The cash flow question

They ask it during coffee before the monthly leadership meeting, like they're checking the weather: "How are we looking cash-wise?" Your CFO, your operations manager, your head of sales. Everyone who needs to plan their department budgets around your answer.

The spreadsheet version is clean: "We're solid through year-end with our current credit facilities." But you know the real math. You're solid through year-end if your current collections rate stays at 94%, if none of your three biggest clients exercise the contract reduction clauses they negotiated last renewal, if you don't need to increase inventory levels to handle the seasonal spike that may or may not materialize this year.

Here's what nobody tells you: the business owners who run into cash problems aren't the ones who can't do math. They're the ones who do the math but don't adjust their operations based on what the math reveals. They model conservative scenarios but execute optimistic ones.

You handle the cash flow question like you handle every other business owner paradox: you plan for multiple realities while executing decisively within one. You model the scenario where everything works, the scenario where collections slow by 15%, and the scenario where your biggest client renegotiates their contract terms next quarter.

Then you execute the base plan while preparing for the conservative one and keeping the stress scenario in your peripheral vision.

The specific skill that separates successful business owners from failed ones isn't predicting the future accurately. It's maintaining optionality while moving fast. You make decisions that keep three paths open while committing fully to the path that's working best right now.

When someone asks about cash flow, they're not asking for a number. They're asking if you're the kind of person who sees problems coming and adjusts before adjustment becomes crisis management.

Show them exactly how good you are at seeing around corners. Then get back to building around what you see.