Business cash flow is easy to define, harder to maintain, and near impossible to do in a once-in-100 years global pandemic. Dave Thibault, First Vice President of Cash Management at PeoplesBank, recommends business owners take pause to better understand and manage cashflow to help position them for success in 2021. Cash flow management involves several variables, including how quickly you generate revenue, get revenue, and how long you take to pay those expenses.
Thibault, suggests that businesses that manage these variables closely will have a better handle on what success looks like for their business during this time. Here are four tips that could help as you navigate cash flow management during these unprecedented times.
1. Reliable Forecasting. Hopefully, you have talked to your banker and have taken advantage of Small Business Administration (SBA) loans, grants and the Paycheck Protection Program loans also administered by the SBA. If you have not, stop reading and call your banker for advice. There is, however, light at the end of the tunnel which makes forecasting and business planning more accurate. Now is the time to start talking, loudly and to everyone, and seek new delivery channels.
2. Talk to your suppliers about discounts, deferred payments and more generous payment terms. “We are all in this together” was our mantra at the start of the pandemic. Those of us who Managing business cash flow in unprecedented times are still in business get it. We are all in the same boat. Therefore, you might find much more willingness to be flexible than before this all started.
3. Start telling your story. If there is one good thing to come out of this pandemic it is that consumers are more focused on local businesses and willing to go out of their way to support them. You need to get in front of them and stay there, always telling customers
how and why you bring value to their lives. Small businesses always have a story. It might be one of entrepreneurship or supporting the community and, of course, providing jobs for your neighbors. Local businesses often deliver a product or service that can’t be commoditized, meaning the big guys can’t do it profitably or in a way that provides the same quality. That’s a story too. Tell it.
4. If you haven’t already, go digital. There is considerable data that shows consumers have digitalized their buying, which seems contradictory to their support for local business. It’s not, but it does mean you have to put your entrepreneur hat back on and leave it on? Customers will buy if you can make it safe and easy. Keep reevaluating your delivery channels and attempt to make them digital and contactless in any way you can. This genie is not going back into the bottle. Delivery channels have changed forever. Sure, shopping for the experience will return. But, if you want to see a resurgence as well as gain market share, get busy rethinking how you deliver your products and services. The digital tools to do this have vastly improved, are also less expensive and easier to use – for you and your customers. PeoplesBank works with local businesses, big and small. And as the largest community bank in the market, we believe local businesses fuel growth in our surrounding cities and towns. For more information on how PeoplesBank can help your business, contact one of our Business Bankers or Cash Management Officers.
