Business 101: Be Liquid!

Waterbury Financial Strategies Inc CEO / Founder Rahim Thawer post this week “Business 101: Be Liquid!”

As the Global Marketplace experiences disruptiveness and turbulence, the entrepreneurs of tomorrow will have to revert back to the business basics and come up with new formulated models that will sustain their businesses. Over the years a number of business owners have taken the good times for granted and failed to develop a long term strategy for their business and did not incorporate the ‘bad economical times’ in their thinking.

One of the key concepts that need to be addressed very effectively in everyday dealings is that of being liquid. Majority of the banks are not lending and have restricted to only a certain arena, this creates a challenge for small business owners since they gamble on these financial institutions for products such as working capital loan, lines of credits to even short term loans. Most of these businesses are not liquid enough to sustain a long term financial turmoil and that is one of the reasons we are seeing a hike in the bankruptcy filings amongst the small businesses.

In order for us to come out strong out of this recession, we will need to restructure our business, and first and foremost, our mindset. We will need to address every line item on our financials from top to the bottom and conqueror it. These business owners have worked very hard to get to the point where they are today, perhaps even 3-4 generations worth of work. So, the key element is to be liquid and treat every expense or liability to the businesses as a self sustaining entity. Take your accounts receivables, if you simply shorten the number of days of outstanding, this will take care of the cash flow without much work. All the new terms need to be re-evaluated and perhaps even new guidelines and terms need to be prepared.

As Charles Darwin coined “survival of the fittest”. Well, this applies to the current economic cycle we are seeing on the global scale. Perhaps not so severe in other countries but we will need to not only survive but emerge with our head up high and capitalize and position our entities so that they are in a position of financial gains and not loss. As a businessman you have come a long way and I respect that and all the hard work you have put in, but don’t stand alone. You will need to bring in professionals who can assist you to overcome your short term challenges and to re-strategize and help you move forward with more ammunition. The current economic cycle we are in right now, cannot be looked at as times of bad economy, rather times of plenty of opportunities. This is the very time to be profitable and grow. So be pragmatic and prudent in your dealings and get ready to grow your business like never before!

My Thoughts: You are 99% there, what is another 1%!


Rahim Thawer /
CEO of Waterbury Financial Strategies Inc
http://www.waterburyfs.com