How to Survive a CASHFLOW CRISIS (for Roofers)
In this YouTube interview, host Adam Bensman talks with roofing entrepreneur Cody Landels about navigating severe cash‑flow crunches that many contractors face. Cody recounts how his company Reimagine Roofing grew to eight‑figure revenue using a B2B model that relied on solar partners, then collapsed when those partners stopped paying on net terms, leaving over $1 million in unpaid accounts receivable. Drawing from that experience, Cody outlines five concrete moves to survive a cash‑flow crisis: (1) Visibility – daily monitoring of bank balances and cash‑flow metrics; (2) Triage – quickly identify and prioritize revenue‑generating activities versus non‑cash‑generating expenses; (3) Accelerate Inflows – focus on short‑cycle, deposit‑driven jobs, negotiate faster payments, and communicate proactively with suppliers and partners; (4) Slow Outflows – extend payment terms with vendors, negotiate delays, and prioritize essential spend; (5) Convert Fixed Costs to Variable – lease or stipend‑based equipment, restructure payroll and overhead so costs scale with revenue. Cody also stresses the importance of mindset, referencing Jocko Willink’s “Good” video to maintain mental resilience, and he shares a hierarchy of capital options—from traditional lines of credit and business credit cards to higher‑cost alternatives like merchant‑cash‑advance and accounts‑receivable financing—encouraging owners to build multiple “off‑ramps” before a crisis hits. The conversation concludes with a call to join the Roofing Strong Alliance, now part of TAMKO, for ongoing support and community resources.
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Tough time for a lot of contractors and cash flow is hurting people in a really bad way. Cody has been through it all from scaling a company from like the ground up to 8 figures and then hitting a wall. He shared the story in our last interview and in this interview with Cody Landels, he's gonna share the 5 moves to be making if you are dealing with a cash flow crunch. Cody, thank you so much for being here today. Right. Yeah. For those that missed the last interview, Cody Landels, uh, built and sold Reimagine Roofing, created a super innovative business model selling roofs over the phone. Check out that interview if you haven't seen it yet. But, uh, Cody, would you mind just taking folks through a, maybe like a 1-minute recap of the story arc of how you grew Reimagine Roofing in your niche, into the B2B space, and then having to rebuild it all and being like, wow, we are in the thick of it. I think that'll be a great way to set the foundation for what we're going to cover today, which is helping folks through the tough times that many are having right now.
Yep. Yeah, definitely. Appreciate you having me. Yeah, so original business model was a B2B business model where we were delivering quotes in 15 minutes or less to our solar partners. Then the solar sales rep would sell the roof and solar combined into one loan. Then the solar company would install the solar and we would install the roof. And then once they got, they installed, they would get paid and then they would pay us. And so majority of the time it was on net terms. Some of them would pay early, you know, 50/50, but majority of them were on net terms. And so that's really where we, I first started having to manage cash flow because the majority of my partners were paying on net terms with no deposit. That really kind of grew in challenge when the solar industry hit a cash flow crunch, basically. The lenders stopped paying money upfront, and so a lot of the solar companies did not have cash. And so that went from me getting paid in full to me getting paid a percentage. And obviously my bills didn't go with that. So I had to figure out how to manage that until we moved into a direct-to-consumer model. But it really cumulated with being stiffed for over $1 million in AR because a lot of those companies ended up going bankrupt. So you combine that with us growing to 8 figures in revenue by year 2, us expanding at a very rapid pace, and you can imagine the cash flow crunch that was on the business, you know, almost daily.
Yeah. And I remember you, we were out at RoofCon together. You had, you had come out, I had a booth there. You had just joined the team. We were launching this, this community, now the Roofing Strong Alliance. There's a link in the description, by the way, where Cody and I hang out and provide coaching and training to our people. And I remember you got that call and you came back and you're like, oh no. And it was the first of many. And we're talking 7 figures of AR in what, about a week of people saying we can't pay you.
Yeah.
And I, man, I can't, I know, and I've known you for, gosh, going on, this is 6 or 7 years now, I think. And at that time you were basically living in your office, like working nonstop to rebuild this thing. And so you feel for folks. And I thought it would be important for people who are tuning in to know that they're not alone and that there are things that you can do to help. So in a time when there's a cash flow crisis, you know, obviously there's nothing that you or I could do or say to make it all go away, right? But what we can do is provide some actionable tips to help people out through these times, whether it's a, a business that's been in business for decades and things are not doing great right now, or for the companies who are newer and they're navigating their, these trying years, the first 1, 2, and 3 years, which are kind of the make or break years. So Cody, what are, would you say are the top 5 moves, and I might jump in with some questions here and there, but the top 5 actionable moves to make that could help a company with cash flow during a cash flow crunch.
Number 1, far and away, is visibility. You have to know what's happening. The urge, and I felt it every day, would be to not look at the problem. And what I, instead, what I would have to do is I would, every single day, I would log in every morning and look at the bank account. Seems simple, but what gets measured gets improved. And it's tough to see it, but sometimes I would log in and we'd have $7,200 in the bank account on a Monday and I had $100K worth of payroll on Friday. But if I instead did not eat the frog, if I didn't look at the problem, it wouldn't become a problem until Thursday when my CFO or my, you know, controller's like, hey, we're not gonna make payroll. So it's not gonna get better with time. It's not gonna be something that you're, you can't look at. So you have to look at it head on.
Right.
It's, it's essential. And the other thing it's gonna do, one, it's gonna increase your urgency because that's, that's what we need to do. But two, it's also going to, uh, show you where all the, the leakage is, which brings me to, to number two, which is triage.
Mm-hmm.
So first we gotta look at everything coming in. We gotta have visibility. We gotta, you know, know what money's coming in, what money's going out. And then we start fixing what we can. The very simple thing we gotta do is we gotta get money in quicker and make money going out slower. That's all we have to do in order to solve cash. And yes, it's a simple concept, but if we make every decision with that as our guiding light, it gives you real direction.
Yeah.
And one of the biggest things that I've used during this time is a video from Jocko Willink that's just called Good.
Yeah.
And it's about a 2-minute video. I've shared it with the team, I've shared it with RSA., and it's just this video that just says good. And it's like, hey, you know, X place, if it's going wrong, good. Um, and first thing that we have to do is make sure you're, you're mentally sound with it because if we, if you spiral, the business will spiral. So, um, that was a video that gave me a lot of, a lot of, um, just, just mental fortitude to, to be the, the beacon for the team. And when I say visibility and then triage, visibility also has to happen with the team. The other thing I did is I didn't hide it from the team. Now, I wasn't, I didn't like open them up and tell them, hey, we got $7,000 in the bank account and we gotta make $100,000 by the end of the week. But, but the team knew our partners weren't paying the bills. The team knew that we were gonna go through this cash flow crunch and that I'm gonna be here to guide you through it. We're gonna watch this video once a week as a team, and we're all gonna, you know, bear down and work as a team. And it, it filtered a lot of people out. Once I made the announcement that, you know, this is the, challenge that's upcoming, a lot of people left. Um, and that's good because you need those people gone because what those people's mindset will be is this company's going down. How much can I get before the company goes down? Versus the people that are going to stay, they're going to say, man, this company's going down. How much can I give to try to save this company before it goes down or to try to save it? And you have to filter out the takers. And you have to support the givers and it might mean 2 people go into 1 role and that person gets a small promotion.
Mm-hmm.
And, and you pay 'em an extra 5 or 10K a year so that way you shore up that base and you know that person's gonna be here for the next year as we build out of this.
Yeah. Going, by the way, that, that Jocko video that you shared, I've shared with our team and we had some challenging times in our business as well. And I remember playing that. And I said, hey, Cody shared this with me and I have rewatched it multiple times. And the premise, and I'm sure people are pausing this video and pulling up a new tab, Jocko Willink, good, and finding the search. But the main idea is that we, our mindset changes the lens in which we view what's happening. And if we approach all obstacles that come our way as good, here's an opportunity for me to learn, for me to heal, for me to rise, and for me to lead. That changes everything versus what, what I, I would see others often referring to as the victim mentality. This is happening to me, for me. And then we get in this victimhood spiral, right? And that, that's a spiral that's very hard to recover from and get out of. Now I wanna circle back in triage, which for some folks that might be a new term. Triage, essentially identifying what's most important in tackling those items in order. It's often used in the ER, in the triage care. If someone comes in and they're bleeding and there's a broken leg, well, the first thing you're gonna do is stop the bleeding. The leg can stay broken for a little bit, but if someone could bleed out, you gotta stop the bleeding. So we triage the, the, uh, trauma points. Now you said money in quicker and out slower. Do you have any tactical tips on that?
Yep. So first thing on, after we look at the triage, I just want to unpack that a little bit more real quick because the biggest thing with triage is to understand, is the money revenue generating? And then once we understand that is then what is the, how quick is the cash? Meaning if we're going to sign a $1 million commercial project that's going to start in 9 months and we're also going to get paid net 60, That's not, that's not gonna help us right now. Versus if we can go do a $20,000 re-roof, get the deposit today, build the roof tomorrow, get the final payment, you know, Friday, and we have all of our money and we don't have to pay our material until net 30 or later. Well, we just, you know, brought in $20,000 of money to the business and only maybe $7,000 went out for labor. We just added $13,000 into the business.
Mm-hmm.
Today. Yes, we gotta pay our material bill later, but today we got $13,000 in extra cash. So understanding your, to answer your question, the tactics, one is understanding what is revenue generating on the cost side. And because what we don't want to do is if we're spending $10,000 a month and that's turning into $200,000 of revenue, that, that is, you know, retail sales, we can't turn that off because that's actually adding cash to the business. So identifying, is it revenue generating or is it, you know, some, maybe something like brand awareness or something that's a little bit less tangible that's not going to add cash into the business, you know, this month. It's not going to help us make payroll, you know, at the end of the month or the end of the week. On the other side, we have accelerating the inflow or slowing down the outflow. I think a lot of people myself included, I, I never even thought about until it smacked me in the face, is that you're a customer to your supply houses.
Mm-hmm.
And they're, they're invested in you paying your bills back. And so if they cut you off today, it was kind of the same almost game theory that I had with my, my solar partners. It's, yes, they couldn't pay the bill, but if I didn't install the roof, then they couldn't install the solar. And so they couldn't, pay, pay the bill. So same thing with your supplier. If, if they cut you off tomorrow, then you can't go install more roofs and you won't be able to pay your bills back. And so by communicating with them and helping them understand where the money is coming from or why you're having that delay, maybe it's insurance or maybe it's a large commercial job that you're expecting a large payment to come in and having that conversation. One, before you need to have it is the most important thing. If we're on, you know, June 1st, and we want to, you know, we know we're not gonna be able to make a payment by the end of June. Well, we need to have that conversation today, not on June 29th, because that will give them time to work something out with you. It'll seem proactive instead of reactive.
Yeah.
Everything is negotiable in business, including when you pay your bills. Now, that's not to say that you want to stretch it out forever, But there is opportunity to keep a good relationship with some of your largest bills and still be able to run your business. So when we're looking at money coming in to accelerate, the, the, the strategy is gonna be one, what is the average cash cycle on that? We don't want to spend more money on generating insurance leads if insurance leads are the reason we're in this cash crunch. If we're able to sell retail. And then on the, on the flip side, money going out, we want to look at it based on the biggest chunks. So the biggest chunk is always going to be material, right? So can we talk to, do we have a great relationship with one of our suppliers that will give us an extra 30 days because we know we have the money coming in? And now this, and this comes after, this is why, you know, accelerating inflows is my third point. Slowing the outflows is my fourth point. But we start with the triage because we want to cut out the things that are not necessary first, and that lowers your monthly payment. And then the final thing I would say, the final tactic with money going out is what can we do to make something that's a fixed cost now variable? One, one example of that is I used to, when we were first scaling, I would, I would have, I'd get trucks from Enterprise. Well, originally we bought them in cash and then I realized, wow, I'm sucking a lot of cash out of the business. And so then I went into leasing. Well, that, let's just say, is $1,000 a month for, to lease a truck plus your, your, uh, insurance, let's just say, is like $1,200 all in. That is a fixed cost. Whether I have 1 employee or 100 employees, when I sign a 2-year lease, I'm gonna pay that $1,200 a month no matter what. Well, as we grow and, and shrink and grow and shrink, that becomes a fixed cost. What I then did is I switched to, could I pay, um, somebody that I'm gonna give a truck, a truck stipend? That was maybe, you know, $1,000 a month, same general cost, but if I let them go tomorrow, that falls off my P&L. So looking at things that, you know, will change as I scale down the business or scale up the business allows my cash to go with my income. And that would be one of my tactics is looking where we can make that more variable and less fixed.
Yeah, I love it. Just to summarize, we got visibility, triage, accelerate inflow, slow outflow, and convert as many fixed expenses to variable expenses that adjust with your revenue. Beautiful advice. Now there's one piece that we didn't hit. These are great tactics, is the mindset. I know you talked about Jocko Willink in Good. Love that. What would be your closing tip, your piece of advice, if you were to be having that moment where you're hanging out with, with a buddy you got your arm around their shoulder and they need a pick-me-up conversation. What do you say to someone who needs that moment right now?
I'd say first things, it's not as bad as you think it is. That'd be the very first thing I would tell everybody. I've had a lot of, I call them crisis calls where I, you know, someone thinks, say their business is going under tomorrow. I take a look at it. I'm like, you know, you got like 6 months of cash burn left. If we don't sell another roof today, you have 6 months left in the business. Before you, or you have to shut the doors. Here's 10 people you could lay off tomorrow and that actually gives us another 3 months. So what I, the mindset is, and I'll give kind of the, one of the bonus things before I jump into this mindset is build this before you need it. If you're watching this and you think, wow, that doesn't apply to me yet, then let's set up the off-ramps to ensure that it doesn't happen to you. Whether it's line of credits, whether that's extending payment terms, et cetera. Also, business credit cards are a great option as well. But back to the person that's in it right now, it's not as bad as you think it is. Whatever you think it is, I guarantee that it could be worse. And there's other people that it's been worse and they built out of it. So understanding where can you get capital from is, and it kind of goes into, I like to rank it in terms of the cost. So first, if you're in a decent situation, and you're a healthy business and this is a flash in the pan, you can look at things like, you know, traditional loans, traditional business financing, line of credits. If this is— we're on our last leg and it really is as dire as you think it is, there are a lot of other alternative credit options out there that are going to be really punitive, but it will at least save the business if you have a vision of building out of it, which is what I had. And those are things like in the Merchant Cash Advantage, the accounts receivable financing. Again, those are more like what I would consider a nuclear option, but it's on the table. And, and what I have found is if you can set up 2, 3 off-ramps, it's like, hey, I don't want to touch this because it's gonna charge me 25% interest, but if in 12 months I need it, it's there. It at least gives you peace of mind and it gives you the ability to continue to build and lead your business rather than sitting in your office each day, speaking from experience, thinking, Man, what is it gonna— when I go file bankruptcy, man, everybody's gonna hate me. This is gonna— I'm gonna let so-and-so down. I'm gonna— and you just kind of get stuck in that. So if you can create immediate solutions as well as nuclear options, then it gives you that confidence that, man, I gotta do this in the next 6 months. But at least if I don't do it in the 6 months, I have another 6 months of how I can at least try to make this right. And so understanding all the different sources of capital. Another great one is a credit card. Because what it does is if you pay it off within the 30 days, you're paying no interest on it. So it gives you an extra 30 days of breathing room. And a lot of times you can get a $100,000 credit card out of the gate if you're doing a decent amount of revenue. So a lot— most things in your business can be paid with your credit card, obviously not payroll and maybe labor invoice voices. And yeah, you do pay a percentage of that when you pay it, but if you could get an extra $100,000 today into the business, what does that unlock for you to, you know, if it's just a bridge for the first 60 days when XYZ happens. So really building out a true roadmap. Hormozi talks about it a lot. You know, it's one of my core guiding things is anxiety is just stress without a plan. So if you're feeling all of that, what we gotta do is we gotta build a plan and we gotta build a plan. Worst case scenario, base case scenario, And then stretch scenario. And at least we have those 3 avenues. We know what's gonna happen, and now we just have to go execute. And that can give you so much peace of mind in the right mindset. And that's a vision you can paint for your team that then they'll follow you through this next big grind. Cause it's gonna be a grind. And that's the final thing I'll say on mindset is you have to take the mindset that you're saving your business. And if you're saving your business, then it might mean you need to work 2 extra hours a day. You know, 10 extra hours a week. You need to, uh, you understand what is required in order to get out of this situation. And usually what's required is more input than you're currently doing. Because if you put in the same input, you're going to get the same output. And it doesn't have to start with— it starts with just time and activity, but eventually the input can be better systems, better lead sources, other different inputs. But at the start, it has to start with— more time because you're gonna have to solve problems, not just run your business. And right now all of your time is probably be taken up by running your business. So we have to add more time and it needs to be, in my opinion, either, um, you know, they always say, uh, burning, uh, the candle at each end of the week. And, and how I think about that is either you can win your morning or you could win your evening, win your evening. But you have to have that quiet time to fix your business. And I've always found that either starts before everybody gets in the office or after everybody leaves the office. And that's what you need to take the mindset of is I have to take that time to save my business, put in the time, put in the effort, build the roadmap, and then execute.
Cody, thank you for your generosity and your heart. I know that you gave the pep talk that a lot of owners needed right now to feel the motivation and enthusiasm so they could picture themselves in 3, 6, 12 months on the other side of this and saving their business, taking great care of their people, serving their customers, and most importantly, just creating an even better future than where they are today. And now due to the recent announcement that our RSRA was acquired by TAMKO and we've relaunched as the Roofing Strong Alliance. Membership is now included at no additional cost for the TAMKO Edge contractors. You can click the link in the description or go to rsa.pro right now to apply to join. We'd love to join you in the trenches and you'll be able to tap into a whole lot of Cody's knowledge and Cody's brain. Cody, thanks so much for being here.
