Being successful will mean different things to each person and the pictures of success will change as you go through different stages of life. Just as life has different stages, every small business will go through different stages of growth.

In an article on studies of small businesses for the Harvard Business Review, Neil C. Churchill and Virginia L. Lewis found that small businesses experience five stages of growth.

1. Existence. Simply come into being.
2. Survival. Survive at all costs to make it to another day.
3. Success. Maintain a profitable status quo or increase resources for growth.
4. Take off. Experiencing growth.
5. Resource maturity. Managing and reaping the return on investment (ROI).

Each stage will have areas that have key factors to overcoming those stages. This article will examine them from a farrier’s viewpoint.

There are also eight key management factors that affect success or failure. Four of the factors are related toward the business and four toward the owner. These factors play an important role because your response could determine your advancement, if in fact that you do.

The business-related factors are as follows.

1. Financial resources. This pertains to the financial health of the company. Did you have to borrow money and climb out of debt to pay back the money? Or did you…