Business Vital Signs: The Foundation of a Sustainable Business

Picture this: someone rushes into the emergency department, doctors gather around, and immediately the first thing they do is check the patient’s vital signs—heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation. These don’t tell the whole story of someone’s health, but they show whether the body is stable enough to work on.

Business is no different. Every business has its own “vital signs”—the non-negotiable metrics that must be stable if the business is going to survive. These aren’t the flashy things like sales or marketing. They’re the backbone cost controls that determine whether growth is even possible.

Because here’s the truth: you can have all the customers in the world, but if your costs aren’t under control, you’ll never see a positive net result. It’s like trying to sprint with a broken leg—you won’t get far.

Just like in medicine, good vital signs don’t automatically mean “healthy.” A person can have a steady pulse and normal blood pressure but eat junk food every day and never exercise. The same applies to business. A sustainable business has strong cost controls, but a healthy business layers on top of that: smart marketing, strong branding, customer loyalty, and a growth strategy.

But first, the foundation: vital signs.

From my time in hospitality franchising, our three critical numbers were:

• Cost of goods – ideally around 30–33%

• Labour management – kept to about 25%

• Occupancy costs – between 8–10%

In concrete production the 3 were:

• Labour - m3 deliver/labour hours

• ASP - Avg selling price/m3

• Mix & Delivery rate- all non-material expenses / m3

If those weren’t in check, nothing else mattered. Every business will have their own key vital signs which need to core non-negotiable KPIs/metrics monitored. An example might be; A mobile business will have minimal occupancy costs, while a manufacturing business might focus more on yield and wastage control.

What matters most is identifying your vital signs, tracking them religiously, and building systems and processes to keep them stable. Only once that foundation is in place should you put energy into scaling through sales, marketing, and branding. Otherwise, everything that comes in the front door will slip straight out the back.

In future articles, we’ll break down each of these areas in more detail—labour management, cost of goods, and occupancy costs—so you’ve got the tools to keep your business stable, sustainable, and ready to grow.