Show me the money!
Lack of money, profit and cash flow sucks; it is stressful, frustrating and sometimes even embarrassing. Particularly if you are working long hours with nothing to show for it. While this may be your reality today, the good news is that it doesn’t have to stay that way … really.
Read on and I’ll share the facts that will give you the answers as to why you are lacking in cash and better still, we’re also going to tell you what you can do about it. Plus we’ve included some links to case studies that will show you how these strategies work in real life.
After reading this page, you will be infinitely more knowledgeable and know there are concrete things that can be done to get you more money in the bank. That is our promise.
And let us be straight up with you. We do want to talk you to. We would like to earn the opportunity to help you ... but that decision lies with you. This page is designed to give you answers and ideas. And should you wish to connect with us, you can do that too.
Before we get into the answers, you need to agree to this
There is a chance that you believe your business is unique and there are special reasons why you are in the situation you are in. This is a very common belief amongst business owners who need to make more money. And if that is you … your first step is to let go of that belief.
The reality is while every business has ‘something’ unique about them, the principles that drive business success are the same across the board. What is outlined below applies to every business on the planet … and we’ve seen it first hand in thousands of them … literally.
If you are OK to move forward on that basis, keep reading. If you think we’re smoking something, feel free to email us and we’d love to learn why your business is the exception. And we’re not being sarcastic here. We mean it.
Do you relate to any of these symptoms?
Needing more money might be showing up for you in a variety of ways. We’ll get into the ‘technical specifics’ in a second. Below are the most common quotes we hear from business owners who need more cash. Let’s see which ones you identify with:
• “My accountant tells me I’m profitable but have no money in the bank”
• “We are busier than heck but there still doesn’t seem to be much profit at the end of the day”.
• “We get a big influxes of cash but it seems to go out just as fast as it comes in”
• “I know I need more sales but that is easier said than done.”
• “I think my accountant is from a different planet. I don’t understand her/his language”
• “The market is so price competitive, we are continually getting squeezed”
• “We can’t seem to increase our prices as fast as our costs are rising””
• “Who has the time to do marketing when there is so much other stuff to do”.
• “Keeping track of money coming in and going out gives me a brain hemorrhage”
All Symptoms come down to 3 possibilities
With all those thoughts above, they boil down to 3 core issues:
1. Lack of Revenue
2. Lack of Profit
3. Lack of Cash Flow.
You might be saying well duh. And you’d be right. This is not complex stuff. The power though is in knowing what drives each of those 3; revenue, profit and cash flow, and which strategies make the MOST sense for you and your business.
And knowing is just the start. The real challenge comes in the execution of the strategies and getting the results. On this page we are going to educate you - your step is to make a commitment and take action.
Ok If You Can Help Me Find Money.... I’m Ready To Talk
Isn’t Profit and Cash Flow essentially the same thing?
In some businesses it is, but that is usually not the case. As soon as a business has receivables, payables, inventory, debt, or assets that it buys or sells, then profit does NOT equal cash flow. Then often you the owner, is drawing out cash that is also not recorded on the income statement. So as you can see … it can be complex.
So our first task is to establish if in fact you are profitable. It is very hard (but not impossible) to have great cash flow without great profit. So the question is how profitable are you? If you don’t know the answer to that, then that is your starting point. You can click here to watch a free video on understanding your financial statements.
We are definitely profitable but we struggle with cash flow
So perhaps you are profitable but its not translating to money in the bank. This is actually good news because there are a number of simple strategies we can use to change this quickly.
But I digress - the reasons for poor cash flow in spite of being profitable are usually one or more of these;
1. Paying for inventory (or labour) before being paid by customers (Negative Cash Cycle)
2. Poor inventory management
3. Poor accounts receivable management
4. Paying bills too early.
5. Paying off debt principle.
6. Investment in assets
7. Owners taking too much cash out of the business
8. Theft.
To improve cash flow in a profitable company, it would be common to need to adjust several of these. To see a real life example of how we did this with Mark Trent from Pegasus Glass, Click here to read the Case Study
Ok I'm Getting it. We Need to Talk.
I think we need to be more profitable
Ok so you are in the camp of needing to be more profitable. If you boil it down, profit is just the difference between revenue and costs. So all we have to do is increase revenue and/or decrease costs. If only it were that simple!
Well it almost is that simple. The first step is to understand you have 2 types of costs. You have Costs Of Goods Sold (COGS – your variable costs) and you have Overhead (fixed costs). Essentially we need to understand if these two costs are in line for your business model. What this means is “are you making money when you make a sale” (decent margins) and/or “Is your level of overhead as low as it can go without compromising the ability for the business to be in business”. If they are then you just need to work on bringing in more sales. If they are not, then there are a bunch of strategies we could employ to get you in shape here.
“Within 3 months we had things turned around financially.
Our small profit had grown significantly through a greater
understanding and awareness of our numbers. The biggest
change I felt was a relief of stress around our cash flow. The
cash flow forecasting Jamie showed us has been awesome!”
Stacey Sherwood
Owner - Supperworks Ancaster`
Have a read of how Stacey from Supperworks did it inside of the first 3 months of working with us.
Our Margins are good and we have cut costs as much as we can but we still are short on cash
Assuming it is not just a cash flow issue (see above) and you know your costs are inline (i.e. you have decent margins and your fixed costs are as low as they can go) then the only thing left to do is drive sales.
I just need to repeat that before we go investing time and effort into sales and marketing. It is imperative that you are sure your margins are appropriate. If you go and drive sales and your margins are weak, you will just end up busier than heck with no more money. It may even bankrupt you if your cash cycle is not positive.
Now to drive sales is a whole topic in itself and the best strategies are completely dependent on the industry, skills of the business owner and time and money resources available. The good news is that you don’t need to spend massive amounts of cash to drive sales.
So where to from here
Good on you … you made it through. That certainly shows you’ve got persistence! The question that might be on your mind is “what do I do from here?” You should by now have a better idea of where your problems might lie and perhaps have a feel for how I help people (if you’ve read a couple of the Case Studies).
Some good news for you - What I help business owners do is not terribly complex. I mean the strategies and tactics we use to build profit and cash flow are relatively straight forward. Not necessarily easy but they are simple.
And more good news, if you think you are in a place where you know you want things to change, then I’m willing to give you some of my time to discuss what might be some options for you.
Of course you might be thinking …
“I’m not sure I have the time for this” or
“Geez how much is this going to cost?” or
“Who is this Jamie Cunningham guy anyway” or
“Does this stuff actually work” or
“What I really need is someone to come in here and do it for me” or
“Maybe we can live on toasted cheese sandwiches a little longer”
If any of those thoughts are running through your mind then you are certainly not unique. The goal of us connecting will be purely exploratory for you to learn more about me and me to learn more about you. After a brief chat, probably about 10-15 minutes each of us can then decide if we’d like to pursue it further. From there we can establish some next steps.
If that sounds like a good investment of your time, go ahead and click below and we will get connected.
If you are still unsure but are a little bit curious, go ahead and click the button anyway. The most it will cost is 15 minutes of your time to find out.
I look forward to meeting and learning more about you and your business.