We know things have gotten tight. I’m seeing reports that frankly didn’t come across my desk in the go go fun fun times. Like which customers are late on their bills. Revenue > Net Revenue > Payable reports. Everyone’s counting their pennies and rightfully so. Cash flow rules everything around…us.

Who are your best customers? The ones that pay! If you’re doing forecasting for Q4 or even 2023 it’s essential to have a dependability score of payment likelihood baked into any revenue assumptions. You can sort by history of late payments, payment terms, or funding amount / stage if your customers are startups.

There’s an analogy here to your people too.

While there was a tremendous increase in exuberance, record exits, and a decade of informational technological advancement one thing there likely wasn’t a massive increase in is the amount of smart, capable, dependable people. We forget that!

If you are to successfully drag yourself through this fall you can use a “collection model” for your team in order to assure that you’re surrounded by a capable enough force to bridge you to the next boom times. Because ultimately dependability is an exercise in forecasting.

Who’s on your team? That’s your revenue report.

Who do you think can deliver for you? That’s your high value customer list to pay extra attention to and resource accordingly.

Who does deliver for you? There’s your on time payers. You better give them big projects, stretch goals, and take them to dinner (metaphorically) to let them know how valuable you think they are. They’re your best customers aren’t they? Better treat them accordingly.

A brief analogy for this week. Gotta go collect now!