Cash Flow and the 5Cs of Credit - Overview

Contractors need strong financial partners, including banking, surety, and insurance to grow sustainably.

D. Brown Management Profile Picture
Share

They are putting their capital at risk, making a calculated bet on the business generating consistent financial returns at the lowest risk possible.  

Cash Flow: 5C's of Credit. Character, Capital. Capacity, Collateral, and Conditions.

Whether you are an equity owner in a contracting business, plan to be or are choosing to invest your professional “career equity” into the business, you should look at the same factors an outside financial partner does. This will truly align everyone’s interests and make the business run more successfully.  

Greg Martin does a great job of describing the 5 C’s of Credit in a series of articles below.  

Effectively managing cash flow is about balancing what you can do internally while building and maintaining strong external financial partner relationships.  

  • What are your internal capital management policies? 
  • Are they in alignment with your outside financial partners?  
  • How does this look over the next 5 years or during succession if that is on the horizon for you?

Cash Flow
Great cash flow is a key driver of valuation and successful successions. Running out of cash is is the #1 reason contractors fail. Improving cash flow improves your Return on Equity. Protect yourself and never let cash flow be the limitation to your profitable growth....

Cash Flow
Great cash flow is a key driver of valuation and successful successions. Running out of cash is is the #1 reason contractors fail. Improving cash flow improves your Return on Equity. Protect yourself and never let cash flow be the limitation to your profitable growth....

Sharpening Your Thinking Through Writing
Contractors can learn many lessons from the leadership principles of Hyman G. Rickover who is considered the “Father of the Nuclear Navy” including safety, engineering, talent, management, schedules and quality control.
Black Box Thinking
Failures, mistakes and problems are part of every contractor’s business. What separates out high-performing teams is a relentless focus on learning from these problems then creating systems and training to mitigate them in the future.
Impacted Productivity - Disrupted Workflow (No Schedule "Flow")
One of the biggest impacts to productivity in construction is when tasks cannot be completed as planned. When this happens frequently, it starts to impact every aspect of the contractor’s scoreboard in a negative way starting with customer satisfaction.