Money matters: How to balance the pipeline and bottom line

RCS Influencer Will Lorenz says honesty is the best policy when it comes to cash flow. 

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Will Lorenz of General Coatings. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

Lauren White: Hello everyone, I'm Lauren White here with RoofersCoffeShop.com and we have our influencers here to answer our July question for RoofersCoffeeShop, and I'm here with Will Lorenz of General Coatings. Will, thank you for being here.

Will Lorenz: Lauren, my pleasure. Thank you again for the opportunity to talk to people about roofing systems and give answers there.

Lauren White: Yeah, absolutely. So our topic for July is backlog versus cash flow reality. So what do you have to share with people out there?

Will Lorenz: Well, I look at those two things as as completely different. backlog is is really about what direction you're are prepared to do in the next several months. So it's about your pipeline and and customers that you need to get oriented in jobs to to do. And so it's very important to keep that as as long as you can out there and so that you can predict where you need to go.

The question, of course, with your financial resources really comes down to more of your day-to-day management and and cash is king here. So you don't want to run things down where you can't pay your bills to your supplier or you can't pay your your cost to taxes and to your fine labor force that you have.

And so, I always say manage something that your your company can do. If you take on additional work and you don't have the resources, then maybe you need to farm out that job, subcontract it to somebody, or seek additional resources with regard to financing so you can do that. Many times if you talk to a supplier like ourselves. There's a possibility we can work with you on a on a large project with some payment process so that you can get that work and be successful. We'd rather have that conversation up front with people rather than get in a in a bit of a bind. So the solution really is dialogue both with your with your suppliers and then also with your customers here as to what their expectations are.

Lauren White: Yeah, absolutely. Very important stuff to to consider. Amazing. Well, well, thank you so much for your insights as always, and we can't wait for August.

Will Lorenz: You betcha, thank you.