Cash is King

     No business is immune to failure but being the CEO of a small business does present some challenges not found in managing a bigger company.  The obvious difference in these two hats is that running a small business requires one to wear many hats.  

     One thing often overlooked about running a small business is that the CEO has to at least oversee the sales, marketing, Pr, etc that might be delegated to others in a larger business and at the same time not get buried in these tasks and not monitor the grease that makes everything run and that is the cash flow.  If the funds are not there to advertise there are no new customers and with the piano service business that is especially important as there is a natural attrition in the customer base.  People die, the kids grow up, etc and the piano is not played so that customer stops calling.  Most service businesses are that way.  Some businesses require raw materials and if you get behind on payments to suppliers life can become very difficult.  That is what I mean by cash is king.  

   One can also be working very hard and sending out adequate invoices but there can be excessive receivables out there and if the person doing much of the work gets bogged down on chasing customers to pay promptly the whole business can suffer.  

     It seems like my business needs to expand so that cash flow does not impact the business to the extent it has in the past.  Whether the business is big or small, however a CEO needs to be driven by the truth that as far as cash flow is concerned the buck stops here.