Brisbane Businesses Reveal Cash Flow and Confidence Challenges

A special roundtable broadcast on 4BC Brisbane has cast a spotlight on the mounting pressures facing small businesses across Queensland, with a leading fintech executive and two local operators agreeing that rising costs, cautious consumers and shifting work habits are combining to create one of the toughest trading climates in recent memory.

Cameron Pullman, chief executive of On Deck Australia — a fast and flexible finance provider that has backed thousands of small businesses since 2015 — told listeners that cash flow remains the single biggest pressure point for operators right now. Higher energy bills, increased labour costs and a marked dip in consumer confidence since the most recent federal budget are all weighing heavily on the sector. "We need consumer confidence to lift," Pullman said. "If you've got a restaurant or a retailer, you want people out there spending and the economy moving again."

Pullman, who earlier in his career scaled Grays Online into an e-commerce powerhouse with more than $500 million in annual sales, illustrated the shift in spending behaviour with a straightforward example: a café regular who once called in five mornings a week may now appear just twice, cutting back as household budgets tighten across the board. The effect is felt simultaneously by the business owner and the customer — a pressure that runs in both directions.

The conversation also tackled work-from-home arrangements and their flow-on impact on city-based small businesses. Pullman was pointed in his opposition to government-mandated office attendance, criticising Victoria's push to legislate a four-day-in-office working week. "Don't mandate it — flexible work is great, but it works differently across different industries and different companies," he said. His own organisation operates on a voluntary four-days-in, one-day-remote model, which he argued delivers the benefits of collaboration without heavy-handed enforcement. The concern for inner-city small businesses is real: reduced foot traffic during the pandemic years shifted habits, and fewer commuters translates directly into fewer customers at cafés, lunch spots and local retailers.

Two Brisbane business owners shared their own stories during the broadcast. Tamika Davy founded Elite FM roughly a decade ago, bringing experience from tier-one residential and aviation environments into a boutique project management consultancy that helps small and medium enterprises manage their built assets more effectively. She said a recurring problem is that clients either lack capital or are unsure how to deploy it strategically. Her firm takes a preventative rather than reactive approach — steering business owners away from constant short-term fixes and toward investments that extend asset life and ultimately free up resources for staff and growth.

Jared Gosins offered a vivid example of small business resilience. He and his wife Heather have run Chocolate Moments for almost twenty years, beginning as a specialty chocolate retailer before Cross River Rail construction disrupted trade at their original Albert Street location in Brisbane's CBD. Rather than close, the couple pivoted the business into a café concept and expanded to a second site in Graceville — an adaptation born of necessity that has since become a point of difference.

Pullman's overarching advice for operators navigating the current environment was consistent: take a disciplined approach to cash flow, explore flexible finance options to bridge short-term gaps, and invest in the core assets that underpin long-term sustainability. With interest rate relief expected to gradually lift household spending power, he said businesses that hold their nerve now are best placed to benefit when consumer confidence turns.