For the first several years of its corporate life, Amazon lost money — a lot of it. Yet, it didn't have to constantly raise money to stay alive. In fact, Amazon really didn't have to raise much money at all. How did Jeff Bezos do it? Slight of hand? With a secret money tree? No — with huge positive carry. Amazon gets paid up front but doesn't have to pay most of its vendors for up to 90 days (probably longer now). Its only current expenses were overhead and current cost of borrowing which were negligible relative to incoming cash flow. Of course, this was not a long term strategy and was predicated on the company actually becoming profitable, but the positive carry gave Amazon time to grow into itself. In effect, Amazon borrowed from its vendors (mostly book publishers) to finance its business.
In a perfect world, creative businesses would be able to operate without need of carry and each project would sustain the business on its own until the next project. Problem is most creative businesses have lumpy cash flow that is seasonal to boot — you get infrequent big payments concentrated in a specific time of the year. And most of you either don't have positive carry or don't take advantage of it if you could. You find yourself with large expenses against months when you have little or no cash flow. When the cash finally does come, some (or most) of it goes to paying for past expenses. So begins borrowing from the future — a place you NEVER want to be.
Obviously, survival is survival and if you need to use future cash to pay for past expenses — ok. This is a limited strategy, though, especially if sales stay flat or, worse, decline.
If your business is a profitable one at the end of the year, a main goal of yours should be to smooth your cash flow. Instead of big slugs being paid by clients, try to get more frequent smaller payments, front loaded as much as possible. A small incentive by way of discount is often worth it. Work with vendors to delay payment until the time of the event and, in special cases, after the event is finished.
Just know that managing cash flow is its own art. You need to (or better yet, hire the right person to) allocate the cash you receive to your payables and overhead to the right bucket with an obligation to not mix the two. Depending on the time of year, which bucket gets filled will be based on priority of payment. However, not having the money to produce your art when you need to is indeed a real problem. The art is maximizing your positive carry without ever putting the organization in jeopardy.
