Cash Rules Everything Around Me

⏰ Today in 5 minutes or less:

• Companies need cash for everything – from day-to-day operations to funding new projects. Without it, even profitable companies can struggle to grow. 

• Helping clients see where their cash is tied up – and how to free it – creates instant value. 

• Prioritize trust and your referral wheel will turn faster, with less effort. 

Finance Leader Nicki Monson on Why Cash (Still) Rules Everything

In the immortal words of Wu-Tang Clan, “Cash rules everything around me.” 

They weren’t talking about corporate finance, but Nicki Monson agrees the words are still true. 

Strangely, she’s not a Wu-Tang fan, but I’ll forgive her for that. 

Nicki was the VP of finance at Stenograph, a dynamic SaaS startup. And before that, she held leadership positions for over 20 years at bp, a global energy powerhouse. 

Now, Nicki is an esteemed member of the Keenan Reid consulting team – helping clients with their cash flow problems and leading transformations. 

In this interview, Nicki breaks down what cash flow really is, why companies lose track of it, and how to get it back under control. 

What is working capital and why does it matter? 

Nicki: Think of working capital as the cash that’s tied up in how your business runs day to day. There are three important pieces here: 

• Accounts receivable, or AR. That’s money owed to you for sales already made. The longer your payment terms, the longer your cash is tied up in someone else’s hands. 

• Inventory. Your cash is tied up in inventory until the moment it’s sold. The faster inventory moves, the faster you free up cash. 

• Accounts payable, or what you owe to your suppliers. This is the one place you want to delay cash going out the door – without damaging your relationships. If you can extend terms with suppliers, you can hold on to cash longer. 

Managing these three levers keeps the cash flowing. The goal is to collect from customers faster and pay suppliers slower within reason. 

There’s also the cost of capital, which is how expensive it is to have your cash tied up.

Think of it like this: If a customer owes you $500,000 and you have 30 days to wait, what would it cost to borrow that money for 30 days? 

The longer your cash is tied up, the more expensive it becomes. 

That’s why cash flow isn’t just a finance problem – it’s the heartbeat of a business. It funds everything: operations, growth, people, marketing, and investment. 

Companies need cash for all of it – to cover day-to-day operations, invest in new projects or equipment, hire talent, and scale. Without accessible cash, even profitable companies can struggle to grow. 

What happens when companies stop paying attention to cash? 

Nicki: It happens all the time, but most of them don’t understand why. 

Most organizations focus on top-line revenue and bottom-line profit. These are the numbers that everyone knows – like revenue, margin, and EBITDA. But cashflow metrics like DSO, DIO, and DPO rarely get tracked. 

Without them, you don’t know how efficiently you’re turning work into cash. That’s when leaders suddenly realize their money is tied up – and now, it’s an emergency. 

When I worked with BP, cash was a daily focus. After a huge crisis, cash forecasting and working capital management became a crucial part of every business. Everyone knew how their actions affected cash. 

That’s rare because lots of companies – especially in tech or service business, cash doesn’t get the same attention. People look at the P&L, not the balance sheet. They don’t realize that late payments or excess inventory are strangling their ability to fund operations and growth. 

When you take your eye off cash, you end up reacting instead of managing. You chase for payments instead of planning them. 

When you work with a client who has a cash problem, what’s the fix? 

Nicki: It starts with accountability. You need to make sure every part of the organization knows their role in managing cash. Finance can’t fix it alone – sales, customer service, and operations all play roles. 

The first step is visibility, because everyone needs to see the same data. We build dashboards that show who owe what and how overdue it is. Once people can see the problem, they start managing it. 

Next is setting solid credit policies. If a customer doesn’t pay on time, new orders pause until they do. It’s not about being hard, but about being consistent. 

Then, you tie accountability to it. Sales teams don’t just own bookings; they own collections. Some companies even pay bonuses only after invoices are paid – and that works. 

None of this is complicated. It’s mostly process and communication. 

With one client, we organized how sales and finance worked together, added transparency, and started measuring success on both revenue and cash. Within six months, they freed up to $12 million in working capital. 

The biggest shift wasn’t financial; it was cultural. Once cash became part of how everyone measured success, results took care of themselves. 

What We Can Learn from Nicki Monson: 

1. Make cash visible. Sales and profit usually get the spotlight, while cash flow is in the background. Helping clients see where their cash is tied up – and how to free it – creates instant value. 

2. Explain cash in plain English. Skip the finance jargon. The simplest way to talk about cash is to describe what’s owed to you, what’s sitting on the shelves, and what you owe others. When everyone understands it, they can start fixing it.  

3. Share the responsibility. Cash isn’t just a finance problem. When sales, finance, and operations all have visibility and shared goals, cash moves faster and the whole business runs smoother. 

Trust is the Foundation Behind Every Referral and Partnership

Consulting practices rely on referral flywheels – do great work, earn trust, and new opportunities come back around. 

And partnerships amplify those efforts by expanding the reach. Instead of nudging the flywheel one client at a time, they provide multiple pushes. 

The best part is that they share commercial motivations – they win if you win. 

Beneath both referrals and partnerships is the real foundation that every consultant should focus on – trust. 

(I explained more about partnerships as the accelerant to your referral flywheel. Read the full article here.)

Backstory: Our Partnership with Terry Chevalier 

Here’s a little behind-the-scenes on how we do it Keenan Reid, my consulting practice. 

Terry Chevalier is a consultant in our network who built an interesting business with rural telecom broadband providers.

From being part of our network, Terry turned into a great partner to us when he saw a need in one of his clients for a voice of the customer study. 

It’s not an area where he has deep expertise, so he came to us as a partner looking for someone who can help him serve his client with great value.

This interaction pushed me to think about partnerships: 

How can I increase the surface area of what we can do and the clients we can help? 

The answer is trust through other people. 

Trust is the Infrastructure 

Trust is the invisible architecture of a consulting business. 

It’s the bridge that carries referrals, the foundation partnerships are built on, and the scaffolding that makes client relationships last. 

Without strong trust, the referral flywheel slows. But with it, the wheel accelerates almost effortlessly. 

The good thing about trust as the infrastructure is that it gets stronger as you add more to it. 

Every successful project isn’t just revenue, but a new beam added to the structure. 

Every introduction handled well reinforces the framework. 

Each act of reliability – showing up, following through, delivering value – is another load-bearing wall. 

Over time, all the efforts compounds. Each layer supports the next, making growth easier. 

Balancing Earning and Spending Trust 

Like everything else, the foundation needs balance. 

Build too little and the system collapses. Overbuild without using it, and you waste potential. 

The key is proportionality between: 

• Earning Trust: All the acts that strengthen the frame, like delivering on promises, communicating clearly, and investing in helping others. 

• Spending Trust: The asks that lean on the structure you built. Propose more collaborations, ask for introductions, and seek visibility in their network. 

If you lean too hard before the frame is ready (i.e., you haven’t built enough trust yet), then you risk collapsing the structure – or damaging the relationship. 

But with enough trust in place, it can carry immense weight while seeming effortless – your partners feel it’s natural to recommend you, even without you constantly asking them to do it.

Strategically Building and Investing in Trust 

Not all efforts to build and strengthen relationships are equal. 

Consultants who thrive focus on three things:  

• Co-creating with partners. Trust grows when building something together. Joint efforts – like hosting a webinar, authoring an article, or offering packaged services – signal alignment and credibility. More than being friends in the field, you and your partner trust each other enough to put both names in the same deliverable. 

• Borrowing their reputation. The fastest way to earn trust is to align with people who already have it. This is where your partners help out most. By associating with them, you tap into their credibility and open doors you can’t reach alone. ⚠️ Caution: If a partner allows you to borrow their reputation, make sure to treat it as the ultimate gift. 

• Protecting their relationships. Trust is hard-earned but quickly lost. All it takes is one missed deadline, a sloppy deliverable, or an unacknowledged mistake to crush years of trust building. Protecting the relationship doesn’t mean being perfect but taking responsibility and making things right when they go wrong. 

Build on Trust, in the Right Way 

Referrals are the core of consulting growth and partnerships are the accelerant. 

Both rest on the architecture of trust. 

When you treat trust as an infrastructure – something to design, reinforce, and protect – your referral wheel will turn faster, with less effort. 

Take a look at your professional relationships. 

Do you have the solid connection to ask for an intro or an additional project?

Remember, the path to success is paved with continuous learning and embracing fresh perspectives.

Let's stay connected, share ideas, and elevate your consulting business.

Stay curious, friends.

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