One of the reasons I’m so fired up working with business owners and founders is because I want each and every owner to experience the growth and expansion running a business offers - if you want to grow as a person, your business is a great teacher - am I right?

There are a number of metrics as a business owner for you to consider in the running of your business: revenue, pricing, expenses, profit, but there’s another important piece to knowing your numbers.

Understanding your cash flow.

Cash flowing through your business is like water flowing through a river; if it dries up, the environment around that river dries up and suffers.

You could have sales going through your business, but there’s a timing to cash flow and if that timing is off, it could hand-tie your business, inhibiting growth. If cash is running like that flowing river, then you have enough to fund growth and allow your business the flexibility it needs to operate.

The considerations that go into cash flow are largely around the timing of when money comes and money flows out, and ensuring there’s more coming in than going out.

For money coming in, consider things like…

Being able to articulate your company’s vision simply is powerful.

It supports your decision-making, how you lead, and provides a guidepost for your company to work towards.

Sharing it with your team, your clients and suppliers can be equally as powerful so people know what you’re about. People are attracted to doing business with companies that have passion and purpose.

If you haven’t articulated or written your business’ vision in a while, I encourage you to use this simple framework which includes what success looks like.

Here’s a vision framework for you to work with:

This is the seventh in the discussion of the eight growth drivers that generate value.

There are many ways to create loyal customers such as providing a valuable product/service and excellent customer service.

There’s another way that you can extend this value that will increase your customer loyalty - creating a model or offering, that solves your customer’s need so they buy what you have consistently.

Recurring revenue makes your company more predictable, extends the lifetime value of your customer, and ultimately makes your business more valuable. Valuable to you now and in the future.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how cash moving through your business is its lifeforce. It allows you to fulfill your mission, strengthen the business so it, your employees, and customers thrive.

Creating a recurring revenue stream is another way to bring cash flow into your business to create these automatic sales.

While there are many ways to do this, I’ll share how a simple service contract could be the place to start for many…

Is your business satisfying your ‘WHY’?

In order to fulfill your WHY for being in business, the company you created has to be able to make the impact you had intended it to make.

Whether that’s impacting families through therapeutic approaches, providing housing for seniors, providing financial security for families, or helping others build healthy businesses, without your own healthy business, it becomes harder to fulfill that mission.

That’s why I love these markers of business value. It’s not only your own business you’re building, but having a healthy business means that you can change the lives of your clients and customers.

That’s the real and compelling legacy here and a huge reason why I do what I do. One of my big WHYs is to help you to be successful in growing a strong, healthy, and sustainable business that impacts others.

I’m deeply motivated to improve the lives of others through economic growth and supporting businesses that make a difference in our communities so we all thrive.

One of the markers of a healthy business is how cash flows through it. (This is the fifth driver of business value.)

One of the most common pains I hear from business owners is that there’s not enough cash. Or it shows up as their desire to ‘do more marketing’ or '‘increase sales’.

Is your business a cash suck?

Or does it generate cash quite handily?

If cash is rarely on hand in your business when you need it, you may want to consider exploring these areas:

Like the cylinders in a car or cogs in a wheel, your business has components that make it run well.

Just like your car's engine, your healthy body, or a puzzle, when one component isn't working, your entire business begins to struggle to keep up....