Why Profitable Home Service Companies Keep Running Out of Cash

Your home service business can be profitable on paper and still run out of cash. John Wilson sits down with Tyler Martin of Profit & Grit to break down where cash actually goes as a home service company grows and why strong EBITDA doesn’t always translate to money in the bank. They cover the biggest cash drains, including trucks, inventory, accounts receivable, debt payments, and hiring ahead of demand. They also break down how much cash to keep in reserve, what owners should be watching every week, and how a 13-week cash flow forecast can help you stay ahead of a crunch. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Why profitable businesses still run out of cash • Profit vs. actual free cash flow • How growth eats cash • The hidden impact of AR, inventory, trucks, and debt • How much cash to keep in reserve • What financial numbers to review every week • Building a 13-week cash flow forecast ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sponsors ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Service Scalers Get more high quality leads with marketing built for home service companies. Book a free strategy call with Service Scalers and see what's driving real jobs: https://os.servicescalers.com/go/oao_podcast/referral/podcast FieldPulse Ready to ditch the whiteboard and spreadsheets? See how FieldPulse helps home service companies simplify scheduling, dispatching, invoicing, and more. Book a free demo: https://landing.fieldpulse.com/owned_and_operated Comfort Connect Turn one installation into years of repeat business with Comfort Connect. Give homeowners flexible payment options, stay connected after the job, and create new recurring revenue opportunities. Learn more: https://bit.ly/4wGXqSX  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Tyler Martin Profit & Grit https://profitandgrit.com/ RESOURCE: Understanding Your Cash Flow Statement https://profitandgrit.com/quickbooks-cash-flow-statement-home-service/ Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with OAO Start Here Owned and Operated Newsletter  Bonus Videos From John Leave a Review John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC 📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.