 |
Rejig of the Poster of the MasterMind Mentors Club 24th March Webinar |
It is almost strange to say this, but many businesses do not fail because of money. They fail because of leadership. Specifically, they collapse due to the leader's hidden patterns.
That was one of the hardest truths that became clearer for
me as we discussed the conversation on cashflow and collapse at
the MasterMind Mentors Club. We started by talking about
financial pressure, delayed payments, debtors, suppliers, payroll, and all the
outward signs entrepreneurs like to complain about. But beneath all that noise
lay a more uncomfortable truth: cash flow problems are often not primarily
financial. They are behavioral. They are psychological. They are deeply
personal.
And if we are honest, that's why they are so hard to
resolve. Because it’s easier to blame the market than face yourself, it’s
easier to say clients are delaying payment than to admit you're terrified of
difficult conversations. It’s easier to talk about the economy than admit that
your ego has been feeding on the illusion of success while the inside of the
house quietly catches fire.
That is the conversation we do not like to have. So let us
have it.
The beautiful beginning that slowly turns on you
Most businesses don't start in confusion; they begin with
conviction. You launch with a bold vision, genuinely believing you're here to
change something, build something, contribute something. It's not just about
making money; it's about doing work that matters. You're aiming to build
something that will outlast your moods, fears, or current size. There's dignity
in that starting point.
You're also good at something—really good, in fact. Maybe
you're exceptional at sales, able to walk into a room, read the situation,
build rapport, and close deals. Perhaps your technical skills are so sharp that
clients keep referring you because your delivery is outstanding. Or maybe your
service is so strong that people are willing to wait to work with you.
So, the business begins to move. Deals start to come in.
Then, bigger deals follow. Because numbers on paper can flatter a man the way
mirrors flatter a fool, you start to feel that you are doing well. The invoices
are large. The pipeline is active. The clients are recognizable. There is
movement. There is noise. There is a brand. There is applause. On the outside,
it looks like the machine is working.
But then reality, that blunt and unsentimental teacher,
clears its throat. You close the deal, but there is a delay between closing and
receiving payment. You deliver the work, but payment takes 65 days. Your
suppliers want cash now. Your employees want salaries now. Your vision
statement does not move KRA. Your mission does not inspire rent. And suddenly
you discover one of the most painful contradictions in business: you can be
profitable on paper but cash-strapped in real life.
That realization humbles you quickly. Or at least it should.
How survival quietly replaces vision
This is where something subtle and dangerous begins. At
first, you tell yourself it is temporary. You say, “Once this next payment
comes in, we’ll stabilize.” Then the payment arrives, and you use it to patch
the many holes you’ve been hiding with charm, hope, and borrowed time. By the
time the money is gone paying arrears, suppliers, loans, panic, ego purchases,
and whatever else accumulated during the drought, you are back where you
started. Except now, you’re more tired, more irritable, and more ashamed.
Then you say it again. "One more big deal.” That
becomes your theology. One more big client. One more project. One more invoice.
One more miracle. And honestly, some entrepreneurs are not just running
businesses anymore. They are running prayer requests with logos.
You start spending more time in the office than at home.
Your wife complains that you're not there. Your children only see you properly
when you drag them to the office on a Sunday because now family bonding seems
to happen under fluorescent lights and pending invoices. You sleep less, feel
tense, and are short with your employees. Your entire nervous system is now
built around pressure.
Your mantra becomes: work hard or go home. But
you rarely go home, and when you do, you're there physically but not mentally.
Your body arrives before your soul does. The business that was once a vehicle
for vision starts to turn into a machine for survival. And the tragedy is that
from the outside, people still clap for you.
They see the office address, the cars in the parking lot,
the qualified staff, the clients, and the façade. What they don't see is that
you and your accountant have become co-authors of a very sophisticated fiction.
The part where your saboteurs take the wheel
This is where your internal voices, old patterns, and
survival adaptations—saboteurs—begin to run the business.
These saboteurs often start by trying to protect us. That's
the trick. They don't come as destroyers. They arrive disguised as
self-preservation. But in business, especially under pressure, they turn into
self-sabotage. They warp decision-making, relationships, money habits, risk
tolerance, and leadership stance. And once they are running the show, the
business starts reflecting the chaos inside the founder.
The Judge
The Judge is merciless. It whispers, “It is not good enough.
You should be doing better.” You start over-criticizing yourself, your team,
and your results. Shame fills the room. You avoid numbers because they now seem
like evidence against you. Decisions become emotionally driven, reactive, and
unpredictable. Cost-cutting delays occur because every decision now comes with
a side of personal blame. Team morale declines. Vision shrinks. What was once
strategic turns into a matter of survival.
The Pleaser
The Pleaser is expensive. It promotes, “Just say yes.
Keep them happy.” So, you underprice. You extend unnecessary credit. You
accept poor payment terms. You avoid enforcing invoices to avoid upsetting the
client. You would rather be liked than be financially solid. As a result,
revenue might appear high, but cash flow is tight. Your suppliers and employees
bear the worst of your avoidance, while the clients see your best smile. That
is not strategy. That is fear hiding as customer service.
The Avoider
An avoider says, “I’ll deal with it later.” This is
the saboteur of ghosting calls, delaying tough conversations, postponing
follow-up, and refusing to face the facts. You avoid supplier talks. You avoid
difficult clients. You avoid debtors. You avoid your own anxiety. But avoidance
does not solve problems; it only makes them worse in private until they
embarrass you in public. Problems grow while you procrastinate.
The Hyper-Achiever
This one is especially dangerous because society often
rewards it. It says, “I am what I produce.” So, you chase growth at all
costs—more projects, bigger clients, more visibility, more validation. Your
name appears in newspapers. Important people call you. You feel seen. But
beneath the surface, systems are buckling, reserves are running low, and cash
flow is breaking down. This is how people grow into collapse. Revenue
increases, applause grows louder, pressure mounts, and stability disappears.
The Controller
The Controller says, “If I don’t handle it, it won’t
work.” So, you hold everything tightly. There’s no proper ERP system. No
real reporting system. No transparency. No delegation. You keep secrets because
you don’t want people to know how precarious things are. The business becomes
dependent on your memory, your hustle, your moods, your access and your
presence. That’s not control. That’s fragility pretending to be strength.
The Perfectionist
This one postpones progress while claiming to protect
quality. “It has to be perfect.” So, invoicing gets delayed. Decisions
take longer. Execution slows down. You overanalyze and miss payment windows.
Cash flow suffers because perfection is rarely rewarded with extra pay, but
delays always cost.
The Restless One
This saboteur can't sit still. “This isn’t enough.”
So, you keep chasing new ideas, opportunities, and directions. You abandon
stable revenue streams because they feel boring. Cash becomes scattered across
too many experiments. Focus disappears. Energy leaks everywhere.
The Hyper-Vigilant
This one lives in fear. “Something will go wrong.”
You start acting out of anxiety. Your decisions become cautious, reactive, and
limited. You stop innovating the way you used to. Fear makes you inflexible.
The Hyper-Rational
It says, “Feelings don’t matter. Numbers are all that
matter.” But relationships are where money often moves. When you ignore
trust, team dynamics, emotional intelligence, and human nuance, collections
suffer, negotiations weaken, and partnerships fray.
The Victim
And finally, the victim. “It’s not my fault.” The
economy. The market. The clients. The country. The taxes. Everyone is guilty
except you. But once you surrender ownership, you also give up your power to
correct course. And then instability becomes chronic.
The real lesson: the issue is not only cash, but it is
consciousness
This is why your central insight matters so much: Most businesses don’t collapse because of
the market. They collapse because of undisciplined thinking and avoided
decisions. Cashflow problems are not financial first—they are behavioral. Fix
the behavior, and the numbers will follow.
That is the heart of the article. Not that systems don't
matter. They do. Not that cash flow management isn't technical. It is. But
beneath every spreadsheet is a psychology. Beneath every delayed payment is a
conversation someone avoided. Beneath every cash crunch is often a chain of
habits, emotions, self-deceptions, and patterns that have gone unchallenged for
too long.
Your financial statements are not just numbers. They are
often your biography in spreadsheet form.
The mental shifts that rescue a founder
This is where the article must not only diagnose. It must
also instruct.
The first shift is from paper profit to cash reality.
Too many founders celebrate money they have not collected. But collected cash
and projected profit are not twins. Sometimes they aren't even related. Cash in
hand is the true measure. Everything else is just a story.
The second shift is from hope to acceptance. You stop
saying, “When they pay, we’ll be okay,” and start saying, “What if that money
never comes?” That question sobers you. It makes you negotiate with reality rather
than resort to desperation.
The third shift is from ego to humility. No more
ghosting suppliers. No more hiding behind the accountant like he's a riot
shield. You go directly to suppliers. You sit down. You speak honestly. You
lower your performance expectations. You build trust.
The fourth shift is from victimhood to ownership. You
stop using "Business in Kenya is hard" as your main strategy. Business
in Kenya may indeed be hard, but that sentence has never paid payroll. Instead,
you say, "My model is broken, and I will fix it."
The fifth shift moves from growth excitement to
discipline. Growth without cash isn't true growth. It's self-harm disguised
as progress.
The sixth shift moves from avoidance to confrontation.
Because what you avoid will eventually control you.
The habits that ‘must’ follow
And once these shifts occur internally, disciplined action
must follow. Otherwise, it becomes another inspiring article that founders nod
at and then ignore, like a gym membership in January.
You must establish daily cash discipline, not weekly, when
things go wrong. Daily. What came in yesterday? What went out? What's due
today? Not what was sold. Not who said they'll pay. What actually came in?
You must establish a cash-first system. Cash flow
projection, P&L, balance sheet. Update monthly at a minimum. Weekly, if
possible.
You must shorten your cash cycle. Deliver more quickly.
Invoice sooner. Follow up earlier. Speed is crucial for survival.
You must build a relentless habit of collecting. Follow up
before the due date. Tie sales commission to cash received, not just a closed
sale. Sales are not complete until money is in the bank.
You must adopt a supplier-first strategy. Suppliers aren’t
enemies; they are often your lifeline. Focus on building strong relationships, negotiating
realistic payment terms, and showing respect by honoring them.
You must practice discipline in unit economics. Every
transaction must cover costs and contribute to overhead. Credit is almost like
a loss unless properly planned.
You must cut cashflow killers. The ego office. The illusion
of status. The desperate borrowing. The temptation to give away equity to buy
time.
You need to build shock absorbers, a runway fund, a buffer,
and a reserve, because tough months aren't betrayal; they're part of the game.
You must diversify cash sources. Include quick-paying
services. Add smaller cash products. Long-term businesses require short-term
buffers.
And finally, you need to learn to walk away—fire bad
clients. Reject unfavorable payment terms. Not all revenue is worth it. Some
money comes wearing a suit but behaves like a curse.
The call no founder wants but every founder needs
So here is the uncomfortable invitation. Pause. Step away
from the performance. Step away from the stories. Step away from the identity
you have built around being the one who always finds a way.
Ask yourself:
Which saboteur is running my business right now?
Is it the Pleaser who keeps saying yes to bad deals?
Is it the Avoider who refuses to make the call?
Is it the Hyper-Achiever who keeps scaling without
systems?
Is it the Controller who cannot let people in?
Is it the Victim who keeps blaming everything except the
one person in the mirror?
Until you identify the saboteur, you'll keep addressing
symptoms and missing the disease. And once you see it, don't just admire the
diagnosis. Take action.
Tomorrow morning, before checking email, pitch decks, social
media, or seeking performative motivation—look at your cash. Not your revenue.
Not your pipeline. Not your projections. Your cash.
Start there. The truth isn't that your business is doomed.
The truth is that your business might be asking you to become a different man
or woman to lead it effectively. And that is the deeper work.
Not just about making money, but becoming the kind of person
who can hold onto it, manage it, multiply it, and not lose himself in the
process. That is the lesson. That is the work. And that is where collapse
quietly begins to mature.
If this message stirred something in you, don’t let it fade.
1. Join my LinkedIn
Habit Coaching Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/habits-with-coach-edwin-7399067976420966400/
2. Join my Habit
WhatsApp Community at https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbAmKkOBvvsWOuBx5g3L
3. Ready to level up your
life? Join my 12-Month Personal Transformation Program and
let’s intentionally build the next version of you — with clarity, discipline,
and momentum. Call or WhatsApp me directly at +254 724 328059, and
let’s begin.
Comments
Post a Comment