What Happens When a Million-Pound Business Starts Going Backwards?
Jo Warwick is The Money Therapist, host of the Glitches to Gold podcast, and author of The Big Book of Love. Blending over 25 years of expertise in psychotherapy, business, energetics, and Human Design, she guides women to uncover inherited and unconscious patterns that drive their money and success in life.
When an established business starts losing revenue, staff and momentum, the problems may be far more connected than they appear. Jo Warwick explores the invisible electrical circuitry running through a business, and how a shift in its energy helped one declining company return to growth and more than £2 million in annual turnover.
When success starts to unravel
What happens when a business that's been successful for years suddenly starts going backwards? Revenue starts dropping. Good people leave. The management team starts pulling in different directions, and everyone is working harder to get back to the success they once had.
It's easy to look at these as separate business problems, sales, staffing, leadership, marketing and performance. But they're all connected. What you're actually seeing is a disruption in the electrical pulse running through the entire business.
Every business has an energy moving through it. It starts with the people who create and lead it, then travels through management, employees, the environment, the brand, the customers and the money. Just like an electrical circuit, when that flow gets interrupted in one place, the effects can show up somewhere completely different.
A few years ago, I was brought in as a consultant to an established company that had been turning over around £1 million a year for many years. Now, it was unravelling.
The invisible electrical circuit
When a business begins to lose momentum, the natural response is to examine the individual areas where things aren't working. Sales figures are analysed. Management structures are questioned. Marketing is reviewed. Staff performance comes under scrutiny.
All of those things matter. But a business isn't a collection of independent departments. It's an interconnected system, with an electrical pulse moving through the entire organisation.
Its leaders' energy shapes decision-making, how people work together, how customers experience the business, and ultimately how money moves through it. The flow isn't simply travelling in one direction. Every part of the business is continually influencing the others.
A leadership interruption can show up as poor staff retention. Conflicting management decisions can affect the environment, customer relationships and sales. A brand that no longer reflects the business can influence how it's positioned and received in the market.
This is why examining each problem in isolation can miss what's actually happening. Understanding a business's systemic layout lets you see where the electrical pulse is moving, where the flow is interrupted, and how those interruptions affect the company as a whole. In this business, those interruptions were becoming increasingly visible.
When it's not allowed to evolve
The business had spent years building its success. It had customers, a reputation, an established market position and an offering that had evolved considerably. Yet the energy running through it still belonged to its early start-up days.
The hustle. The drive. The young, vibrant, everyone-pushing-to-make-it-happen atmosphere. That energy had helped create a successful company. But the business had grown, and its leaders hadn't allowed it to evolve into the established company it had become.
The managing director had become increasingly controlling. The management team had lost its shared direction, with conflicting ideas about where the company was going and what they wanted to create. Relationships were breaking down. People who were supposed to lead the business together were fighting. That conflict was disrupting the operational flow.
The working environment had become unpleasant. Staff no longer felt loyalty towards the company, and people were leaving because they simply didn't want to work there. The business was losing the very people it needed to move forward.
Meanwhile, the leadership was still trying to operate from the same identity and way of working that had built the company in the first place. But it wasn't that company anymore. Its experience, offering, market position and what it could now deliver were all very different. The business needed to catch up with what it had become.
Bringing the business back into unison
The shift began with getting honest. Honest about what was happening right in front of them. The business was falling apart. Revenue was declining, good people were leaving, relationships were breaking down, and the management team was losing hope in the company they'd spent years building.
They had to acknowledge where they actually were, rather than keep trying to operate as though everything was still working. They also needed to be honest about who they had become.
The business had matured, and so had the people leading it. They weren't the same individuals who had started the company years earlier. Experience had changed them, their lives had evolved, and what they wanted now wasn't necessarily what they'd wanted when they started.
So we had to clarify what they wanted. What did they actually want from this business now? What excited them? Where did they want to take it? What kind of company did they want to lead, and how did they want to feel being part of it?
Somewhere along the way, amid the conflict, pressure, and declining results, they'd lost their passion for what they were creating. That loss of desire and direction was draining the energy from the entire company.
The people responsible for leading the business were no longer moving together. Conflicting ideas, control battles, frustration, and a lack of shared vision continually interrupted the electrical pulse flowing through the organisation.
So this wasn't simply about agreeing on a new direction, changing the management or updating the brand. It was about the energy underpinning all of those things.
As they clarified what they actually wanted to create, the energy between them began to shift. Excitement about the business returned. A shared focus and genuine cohesion emerged among the leaders, the company's identity, and its direction.
That changed how they led, communicated, made decisions, and showed up throughout the business. The electrical pulse, once interrupted by conflict and competing directions, began to flow with a much greater sense of unison.
When the flow changes, the business changes
The effects were felt across the company almost immediately. The working environment changed overnight. The atmosphere became more positive, relationships improved, and the team's energy shifted completely.
Hiring became easier, with people joining who fit the business's next stage. The brand and offering began to reflect the established company it had become. The way the business presented itself, communicated, and connected with customers changed.
Deals began moving again, and the business regained its momentum. These weren't isolated improvements. They were all part of the same shift in the company's energy.
Revenue quickly returned to over £120,000 a month, and the business subsequently grew to more than £2 million in annual turnover.
The company hadn't lost its ability to be successful. It had grown beyond the way it was still being operated. Once the leaders recognised that, reconnected with their desire, and came back into unison, the electrical pulse running through the company could flow in a completely different way.
Success isn't the end of evolution
Building a successful business is one thing. Letting it keep evolving is another.
As a company matures, so do the people behind it. Their experience, ambitions, and desires change. What once felt exciting and expansive can become restrictive when the business continues operating as though nothing has changed.
The next stage of growth requires the business and its leaders to evolve together. When they align on who they've become, what they want to create, and how the company operates, the entire business can move forward with them.
Is your business ready for its next evolution? If you're recognising something of your own business in this article, get in touch.
Read more from Jo Warwick
Jo Warwick, Founder of Glitches to Gold™, Author & Podcast Host
Jo Warwick brings over two decades of experience in psychotherapy, human behaviour, business and energetics to her work exploring the hidden patterns and systemic circuitry shaping money, business, success, love and life. A former elite athlete, entrepreneur and author of two books, she is also the host of the Glitches to Gold™ podcast, with over 250,000 plays and 1,500 five-star reviews across four seasons. Discover more at GlitchesToGold.com.
