. To get ahead of it, we’ve broken down key mistakes to avoid in our article: 6 Major Cash Flow Fails And How To Avoid It.

Signs That Growth Might Be Hurting

Ask yourself these questions:

1. Is profit actually growing with revenue?

It’s common for businesses to see sales increase while margins shrink. If your expenses grow faster than your revenue, you’re not scaling, you’re stretching.

Understanding your business’s sustainable growth rate can help you make smarter decisions about when and how to grow. It’s not just about adding revenue, it’s about knowing what your business can handle without breaking. To dive deeper into this, explore our article: Why Understanding Your Business’s Sustainable Growth Rate Matters.

2. Is your team showing signs of burnout?

When your staff are constantly under pressure, working longer hours, or making mistakes, it’s a sign your growth may be exceeding your operational capacity.

3. Are your customers getting inconsistent experiences?

If customer service is slipping or delivery is delayed, growth might be putting your brand at risk.

4. Are you constantly chasing fires?

You may find yourself pulled into more day-to-day issues, even though you’re “growing.” That’s often a sign that key systems haven’t kept up.

5. Has clarity of strategy been replaced with survival mode?

When growth is reactive instead of intentional, it’s easy to lose sight of long-term direction.

That’s where setting intentional and measurable goals makes a difference. Without clearly defined outcomes, it’s hard to tell whether growth is truly serving your bigger vision or simply creating noise. If you need a practical guide to goal-setting, check out our article: Setting Goals for Success: 5 Tips to Define Clear Goals.

The Role of a Business Coach in Sustainable Growth

A business coach doesn’t just help you grow. They help you grow in the right way.

Coaching helps you:

• Clarify which type of growth aligns with your vision
• Prioritise improvements that actually move the needle
• Create scoreboards to track the health of growth
• Build a team structure that can scale with you
• Challenge assumptions that bigger is always better

In fact, McKinsey research shows that companies with clear growth plans, supported by leadership development and operational systems, outperform peers by more than 30% in long-term profitability.

If you're wondering what executive-level coaching could look like for you, and why it’s not just reserved for big corporates, we unpack this in detail in our article: What Executive Coaching Actually Looks Like (And Why It’s Not Just for Corporates).

What You Should Measure Besides Revenue

To know if growth is healthy, track:

• Gross and net profit margins
• Customer satisfaction or churn rate
• Staff turnover or engagement scores
• Delivery lead time and rework levels
• Cash flow trends and buffer reserves
• Client acquisition cost versus lifetime value

Real Growth Includes Alignment

Healthy growth means your revenue, culture, team, and operations grow together. If one lags behind, it creates drag. Alignment doesn’t just happen, it’s designed. And that’s where coaching makes the difference.
With coaching, you gain space to reflect, analyse, and decide what kind of growth your business actually needs right now.

FAQ

Q1: How do I know if my business growth is unhealthy? If profit margins are shrinking, staff are overwhelmed, or you’re constantly firefighting, your growth might be outpacing your structure.

Q2: Can business growth hurt profitability? Yes. Many businesses experience revenue growth but lower profitability due to rising costs, delivery issues, or lack of systems.

Q3: What should I measure to know if growth is healthy? Look at more than just revenue. Track profit margins, team health, customer experience, and cash flow.

Q4: How can coaching help with business growth? A business coach helps you assess your current trajectory, clarify goals, and implement systems that support sustainable scaling.

Ready to Find Out if Your Growth is Actually Working for You?

Book a free 30-minute clarity call with Sean and get clear on whether your growth is helping, hurting, or hiding a bigger opportunity.