Sprint (NYSE: S) Nextel’s CFO Bob Brust confirmed today that the company is gearing up to make company-wide cuts to bring expenses in line with revenues as the struggling carrier continues to lose millions of subscribers every year. Brust was careful not to be specific, but it sounds extensive: “The philosophy has to be that a company never went out of business because it took too many costs out. A company goes out of business because you didn’t take enough costs out. As you take costs out, you can always overshoot it. In fact, if we overshoot it, you know you did a good job because the pain is so loud, and you can always go back in and add something. We are going to be in the mode of overshooting, so the number will be a big number.” As for the timing, Brust said they’ll present a plan to the board in January, so the cuts will likely follow.

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Brust made the comments at the UBS annual media and communications conference today, but clearly he’s not just being vocal to the investment community—he’s also making it clear how rough times are at the company’s Overland Park headquarters. Shortly after he joined Sprint, he noticed that employees were photocopying 8.8 million copies a month. Brust: “As I found out, we made an art form out of presenting stuff to each other—all for internal presentations….To be a jerk, I pulled out all the printers out of the company. If you want a printer call me, I can give one to you cheap. It’s now down to 2 million copies, but the message is why are we doing all these internal presentations to ourselves? We have to find those people and either get them working on something significant or get them out the door. We do stuff like that to get the message to everyone.” Brust has sent other messages, too, by putting a hold on ordering new offices supplies, no longer buying bottled water and containing the costs of the sales team. “I may get 100 emails a month from employees on more ideas on how to cut costs. It’s important to know this is a mission, and that we are in trouble, that we are losing customers, and have financial issues. I want everyone in the game with us.” Webcast. Presentation.

On the wider financial recession: To not only get the company in line, but to weather the bigger financial recession, Brust said in addition to reducing expenses, it also intends on keeping a big cash balance—on average of $4 billion. The cash will be used to keep the company in compliance with its bank covenants, but also as a fail-safe because cash will be hard to come by over the next 12 to 24 months. Brust expects to be skeptical of any cash needed for a capital project. He explains: “We continue to manage down our cash outflow. We review every project, and I vote yes and no, but I will not let anything get in the way of the liquidity during this recession. If we have to have Draconian cuts, then we will. It’s hard to convince me that we have to expand networks right now when we are losing customers during this recession.”

On losing subscribers: In 2009, the emphasis will be keeping the subscribers the company already has, and by 2010, they hope they will start adding customers. Brust said they’ll do that by focusing on customer service and investing in the brand. “We’ve had a lot of trouble with the brands since the [Sprint-Nextel] merger because of dropped calls and bad customer service. As we spend more money on recapturing subscribers, we can get the brand back where it belongs…You’ll see a more aggressive advertising campaign.”