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Cash flow guide for challenging times: how to survive

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This cash flow guide outlines the strategies you can use to survive the toughest economic times.

Plain sailing one day, washed up on the rocks the next. That is exactly how some of our best run businesses are now or heading that direction fast. The pandemic has changed our World very quickly, to the disbelief of many. Whilst our emotions are ravaged along with our business, Revenue is Vanity, Profit is Sanity, but Cash is King. How then can you survive in these challenging times? With a cash flow guide.

Cash flow guide for survival

  1. Calmness and cash flow are joined at the hip

Covid-19 has put us all under stress in different ways. Fear of the future, frustration with the present, losses impacting our finances. Self-care has never been more important. We are all prone to doing stupid stuff when we are stressed and when it comes to cash flow this is no exception. Our ability to respond to our circumstances will depend largely on the calmness of our headspace and how we go about navigating a pathway forward with cash flow guide strategies. Amongst the noise is generally opportunity.

  1. Deep dive into your cash flow now!

From what I have seen in the marketplace, before Covid-19 very few business owners have an active Business Plan, pay attention to their Financials, and rarely have an updated with cash flow guide forecast in play. Business has been a game of reaction and rarely have they needed to really think about the future direction. We can sugar-coat it as much as we like, however it is the time to know our Financials, the Drivers of our business, have our Cashflow forecasts in place and spend quality time thinking and planning how best to move forward.

Any with cash flow guide requires the fundamentals of knowing where you are at as a starting point. Developing Strategy to move forward now requires a higher and more consistent level of thinking to adjust for the constant rate of change we are going through.

  1. Look, and look again – differently!

We all get in a certain pattern of how we look at our business and the cashflow it generates. The ability to think differently in the changed circumstances becomes a key asset for us moving forward.

What revenue is coming into the bank account, what is going out – what is our Cashflow break-even? Are we able to change this position for the better? Where else is there Cashflow hiding in my business. Cash hides in many places on our Balance Sheet – Debtors, Stock, Pre-payments, surplus assets.

Do we have access to extending financing through equipment finance, credit cards, overdrafts, or mortgages? Apply this to ourselves also and see where the opportunities are!

Having a good look at our Sales Mix, Customer mix and Pricing structures for the current market may well expose some opportunities for us to bolster our Gross Profit. At the same time, how active are we at reviewing and reducing our Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)? Are we measuring and managing the Drivers of our business to deliver Cashflow? Every dollar saved in Overheads adds a dollar to our bottom line. Have we left capacity for growth and operating at our optimum? Have we applied for all the Government stimulus we are entitled to, and has this been factored into our cash flow guide?

  1. Entertain, teach and train our customers

The glass is half full for most of us, it’s not the time to focus on the empty half. Customers are happy to be back out of lockdown across most of our country. Some are fearful and apprehensive. Our role as business owners is to remain upbeat, welcome them back, teach them how to do business with us in the new normal and train them to spend more with us and come back more often!

  1. Where is your opportunity?

Some businesses are grateful to survive this pandemic, many are looking to thrive! With the businesses I am working with we have a clear goal to either be thriving now or to be positioned well for opportunity as our Economy opens. Let me explain this one further.

Prior to Covid-19, our business cash flow was either heading down hill, staying the same or improving. Let us revisit our cash flow guide now and look at where we are at whilst we are in the pandemic. Now let us get thinking and see how we can move and shape our business to maximise, not just pandemic times, but also post-pandemic opportunity!

 

About Paul Roach

Paul Roach is a sought-after business strategist and coach who has worked with hundreds of SMEs across many industries to supercharge their cashflow. As a CPA qualified accountant and serial business owner himself, Paul is perfectly placed to educate, train, and develop businesses in the vital area of cashflow. Smarter Business Stronger Cashflow is Paul’s first book. Find out more at www.thecashflowcoach.global

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