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In his 36 years with The Sheakley Group of Companies, CEO Larry Sheakley hasn't lost a bit of his entrepreneurial wisdom or vigor. Most of the business units under The Sheakley Group are related to managing data for companies in the human resources area. Nonetheless, the company, founded in 1963, has acquired two unrelated businesses recently, one involved in merchandising and a second involved in an IT application related to that merchandising unit. Sheakley says his entrepreneurial bent drives him to pursue promising business opportunities for the $80 million company, even if they aren't directly related to his core business. Smart Business spoke with Sheakley about the primacy of sales in any business, why it's important for a CEO to focus daily on cash flow and why most of the other details are better left to someone else.
Keep a close eye on cash flow. Probably the best lesson I ever learned was to manage the business every day, manage the cash flow every day. I'm not a CPA, but I do manage the cash flow of the business on a daily basis.
I do know what we expect in, which businesses need cash, which businesses are doing well. That was a lesson I learned early on in my business career. I've learned I can read a financial statement as well as any of these guys, and I remember the numbers. I get cash reports, and I monitor that very closely.
As the owner of a business, that's your responsibility. Don't worry about what your depreciation and your write-offs and all that are. The accountants take cam of that at the end of the year. What you need to...