Scaling Up Business with Bill Gallagher 123: Alan Miltz on Understanding Those Pesky Cash Flow Numbers
What story does your cash flow tell? Is it a happy ending? Does it end in romance? Or is it a horror story? Your balance, your cash flow, tell a story. The good news is there are four levers you can pull to change it!
Alan Miltz is a numbers guy from South Africa but currently lives in Australia. He is the co-founder of Cash Flow Story, the co-author of Scaling Up, and he’s an International Speaker. Alan is on today’s show to shed some light on the numbers and help Founders and Entrepreneurs get a better understanding of what it all means.
Unless you come from a financial background, looking at the numbers in your business can be overwhelming and hard to comprehend in a ‘big picture’ perspective. As Alan likes to say, you might be speaking Spanish, but the bank is speaking Portuguese and these language barriers can be disastrous for a new startup.
Alan left South Africa in 1987 while the country was in the midst of apartheid. Through his accounting degree, Alan was able to travel all over the world, where he finally landed in Australia at 26 years old. At the time, he was an advisor and realized everyone he spoken to (accountants, business owners, etc) all spoke “numbers” very differently. They all interpreted it… differently!
So, Alan and a few other South African expats decided to create a technology platform that could be used by anyone. The belief was that banks should be able to communicate in credit in one simple language and have businesses understand it. Through that adventure, Alan and his co-founders were able to sell it about six years ago and start Cash Flow Story shortly after.
Cash Flow Story is aimed at CEOs, Coaches, and Accountants to tell a story in a way where everyone will understand the numbers. The biggest danger in a business is what you don’t know about your own business! The goal is simple, to help people eliminate their financial blind spots.
Alan believes revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, and cash is king. When CEOs look at their financials and see their profit margin, they think they understand the business. Alan says you don’t! Profit numbers are just an opinion! You can manipulate your profit. Cash, however, is a fact.
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