About the member
Running my own business was always somewhere in the back of my mind. My Dad ran his own accountancy practice, and watching him do that left its mark, even if it wasn't top of my to-do list for a long time.
Before setting up Confident Cashflow, I worked in big corporates, managing credit control teams. When one of my team was getting nowhere with a client, those difficult conversations got escalated to me. Those conversations kept highlighting the same thing over and over: small businesses struggling, or even folding, simply because they weren't getting paid. Often it was because they didn't want to chase customers who'd become friends, or they were worried about upsetting them and risking future business. For others, it was simply not knowing what they could be doing differently, the small steps that would have prevented them from getting into the situation in the first place.
That's what pushed the idea from the back of my mind to the front (as well as a nudge from a friend), and I set up Confident Cashflow to help smaller businesses take back control.
Outside of work, I play the French horn in several orchestras, chamber groups and for musical theatre productions. I'm also an avid reader, mainly of fantasy and crime fiction, and love watching rugby, supporting Leicester Tigers and, of course, our national team, though sadly don't get to as many games as I'd like. I'm also dog mum to the amazing Bella, a ball-obsessed, anxious Labrador/Belgian Malinois cross who is far too intelligent for her own good.
About the business
Confident Cashflow is a Wiltshire-based credit management consultancy, educating, empowering and supporting small businesses across the UK to get paid quicker.
Most late payment problems start long before an invoice ever falls overdue. Getting the foundations right from the start, agreeing terms, understanding who you're dealing with, having clear expectations in writing, makes an enormous difference to whether you get paid on time later. It's proactive rather than reactive, and it's often the bit small businesses skip entirely, focusing instead on winning the work rather than protecting it. We help with this by drafting or reviewing Terms and Conditions, and through our Cash Flow Focus Sessions, which get to the bottom of exactly where a business is exposed.
The other piece is consistency. Chasing payment once and hoping for the best doesn't work. Following up the same way, every time, for every client, is what actually changes behaviour and gets money moving. That's what our Outsourced Credit Control team does day in, day out, and it's also what we build into businesses through our Credit Control Training, for those who want to develop those skills themselves.
All of this is based on our Cashflow Blueprint, a framework covering five areas from that first conversation with a prospect through to getting paid, and making sure that keeps working as the business grows.