Every heavy-duty shop owner I work with wants growth, predictable cash flow, stable margins, and the confidence that their business has exit or legacy potential.
But most shops suffer from chronic cash instability because they don’t have a clear picture of what's actually happening inside their numbers. Which means they also don’t have a clear strategy (more on this in a later post).
Cash flow chaos isn’t a mystery. It’s a symptom of a lack of leadership discipline and operational follow through. Trust me, I had to learn this the hard way. So don’t beat yourself up about it - JUST FIX IT.
Common Issues
These are problems I see with almost every shop I work with - you already know this!
Cash flow swings (flush → broke cycles).
Aging A/R balances (>$300k).
Uncollected invoices ($20k–$100k+ annually).
Delayed invoicing (billing) practices
Inaccurate sales tax
Poor communication about payment terms or job cost overruns.
No deposits or COD enforcement.
Relying on credit cards or factoring to float parts purchases and jobs.
No budgeting or daily/weekly cash reporting.
These aren’t random symptoms — they all point to the same root cause: no clear operating procedures for managing the dozens of important tasks that feed the cash flow machine.
Implication
All of the above issues create:
Operating stress
Overpaying for parts and supplies
Rising debt
Slimmer margins
Burnout
Constant firefighting instead of proactive leadership
You’re never fully in control. You’re reacting to yesterday’s problems instead of proactively steering the ship.
Where to Start
First rule: don’t panic. Zoom out.
You don’t fix cash flow by jumping into tactics. You fix it by getting a clear, honest picture of how your business is actually performing and where the biggest problems are.
Start simple. Open a Google Sheet or grab a notepad and pull four numbers:
Revenue
Parts Cost
Labor Cost
Overhead
From there, calculate:
Gross Margin
Net Profit
Each cost as a % of revenue
Now compare your numbers to leading industry benchmarks.
This one step alone tells you where your biggest leak is:
Are parts costs too high?
Is your parts markup too low?
Are you short-changing yourself on invoices?
Do you have an overhead problem?
Once you identify the problem area, then you dig deeper:
Review business expenses
Audit SKUs
Examine invoices
Verify job costing
Check technician efficiency
Review A/R and payment terms
This is how you rebuild cash flow from the ground up — not by guessing, but by diagnosing.
What to Aim For
If you want predictable, stable cash flow, build toward:
Simple SOPs: operating procedures your team follows for quoting, billing, collecting deposits, ordering parts, and communicating with customers.
Clean inputs: accurate job costing, clean invoices, clear payment terms, and a system your team follows every time.
Clean outputs: always up-to-date, decision-useful financials that tell you exactly what’s happening in your business.
Clean inputs → clean outputs → clear strategy.
That’s how you build a shop that prints cash.
Go build it,
Mark
P.S. If you have questions, comments, or feedback, reply to this email.