Pareto, in real life.

80% of what you produce will be okay, and 20% will be good.

Of that 20%, 80% will be great and 20% will be awesome.

So, of every 100 actions:

• 80 okay
• 16 great
• 4 awesome.

That’s how life works.

Every business I’ve watched fail had the same problem: the owner thought it was one thing but it was always something else.

Usually they blame cash flow. But low cash flow is the symptom, not the cause.

It’s never the problem. It’s just what breaks first.

And when it breaks, the business is fkd.

How to get your business back on track.

This: Attention + consistent effort + time.

Want new stuff? Want it today? Want it easy? That’s 99% of people.

But that’s not you, is it? You’re a 1%er.

The 1%ers know there’s no shortcut. They do the work. Even when the payoff isn’t immediate. They keep their focus on the few things that matter.

Every function in your business does one of these three things:

• It creates revenue
• It enables revenue
• It consumes revenue.

Simple but uncommon perspective. All are necessary but only one brings home the bacon.

Cash velocity matters.

If you manufacture to order (MTO), your costs accumulate but you don’t get paid until it’s delivered.

If you manufacture to stock (MTS) those finished items just sit on your shelves, waiting for a buyer.

You wear all those costs until someone pays you.

Maybe you have the working capital to cover them. But if you don’t, it’s painful.

You compromise, you lie, you discount. Anything to get that money into your bank account.

Hell of a way to run a business.

Think about cash velocity. What can you change to shorten the time between manufacture and sale?

When you have cash in the bank AND positive cash flow, you have infinite runway.

You can pivot, innovate, take time off, do board meetings in Ko Samui.

If you have more cash coming in than going out, month after month, you have the freedom to screw up everything and still stay in business.

That’s a nice place to be.

In the least 20 years as a business consultant, every company I’ve worked with has operational problems that get attention.

Every one.

Some are just inconveniences. Easy to ignore, easy to live with. No big deal.

Others are serious, as in existential serious.

And 80% of those, maybe more, have to do with cash flow management.

So do this:

Check your cash position at least weekly, daily if you have to.

Cash in the bank pays suppliers, employees, the tax man, and you.

Your P&L statement and balance sheet are worth squat when you don’t have the cash to operate.

Fear, uncertainty, doubt. They don’t announce themselves the way they did when you started your dream business.

They go quiet and structural.

They become the reasons you haven’t raised your prices in two years.