Clayton Coke’s New Way to Protect Your Cash Flow

Speaker A: That's where the difficulty is. When I first started, I did a hybrid of commercial debts and personal debts. And the personal debts I started to pull away from because it kind of gave me ptsd. And I'll tell you the reason why. Not because there is any violence involved, because when I worked in local authority, a lot of those debts were about rent arrears and leasehold arrears and so on and so forth.

Speaker B: Welcome back to the new F Word

Speaker C: podcast where we talk finances in business. I'm your host, Colin Hewitt, founder and CEO at Float.

Speaker B: We're so glad to be back for season three.

Speaker C: And this season we've got some great guests that are going to bring a ton of value. We'll be diving further into how fractional CFOs add value, what financial clarity actually looks like, and what systems and apps are leading the way. New guests, sharper conversations.

Speaker A: Let's get into it.

Speaker B: Hey, Clayton, it's really good to have

Speaker C: you on the show.

Speaker B: How are you doing?

Speaker A: I'm doing very well, and yourself?

Speaker B: I'm doing great. And I'm, um, really excited to get into a conversation today. I feel like, you know, we've got a lot to talk about in terms of what you do, so why don't you give us a bit of a brief overview into your world of debt recovery and all of that.

Speaker A: The secret, shady world of debt recovery. I think I really should start the beginning. A lot of people will probably be looking and thinking, he doesn't look like a debt recovery guy. He's way too slim. He's not as big as the other debt recovery guys that we expect to see. So my background wasn't always in that. I started off as a lawyer and I worked in private practice, as in, uh, private firms as solicitors. Then I worked in local government, central government, and then I went in house. And in house law is a bit of a hybrid between both, because obviously you're usually working for a firm or a bigger firm, but at the same time, it's almost as if you're a private law firm within that firm. So if somebody had, for example, had KPMG or Price WaterhouseCoopers, they have their own in house legal department usually, or someone that's affiliated to them. So I spent a few years doing that and then after a while I kind of got a bit disillusioned with it all. I felt like, to a certain extent, it wasn't really for me. So I decided that I would try and get out of it. And it was a bit like in that scene in that in the Godfather 3 where he says, every time I try to get away, I pull away. They always draw me back in. So I kept on being offered legal, uh, jobs. So I couldn't really, really get out of it in the end. But while I was working in local authority, I bumped into a lot of people who had come from South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. And a lot of those people were working as temporary people. They were working on short term contracts. And I then thought to myself, maybe I could do what I'm doing as a short term contract lawyer. I think at that time they called it locum lawyers. So I decided I'd give it, uh, a go. And I did a couple of things before that. And then one day I got a call telling me, would I like to go and work in a place called Hatfield? I am a London guy, so anything past watford or the M25 is like, that's the country as far as I'm concerned. And I said, okay, fair enough. And the role was specifically debt recovery. Now I'd done bits and pieces of it, and if you work in house for a law firm, you're always going to be charged with recovering some kind of debt or whatever. So I thought, let me give it a go. And it was a health care company and they had this massive load of debt and effectively nobody was collecting it, nobody was dealing with it, and it was getting higher and higher. So they said, well, we've got foot filing cabinets full of debt. You say that you can do it, so let's recover it. So we'll see how you get on, um, in three months. So I waded my way through that and nearly 18 months, two years later, they said, well, you've cleared the debt now you've done yourself out of a job. So in that time I'd realized, hold on, I can make a business out of this. And that's when I fully then started to engage as a business person. But when I first started to get involved in debt recovery, and this was 2002, 2003, the economic situation wasn't like it is now. And so the concept of debt recovery really for small businesses wasn't a big thing. So we, uh, hadn't had Covid, we didn't have Brexit, and the Internet was really just still taking shape. So most people you were meeting, you were meeting them at networking events, chamber of commerce, et cetera. And as soon as you said that you were involved in debt recovery, people would run and hide, uh, which is slightly disconcerting. For a business owner. But that's how my business then got started. And I effectively tried to build a business around debt recovery and late payments and, uh, tried to talk to as many people as I could meet and basically shared what I knew and tried to gain their confidence.

Speaker B: So I'd love to know what was involved in that. Uh, like for you, when you're looking at that company that you started out in, is it really just a case of systematically picking up the phone, having conversations, or working on what people can afford to pay? You know, how does it, how does, how do you approach something like that typically? Is there a, is there a procedure or have you got a, uh, a sort of specific workflow or secret sauce? Or do you send people around? And how does the process work?

Speaker A: Now that's where the difficulty is. When I first started, I did a hybrid of commercial debts and personal debts. And the personal debts I started to pull away from because it kind of gave me ptsd. And I'll tell you the reason why. Not because there is any violence involved, because when I worked in local authority, a lot of those debts were about rent arrears and leasehold arrears and so on and so forth. And I don't know if you've ever been to a court for anything. You're a very lucky man and that you managed to avoid that. But obviously I was going to court literally on a weekly basis. When you work for a local council or a local authority, quite a number of people are in arrears, meaning that they haven't paid their rent regularly or they've missed paying, or they've just stopped paying altogether. And the council then says, please, can you pay? Or we'd like our money back, please. Oh, we'd like our property back, please, but we would prefer the money. So you got to see people at their lowest ebb at people who were, uh, literally either maybe unemployed or they fell between two stools of not necessarily being able to earn enough to work, but not necessarily claim enough benefits to actually get housing benefit or something like that. And I always felt the whole thing was kind of distressing. It annoyed me and I felt that there was a lot more that could be done and there are lots more that could have been thought out. So I didn't really want to do any personal related business, uh, related debts because that wasn't for me. So I concentrated on commercial. Now, having a legal background really was very much a lifesaver. And you ask about secret sources and so on and so forth. I always work on the Principle that if my client has told me the truth, that I can assess a case in 15 minutes as to whether it's a runner or not. And I suppose I would ask certain questions that would basically allow me to work out whether or not we're just chasing the wind or whether or not this is something that there is going to be a recovery at the end of it. Because a lot of people don't necessarily understand that it's not just the idea of I'm going to chase somebody for money. The problem is, is that, is there something to recover? Is there a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? And there was a recent case, and it wasn't necessarily debt recovery related, where a chap decided that he was going to sue a newspaper. I think it was the Guardian. And he lost. And effectively he has to pay between 3 million and 6 million pounds in legal costs. So whoever advised him, I don't know what advice they gave him, and they should have really said to him, your costs are escalating out of control. So the secret source is, is to understand what do you want to achieve at the end of this? What do you hope to get? Do you want to recover all of your money? Do you just want to recover your costs, or do you just want to recover enough so that you're in a scenario that you can basically say to your insurers, I've, uh, done the best that I possibly can. So that's the secret sauce, if you like. It's having the knowledge of the parties that are concerned and what the general outcome of the case needs to be.

Speaker B: And is that something you can tell us? Is that like a secret, uh, or is it something that you're open with and you talk about? How do you communicate that?

Speaker A: It's common sense. The problem is, for example, the chap, in relation to the 3 million, 6 million pounds costs, he was driven by his ego, he was driven by his emotions. The problem is that when you spend your time building a business, attracting the business and then basically then having to collect the money afterwards, you've built a relationship with your client so effectively you've become their friend. And it's like the same relationship parents have with children. You want to be close to your children, you want to support your children, but you then have to discipline your children when it goes wrong. And somebody said this about Bruce Springsteen, and I, uh, think it was Miami, Steve Van Zant, his guitarist, said, springsteen knows when to be the boss, but he knows when to be your friend. And that's the Balance. Too many people get involved in business and don't understand that there is a clear delineation between, uh, our friendship allows us to create a business relationship, but payment needs to be made. And I think that is really the secret saucer you want. It's common sense. The way that men and women approach debt is very interesting. Women are much more assertive in saying, this man owes me money or this person owes me money. Whereas men tend to be like, oh, we're friends, we're buddies, we go golf together, I drink with him, he invited me to his stag night. And, uh, use that as a cover for not necessarily pursuing debt. And you'll also find that what men do as well is that they'll make excuses for other men in order to not be seen as if they're short of money or they're desperate.

Speaker B: Sometimes there's an element of, um, bringing in a third party can sort of formalize the proceedings and makes people realize, okay, this is maybe serious, like this person is. Has now it's no longer a friendship. It's actually something that needs to get resolved.

Speaker A: Yeah. And that's where the escalation comes in.

Speaker B: Yeah. You talk about in some of your writings, you talk about ethical debt recovery. Tell us about that. What's the ethical part?

Speaker A: Ethical debt recovery is a very difficult concept for most people to understand because ethical and debt recovery seem to be so poles apart. And effectively, it's just a way of treating people. Well, it's not just assuming. I never assume that my client is 100% right. There've been many cases I've had where a client has told me two thirds of the story, and I've gone to a debtor or a person who owes money, and I've said to them, well, this is how I've been told the story. What's your point of view? I've always worked on the principle that not everything that somebody tells you is the truth. They're just telling you their version. And what I try to establish is diversion from the person who owes the money. Why are they in the position that they're in? Because all of it comes down to saving face. The person that owes money doesn't want to be seen as unable to pay, and the person that is owed the money doesn't want to be seen as desperate in order to chase it. So the ethics comes in. In understanding that basically you are not necessarily always right just because you have a client that is earned money. Your job is to establish the truth whichever way it goes. And sometimes you can have a call with a debtor and that can lead you to a situation where you think, my client's been lying to me. And are you brave enough as a person who's instructed to recover this debt, to go back to your client and say, well, your debtor is saying something completely different. Please explain your position. And I've turned down a few cases because I just didn't feel right about it. If your motives are negative, if your motives are vexatious, if your motives are insincere, that's, um, not something that I can be aligned with. It's not just about the money.

Speaker B: So when it comes to debt, there's some debts that are just needing to be chased and somebody's delaying it from a cash flow point of view. And then there'll be more debts that are, I presume, are people withholding them because they're disputing them and maybe never. And then there's people who maybe never intend to pay. Or typically, is that how you bucket divide those into those buckets and go sort of go after the. You split things up into what we can, what we're not sure about, you know, I think we can get back and then work out, is the juice worth the squeeze in terms of. And are people maybe just sometimes just hoping that people will just give up and go away and they're not going to bother chasing?

Speaker A: The simple answer is there are three buckets. Can't pay, won't pay, never going to pay in a month of Sundays. Those are your three strands of people. And you have to work out amongst those three strands of people which of those people are, as you said, you're going to chase and whether the juice is going to be worth the squeeze. I think people present themselves very early on. There are certain people who you literally do have to chase to the ends of the earth. And there are certain people who, for the cost of a phone call or a letter or a combination thereof, will respond to you because they may have forgotten. And that's something that we never talk about. We talk about people that actually forget that they need to pay. We assume that people are just dodging us. But people move, people go away, people go on holiday. So I always work on the principle that the debtor is innocent until proven guilty. When I find that you are a dodgy person is usually when, after repeated attempts at contact, you become very illicit.

Speaker B: I think, sort of moving into. Obviously people don't want to get into debt in the first place. What about that prevention side of things? How do you Help companies think about avoiding that, uh, those awkward situations, like when somebody's been through that. Do they go through a change where they're like, I'll never get into that position again, or I realized that we hadn't got proper contracts in place, or what are the things that you sort of take companies through typically?

Speaker A: Most businesses usually get stung by what I call the five o' clock call. There's been no business all week, the phone hasn't rung, no emails, no business at all. Somebody rings or emails at 5 o' clock and they've got a rush job, or you don't know this person, they don't know you. They found you on the Internet, they found you via Google, whatever, but they found you. And you're desperate for the business. You don't credit check them, you don't do any prior investigation, you just see they want £10,000 worth of goods or services and you've had a very, very lean month that month and you decide to help them out. Now that's usually the start of your problems. Because I always say that one of the things about debt prevention is doing business with people that you don't know is an instant, instant road to losing money. Because most people, when we do business, we have some idea. And once upon a time when people did business, it was easy. What you did really was you met somebody via, uh, an intermediary. You met somebody at a chamber of commerce, you met somebody at a networking meeting and you built up some kind of relationship. They saw you, you saw them and they knew what you did, you knew what they did, you knew where they were based, you knew they had a telephone number and so on and so forth. Most debt is incurred by people being stung in such a way that the person who stung them just disappears into the night. So you will tend to find that there are some businesses, what they'll do is they'll order stationery, they'll order furniture, they'll order all these different things from companies. And companies don't credit check, they don't do any background checks, they supply all of this stuff. And then in a matter of weeks, months, that company shut down and then they've moved on and that business is stuck with a number of debts. Now the problem is when you look at Companies House, you'll find that those companies haven't existed for a year. The directors keep changing, the address keeps changing. All of these things are signs. But because we want business and we're so desperate for business, what then happens is, is that we take on business that we shouldn't be taking on. And that's the first clue. Build relationships with people. Find out who they are on LinkedIn, find out who they are at Companies House before you then start throwing your money around or basically offering goods and services which you can't afford to lose.

Speaker B: It makes a lot of sense. I know in our, my previous business we had a couple of business companies that we started working with and they came through connections or contacts. We didn't think about it and then they went bust. And, you know, we were a design agency, so we've done a lot of work. And, um, it's heartbreaking in some ways whenever you, you're hoping for a check that will make a big difference to covering your costs at the end of the month and, and it's not gonna, you know, you're not going to get it.

Speaker A: Well, I remember many, many years ago. This has got to be 20 years ago. I had a lady coming onto the phone. She'd got a small business supplying hair care products and beauty products because she had been ripped off. I think at the time it was 10,000 Swiss francs. And she'd found me on Google as a local debt collector close to where the, the actual, um, fraud had taken place. So she'd sent all of this stuff because she believed that she had a bank transfer or bank draft, which turned out to be completely fake. Even now I can still hear her crying. The distress that it caused her was absolutely horrific. But the fact is, unfortunately, when it comes to business, a lot of people get stung in this particular way. Another reason why this happens as well, in terms of debt prevention is people leave things too long. I always say to people, if you haven't been paid in 90 days, there's a problem, instant problem. There's no way you can get around that. But if somebody hasn't paid you in 90 days, they are experiencing problems and you should, then the red flags should come out very, very quickly, instantly. And I think I always say to businesses, especially when they want to work with us or they want to instruct us, find out all the cases that you've got are over 90 days, because those are the ones that we're going to have problems. People come to me with cases that are years old, literally years old. Oh, this is two years old. And I say, you're lucky he's still alive. But it happens. And that's the nature of business. It's the nature of the work that we're involved in. Everybody now expects credit. And I think she was on LinkedIn and she said credit isn't given. But I think she didn't seem to understand that everybody expects you to give them credit. Everybody expects you to work on that principle. And if you don't give credit, you very likely get any, won't get any work that's coming in.

Speaker B: You reference things like looking up, uh, Companies House and trying to do credit checks. Is there software that you use that does that side of things? Like, because I'm just thinking for some businesses they might think I don't have, I'm taking on clients every day, I don't have time to credit check them all to look them up on Companies House, you know, is there some kind of software for scaling businesses that you use that or recommend that does that sort of thing?

Speaker A: We have a custom software. But what I always suggest to business is companies house.gov.uk is there for everybody to access. These tools are out there, they're very simple. And for example, uh, some people use Experian and Equifax for credit checking. And I think sometimes going to the source of these things are much more effective for you. Other people use different things and I don't knock them. But I think that to a certain extent companies house.gov.uk is a treasure, uh, trove of information.

Speaker B: What would you look for? Not just the sort of directors, when they last. What are you looking for?

Speaker A: You're looking for who are the directors? When was the company set up? What were their last accounts? Have they filed any accounts? All of these things are really important for people to understand because these will give you an idea of how far deep you are because it can be a scenario where you've expended or shelled out, uh, thousands of pounds or given thousands of pounds worth of credit or thousands of pounds worth of goods. And you're realizing that these people haven't filed accounts for two years and are about to be struck off. A friend of mine recently basically gave a builder who she knows some two thousand two and a half thousand pounds to start work on something. He's disappeared into the ether. She now goes back and looks into company's house and finds out that he hasn't filed any accounts. He hasn't filed a, uh, confirmation statement. All of these are clues as to the nature of the business. We have to remember, uh, in terms of credit, and I must caution people with this in terms of credit, a credit report only gives you a snapshot. It's not a movie, it's a frame of what happened at that particular time or what appears to be happening at that particular time, you need to set your own credit limits. When you go on to television, you'll notice that there's lots of gambling sites and they always say to you, don't set your or set your limits so that you are able to then, um, basically step away. Too many businesses give limits that are just ridiculous. You met somebody tomorrow, yesterday, and now to tomorrow, you're giving them £10,000 worth of credit. Now, if you do that with every single new business that you meet, instant bankruptcy. Because obviously you've done all of that and it doesn't make any sense. Only gamble what you can afford to lose. And if you can only Afford to lose 2000, 2000 is your credit limit until you've proved yourself. And that's especially important for CFOs and credit controllers because a lot of people need to set those limits and keep them there. And once you hit your limit, unless you do something in order to bring that down, no more credit.

Speaker B: I mean, obviously it sort of cuts both ways in some ways. Like talk about the woman who gave the builder the money, because the builder is asking for the payment up front. He didn't want to extend any credit to the clients. But sometimes it's good to ask. You know, we used to ask our clients for a percentage upfront before we started doing any work on that from that side. So which person is in the right to do that? Who gets to say, you know, we're not starting until you give us the money? Or if somebody's saying, well, we're not. I don't trust you until you've delivered something. So how do you typically advise people on, like, when to do cash up front?

Speaker A: We are living in a different culture. When I was much younger, when people used to send off for stuff, this is before Amazon. This is before, uh, just eat. This is before all of that stuff. If you wanted a book, you would write off for it and you'd send a check and they would say, 28 days delivery. I, uh, know it sounds completely laughable now. And if I say that to my nephews, they'll go, uncle, you're crazy. You know, no one's going to wait 28 days.

Speaker B: But.

Speaker A: But you did. And that was where the difference is. And I would say it's not wrong to ask for money upfront. It's not wrong to pay money up front. But the fact is, it depends on how much money you're willing to pay up front. Now, if I pay money to Amazon upfront, I know that my friend Jeff Bezos, my best buddy, is not really going to be in a position where he's going to run short of money in the near future. However, if I'm talking to Jeff, the guy I've just met down the pub who's offering to do my extension at ah, a price that seems too good to be true, I may want to do my due diligence before putting that money out there. And that's where the difference lies. You are a reputable company and running a reputable business and all your stuff is in order. And I think that you should also look at the fact of whether what does your gut instinct tells you? Have you ever taken on a client which you then live to regret? And your gut instinct told you from the beginning, this client is going to cause me trouble. We've all been there. So in terms of handing over money, are you truly believing in the person that you asking to do this work? Do you trust their judgment, their integrity? Because that's what it's about. Are ah, they easily findable? Are ah, they easily contactable? I have a client who contacts me every few years and he installs wiring and telecommunications in buildings. And the first thing he says when somebody doesn't pay him is Clayton, they're good for the money. And I'm thinking, well, they're so good for the money they haven't paid you. But he bases his judgment on the fact that he is going to get paid because this is a highfaluting looking company, so they must have money. And what business has taught me over the last 23 years is there are a lot of people out there that are trading and they are trading in such a way that when it comes down to it, they literally have no money. They're literally giving on credit. And if that's what it is, you need to be aware of that.

Speaker B: And obviously, you know, in the last decade we've seen a lot of businesses kind of upping their game in terms of what's available from bookkeeping software to accounting software to reporting, that kind of thing. And um, that's obviously helpful in starting surfacing the state of a company's finances. And we're starting to see a rise in people moving to employee fractional CFOs to bring management reporting style. What would you suggest? The fractional cfo? When have you seen it working? Well, what's the role of the fractional cfo? Does this franchise CFO hopefully keep you out of a job in terms of they're on that side of things or do you typically Are you brought in sometimes by those rational CFOs when they recognize there's a problem and say we need you to sort of come in and help us to chase some of

Speaker A: this bad debt in the first instance. Debt recovery never goes out of fashion. There's always somebody somewhere who owes money to someone else. So we're always going to be there in the background. Fractional CFOs can be very helpful insofar as they can look at trends, look at behaviors in companies and then actually give them a plan as to how to avoid most of their debt. But people sometimes think that just by creating a set of letters or a set of reminders that's instantly going to stop your debt. That's nonsense. There are people who you can send them a million and one reminders will never stop, ever pay you, simple as that. So a fractional CFO can be really good in terms of, they can create an environment where the information that's presented to us as debt recovery people is good quality information insofar that there are good contracts, good terms of agreement, good quality invoices, good quality information as to the nature of the company, where it resides, the telephone numbers, contact details. Because most people contact us. It's got better now, but a lot of the time when we first started, it was spent actually finding out who the person was that our client was actually dealing with. Because people didn't know, they would assume that it was this person and that they were a sole trader where they're in fact a limited company. And I don't know, if you sued the wrong person, you end up with the wrong result. So for example, my friend who's dealing with the builder, she's thinking about suing him as an individual, but he's trading with her as a company. Now she's gone to ChatGPT and has told her to sue him as an individual. But the fact is, if that claim gets defended, he's going to say, guess what? I may be the principal person in that company, but I am not a sole trader. You're dealing with the company. Take my name off. So those are the little intricacies that a CFO can help corral that information. Together they can ensure that there have, uh, been the appropriate letters sent and the appropriate reminders. But it doesn't stop somebody who's having a temporary cash flow problem, uh, or somebody who waits until the red letter or the pre action letter, uh, that I would send.

Speaker B: What's your ideal scenario in terms of how do you see the relationship between proactive debt management and fractional finance leadership evolving for SMEs over the next five years. How do you see, where is it going? Where would you like to see it get to? Is it always going to be just a ongoing conversation? Is it better technology? Is it better bookkeeping? Is it better understanding, better credit terms? Where would you like to see? If we're moving towards something that, where companies are actually getting better at this? Where, how does it evolve?

Speaker A: Making tax Digital is coming, whether people like it or not. At some point HMRC is going to have access to everybody's accounts. They've already said it already that they are going to have access or they already have access to people's bank accounts. As far as I was concerned, there was always a way that they could do that, but they've never really implemented it. But now that's something that they're going to be doing. So with that in mind, we then now have to look at the idea that whereas once upon a time, um, you would see your accountant or bookkeeper, maybe once a year, you'd give them a sack of receipts or they would be able to then basically piece together what you did through the year and said, a plus for good, F for failure. Now, this is an ongoing conversation. A fractional CFO can be bought in at any point. And because everything should be in a position where it's not on a spreadsheet, it's in the cloud somewhere. Invoices, uh, in the cloud, accounting in the cloud, receipts in the cloud, everything merged together. That then makes the whole process of debt recovery of those situations. What should happen is a CFO should be able to come in and say, right, okay, I'm going to corral all the 90 day debts and I'm going to put them across here in this particular pot. And I'm then going to then basically call my debt recovery guy, I'm going to call Clayton, because Clayton knows what he's doing. Clayton's going to be able to tell me which are the runners, which are the ones that are going to fail at the first hurdle, and which are the ones that, uh, with these guys gone to Brazil and we're never going to see him again. How can we get those things together? Because once a CFO knows that information, that CFO then can basically start planning, saying you need more stock in order to basically to sell to more people because you're selling cupcakes and they're going out the window or flying out the door and everybody wants these cupcakes. Um, but you can't get a deal with a person that supplies flour because you don't have the cash flow. And you don't have the cash flow because you are literally sitting on a bag of debts, a bunch of debts, which is actually a bag of money which you can't set free because nobody's looking at it. Because nobody wants to be the person that rings up and says, hi, you owe £5,000. When are we going to see it again?

Speaker B: Unless they work the robots to do that. Yeah.

Speaker A: And the thing is, once you realize they're robots, you're going to ignore them. And this is the problem is people think that, you know, I've always been told that, oh well, you could get these auto dialers and whatever the case may be. That's great. It's just in a position where I've been dialed by auto dialers and I didn't know the money. It was a madness. It was absolutely crazy because these auto dialers kept on dialing me and in the end they just gave up because they realized after a while it wasn't going to work.

Speaker B: It's going to need a person at the end of the day, isn't it? Maybe just closing off. It's been really, really fascinating hearing about this world. If a small business could implement just one debt prevention or cash flow strategy today, what would you recommend that would make the biggest and immediate impact?

Speaker A: I have to give two, and I'm going to give two because they're important. Number one, if you can get money up front that covers your costs. So whatever it is that you're making or selling, if you can get enough money to cover your costs, even if you lose out on the profit, then implement a situation where you do that because at least you're getting money in that's covering your costs and you're not losing out. That would be the first thing that I would do. But the most important thing to do is you have money sitting in your invoices. Pretend those invoices are white sheets of paper with print on it. Pretend that you can see dollars, yen, pounds, whatever your currency denomination is, because that's what those amount to once they can be turned into that. Imagine you're dipping them in a bowl of water. When they come out again, they're turning into the currency of your local area. If you can do that and actually get those things done, you can find yourself with a whole lot more money than you do and not necessarily relying on the fact that it's going to come to us at some point. The money's there. But the fact is, unless you find strategies to extract it or. Or at least employ people that can work with you, that money will always be stuck in your business until your business collapses.

Speaker B: That makes a lot of sense. Clayton, thanks so much. It's, uh, been great chatting to you. And, uh, you've got a podcast as well that people can hear you more.

Speaker A: Indeed, yes. We've got a podcast called the Cashflow show where we have interviews, not too dissimilar to this, where we talk to CFOs, we talk to CEOs, we took to founders about exactly what they've done in their business, how they started, how they're growing their business, and also finding about them and their personality and what they like to do in their spare time. So that's an interesting one. And hopefully when you get a spare chance, you'll be able to join us on that one.

Speaker B: Great. We'll make sure we link to that in the notes. Thanks again and wish you all the best.

Speaker A: Thank you very much. I really appreciate you having me on and I hope, uh, that this gives at least some clarity for a lot of people who are worrying about chasing late payments and debt recovery. It's not a sin. You're in business, and you're in business to get paid. And if you can work with people that can help you, then embrace that. It's the future.

Speaker B: Thank you, Clinton.

Speaker A: You're welcome. Take care.

Speaker C: Thanks for tuning in to another episode

Speaker B: of the new F Word.

Speaker C: I hope you enjoyed it. Remember, expert financial advice shouldn't be limited to those with just big budgets. You can access the same level of advice for a fraction of the costs thanks to this fractional revolution. I believe that every growing business needs to know how much a game changer this can be. So if you love the episode, please consider subscribing to the show. It'll help us keep doing what we're passionate about. And feel free to share this episode with others who might find it useful. Finally, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn.

Speaker B: See you in the next one, Sam.