The 15-minute Ritual to Boost Your Cashflow

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio

There is something I do every single Monday morning that completely changes my relationship with money. It’s something I’ve been teaching my clients and my students over the years, and everyone actually loves this process. They say it’s a real game changer for them. In today’s episode, I’m gonna talk you through the importance of money rituals and explain to you this little 15 minute ritual that you can do every week that will boost your business cash flow.

So I was very intentional about the use of the word cash flow in the title for today’s episode because the number one reason that most businesses fail is because of poor cash flow. Now I just wanna take a moment here and explain something because [00:01:00] cash flow is different to profit. A business can be profitable but still run out of cash because cash flow is about the timing of the money physically leaving your bank account.

So let me just explain what exactly I mean by that. Let’s say you are an interior designer. I work with lots of interior designers, and you might have a team that work with you as well. You have just landed a big design job for a client that’s worth $20,000, and let’s just assume that your regular business expenses, like you know, the team, whatnot, are $7,000 a month.

But the way that it works with this particular contract, this client, is that the client only pays you when the job is finished. So let me explain a little bit about how this is recognized [00:02:00] differently in terms of a profit and loss report and in terms of cash flow. So legally you recognize a sale at the time that the contract is signed.

And arguably that some money passes hands. So a lot of times there might be a deposit that you put down to sign off on the project. They sign the contract. That is the time that you should recognize the profit in your accrual accounting system. So at the point in time that you’ve done this, you’ve done the deal, it will look.

Your profit and loss report, like you’ve just had a $20,000 sales month. But here’s the problem. The money, the cash doesn’t actually hit your account until the project is finished. So what is going on? On paper? It looks like you’ve made all this money, but [00:03:00] actually you’ve got expenses coming out and you haven’t actually received the cash yet.

So this is why it is so important to absolutely look at your profitability, but also to be looking at your cash flow. So the ritual I do every Monday morning to boost my cash flow is called a cash cash flow forecast meeting. So why do cash flow forecasting? The best way to be right across your cash is to be forecasting, and basically what forecasting means is it’s looking forward and tracking what is coming into your business and out of your business and at what time that is happening.

It’s a really fantastic way to feel confident in your [00:04:00] cash position, and the way that it helps you make more money is because if your cash isn’t where you want it to be, you can make decisions using this knowledge that will boost your cash flow. I know for me, when I’m sitting down and doing this meeting each Monday morning, a lot of times I’m like,

“Oh my gosh, that client hasn’t paid yet. I need to follow them up.” Or, this morning I remembered a speaking opportunity that I hadn’t followed up, so I’m looking at my cash flow. I’m like, “Oh, that reminds me, I’ve gotta go and follow them up to see if they want me to do that paid speaking opportunity.” I might have forgotten about that if I wasn’t sitting down and looking at my cash flow forecast.

So what this process does is it enables you to make decisions to keep your cash flow positive, or even if your cash flow was positive, to improve it. [00:05:00] Because knowledge is power and the more that you can understand what’s going on. You can start to say, oh my gosh, there’s the cash is a little bit slow at the back end of the month.

Why don’t I launch a new product or boost my marketing efforts in the back end of the month so that I can be bringing some more money in there? The cool thing about a cash flow forecast is that it gives you the visibility to be able to make these decisions. I know that sometimes a thing that I see a lot too is that sometimes business owners are scared to make investments because they don’t really know if they can afford it.

And so a lot of times I use this tool to say, Hey, you can go ahead and hire that new team member. There’s plenty of money in your bank account to cover that for at least the next two or three months. So [00:06:00] I’ve raved on about how awesome cash flow broadcasting is. You might have the question, which is, well, how long does this actually take?

Because you plugged that it was 15 minutes. Is that really how long it takes? Now, of course, depending on your business size and complexity, there might be a little bit of flex in that, but for me it’s 15 minutes or less every week. The caveat on that, the first time you set up your cash flow forecast, it probably will take you a little bit longer.

So I usually say the first time you go through and set it up, it will take about an hour. But to maintain it, update it, maintain it each week, honestly, I reckon 15 minutes if you have sort of a, a business in the up to, you know, multi six, seven fi, maybe early seven figures. When you’re, you know, running a big, big complex organization, maybe it’ll take more than that.

So this little ritual is something I would love [00:07:00] for every single one of you to implement into your business. A Monday morning cash flow forecast meeting.

Now I know you might wonder well, what exactly do I cover in this meeting? Do I need a template? How do I go about setting up my cash flow forecast? Well, I’ve actually got something that I’ve created for you, which is the agenda for this meeting that I do each week. So if you wanna go and grab that inside, I actually break down exactly what’s covered who I bring along.

The, the different metrics and things that I look at in this meeting. And you can grab that for only $9, which you can grab via the link in the show notes. And you can also have the opportunity to upgrade for an additional small amount and actually grab the cash flow Forecast template that I use as well as a full training about how to do it.

But I really [00:08:00] recommend that you do go and check that out. I’ve made it an absolutely. Fantastic price so that it is accessible for everyone. But I really do think that this Monday morning ritual will completely change your relationship with money. You’ll feel more empowered, you’ll feel more confident, and most importantly, it will actually help you to make more money because like I said, you’re getting those little nudges.

Oh my goodness. You better go and follow that person up or hang on, that person hasn’t paid yet. Let’s go and give them a bit of a nudge and make sure we bring that money in. Or it might even be the, the nudge that you look and notice that there’s a bit of a cash flow gap and it inspires you to go and create something.

So that is the 15 minute ritual. It’s called a cash flow Forecast meeting. I love them by students and clients. I’ve got clients from six, seven years ago who tell me they are still using this process in this template because they love [00:09:00] it so much. So you can go and grab the agenda in the link for the show notes of today’s episode.

Thank you so much for tuning into the clearwood podcast. I always appreciate you being here, and I cannot wait to chat to you again next week. Have a good one.

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio