158. Building a CFO Firm? Don’t Make These Mistakes

kind of went around I met you, uh, which would have been twenty, twenty two, uh twenty one, twenty two, that I even really started seeing the term fractional CFO. Uh when I started uh back in twenty twenty really Um, I was still working as an in-house CFO for a company and I was I started doing like some project work, what I would today called like very ad hoc advisory.

Um and you know, locally to where I live, I kinda had the reputation of being the the the CFO guy with all within my community of business owners and friends that own businesses and be like, hey, you know, like do you have you heard of QuickBooks? Could you help me with that? Um or I just got a loan and um I have no idea how to manage this. And it was just like yeah sure, I'll come in and and kind of lend a hand more than anything else. Um and that's really the origin in its most um raw form.

very organic, uh, in that sense. And it was it was uh it was back then that I realized, okay. You know, there is a need in a in small business for this and I as a CFO I inherently knew that, but it wasn't until I started getting the unsolicited reach outs to say, hey, I need help.

Um and and I it the money was really good and I took the money. Uh it and when I did that, I went and worked for a significantly larger company in the process. uh two, three thousand employees, something in that range. Um, and I thought that was gonna like bury the entrepreneurial edge of me. Um, like, hey, this is gonna be big, it's a lot of money, it's a lot of people, it's you know, we're not now we're not talking tens of millions of dollars, but hundreds of millions of dollars literally.

And, you know, working with Boston Consulting Group and P W C K P M G I mean a lot of like a lot of the the names that I read in books and like in my studies, and now all of a sudden I was in the throes of it. And I realized very quickly that I had lost the um small business impact that I had prior to to doing what I was doing um as a CFO.

Because I I always always tell a story, like as much as I was a vice president of finance for a 3,000 person company, I was a booger. Like my impact was so small in in the grand scheme of things. And uh and I wanted to get back to to the root.

Um so getting back to that place where it's no, this is maybe the husband or the husband and the wife or the wife that runs this business.

and this business is a legacy. It's it's uh it's kind of built into the DNA of of the person running the company and the same projections, the same financing support, the same leadership on the financial lever level that you provide in in arena A, the outcome and the impact is wildly different in arena B. The same thing translates different and the impact is wildly, um, wildly different.

Um, this is now planning my exit so I can retire and be with my uh my grandkids. This is now helping me create a legacy business for my kid. We have clients right now, or they're second generation kids are stepping or thinking about stepping into this business. What does that look like? And how do we set this thing up to be generational? I mean, that's that's a it's a pretty crazy impact. I mean, it's one as a business owner I hope to have with my own kids at some point.

You know, ten years from now. So to me that's what that impact looks like.

the rate of growth that I've seen in your firm over the last couple of years. I mean, when we first met, you were doing a a couple hundred grand a year. I think by the end of this year, you'll probably be on a multi seven figure run rate.

or something that looks a lot like that. First, congratulations. I'm so proud of of the work that you've done and just seeing how you've built your team and the impact you've had for your clients. It's been an awesome thing to be able to have the privilege to sit back and watch. But I'm curious

When you think about that kind of explosive growth, what are the what are the keys to to that success, to that growth that you've seen that you you'd like others that are kind of following in your footsteps to be able to to grab onto or to latch onto?

um what I you know, what I would call entrepreneurship within our space. Um, I don't know that I would be here today, nor maybe I would be here with lot less hair or a lot more, you know, terrible stories to tell. But um No, I think it's been it's been absolutely critical and and I would say the keys to that success certainly I mean, you know, uh I let me let me take a step back. I don't know that I have it all figured out. I know that I don't. Um, you know, I think the the truth is

scaling any company like our clients, right? It it it just requires so much uh from the entrepreneurial leader uh to do it. And um and it's it's I tell people all the time, it's the biggest roller coaster you'll ever be on. And it somehow never ends.

Um you think the loop the last loop is like the final loop and then you're gonna come to a stop and get off and then there's another loop. So uh but I would say some key things that have helped Me as a leader growing backbone CFO, you know, certainly number one, you know, especially starting off. Um, just figure out how to sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. And you can never stop business development. You you can't. You just can never take the foot off the pedal.

Um even when you think you have enough clients, when you think your book is full, when you think um whatever you're thinking. It's a lie. Don't stop. Um, do not stop business development. So I would say that's probably the first key to success. And, you know, certainly I'm talking to the when I say this, I'm saying this in light of not just

starting a fractional CFO firm, but scaling a company. The second thing I would say, again, in light of scaling a company, um, has got to be hiring. Um and again, this has probably bitten me in the butt more than I'd like to admit. Because it's so difficult on so many levels. But I would say the second thing you should consistently be doing, just like your business developing and prospecting and that kind of thing, be constantly on the lookout to see who you can connect with and network with.

Um, that maybe future partnerships, future employees, subcontractors, whatever your method or model is gonna be, I'm not sure, but Um, what I do know is you need people and you have got to constantly be connecting. So I think you have to figure out how to prospect and business development on one hand. And then on the other hand, you need to be consistently out there networking and figuring out who's going to help you build this thing from a delivery perspective.

I wanna say before we were even in the mastermind together, but um you had I had lost a sale or something like that and you said, Hey, flip me over the recording. Like I wanna like I'll look at And I had to that point I had never had anyone willingly, other than my wife, like look at a sales recording and like give me some kind of constructive be constructive feedback.

And I just remember thinking, oh my gosh, this is an absolute grand slam. Somebody is going to take time out of their day that knows what they're talking about. uh and give me some corrective feedback on what was going on. And I I don't even remember what the feedback was at this point. It's been so long. But That was the start of a journey that that re that I realized, oh my gosh, accountability um is going to go so far for me personally.

as a leader in sales, operations, you kind of name it, right? I don't care what quadrant of the business business you're talking about. That accountability piece to commit to change, to commit to growth. is huge and and you need that. So I would I would give a shout out to the community. Um and then again I I'll s I'll also give a shout out to EOS. Um when your company gets to the right size and scale um has been operationally like it's it's really it's really helped us

solve issues. Um it's really helped us set the right goals at the right pace. So I would say E US I would say is a second is just a must have if you're scaling the

simple but not easy areas of your business that you need to get a handle on. Things like what are the measurables, right? What should I be actually looking at that will be a future indicator of success or failure? Um, how do I have meetings? Uh I remember specifically on meetings, I came out of you know large company. We were like meeting to death.

Um, and I remember coming and starting back to on CFO. I literally said this to my like initial team, we're never having meetings. I don't want meetings. I don't want to talk to you unless there's a problem. Um, like and that was like my mindset. Now of course I went I the pendulum swung way too to the left.

Um, but this is I think a pretty good centerground for how how to have effective meetings and solve problems and then ultimately to create accountability in your organization to get from here to there, wherever those here to there are.

And you practice it. But from from sales in business development, hiring, being in community, EOS, the summation of all of those things, if you could go back to day one, Jim, the CEO, and and give yourself advice. What would that one word of advice be that you think would probably shorten your journey even more and help you go grow faster?

when it was just me three years ago, three and a half years ago, it would have been a lot easier just to say, Let me go find five clients in this whatever business. I honestly don't care um what niche you're in. I think it has

I I this this is probably someone's gonna tell me I'm wrong here, but I actually don't think it has anything to do what what you're passionate about. I don't think it has anything to do what what like what pull like pulls your heartstrings. Like just go find people um in an industry that you know can pay you um have significant margin and have

Problems that you can solve. And if you're just trying to scale a business, this is a really great place to start because when people can pay you and you can solve their problems, you have like a pretty decent chance of starting a successful business.

service service providers. Um, and uh how did we get there? I'll tell you um i i again it was just like where I started. Uh you know, it it maybe it's where I live in in suburbia. There's a lot of contractors, general contractors and You know, you do good work for one person. I this is actually how our business got started. Uh a local um mill workshop, still client today. Um they, you know, kinda talked me into helping them.

Um, and I did. And then that kind of grew and grew and grew. And that was one of our first clients. And then all of a sudden, you know, landscaper down the street heard that we were helping that mill workshop. And then all of a sudden, one of that mill workshop's customers who built custom homes Heard that we do this and they

signed us on. And it is just one of those things that kind of kept compounding. So that's that's really how it helped us. And I'll tell you, um, I heard early on, I forg I mean it's literally been years since I've heard this, but, you know, solve hair on fire problems. Um, this is a hair on fire problem. Like I have got to solve this freaking problem or s nothing else matters, right? And for us in the contracting space, construction

Cash flow, I don't care who I talk to, cash flow is constantly a challenge, even for profitable companies. Um, so I knew that okay, this is a complex problem that I have personally solved as a CFO. I've done it many, many times.

Um I knew exactly how to solve this problem and that was a great starting Um, so you know, we've kind of just continued that trend and uh again, niching down now, it's still becoming more and more ch it's it's still challenging, but it's very simple because it actually makes the language the messaging, the uh we were talking today in a in an internal meeting. Even now we have uh as of April 1st we'll have five CFOs. That will be the the teaching element to make sure our team is equipped.

To be able to speak the same way, solve the same problems, come to the table with the same solutions. And now that level has become even more heightened. We have to be consistent there. It's not even just a marketing thing. So I will tell you, it just makes life easier. Unless you like complex uh lifestyle where everything is constantly changing, then don't niche. But um if you like simplicity, niche.

efficient and effective, like you're able to get clients up to speed faster because you have a smaller toolbox of things that you need to kind of pull from and apply. It is easy mode. It's easy mode for business in What would you say though to the people that I think it's a valid concern, but what would you say to the people, Jim, that are like, I'm worried that if I niche down, it's gonna limit my market too much and and I may not be able to get enough clients to build a business around it?

But, you know, s a great referral partner came to us and said, Hey, would you work with X company? And in this case it happened to be a large retailer locally to us. Very, very large. Um They met from a psychographic and demographic every single checkbox for us, except industry.

We made an exception. It was it and they're a great client. And we were able to s fulfill it, right? There there may have been an instance where we couldn't, meaning the industry was just so specific or outside our wheelhouse we had to let we just had to let it walk. In this case it was tan tangential enough. to where we could still fulfill um and do a great job. But I would say don't so if those opportunities come to you, great.

Start n somewhere, right? Start somewhere and even if it takes a year or two to really materialize to where you get confident, but start with your outward facing y marketing, business development. I sat with a um uh gosh, well he was in financing uh um he was like a uh aftermarket financer strategic partner I was sitting with uh a couple of weeks ago.

And he actually asked me like, you know, he works with thousands of clients, blah blah blah. Who who who can I who can he refer me to? I was just construction and trades. But Jim, I have thousands of clients. I don't care. Can you give me one? Actually one would be better than ten. Um, can you give me one referral right now? And this size and this oh well,'cause what it did was it took and he I believe him, he had a thousand clients, right?

And if I had a thousand clients, there's not a shot if you just said, you know, I work with business owners. Um, which one should I give you first? Let me think about it. But if you said, No, I only business owners who are wearing a black shirt that says backbone CFO on it, well

I mean there's only one of those. Oh Jim, yeah, let me let me tell you to b tell you about Jim. That makes it a lot easier. And most people I think listening to this underestimate the fact that they only need probably like three to five leads a month, maybe less. And you know, and if they're quality leads, your business is gonna freaking take

Of all experience levels. It's super collaborative and super supportive. I also go live on Zoom every month and share the latest lessons, insights, and best practices that I've learned over the last nine years of running my own fractional CFO firm. KFE solutions. Just click the link below to try the inner circle 100% risk free for 30 days.

I hope to see you inside. Gosh, one one sale a month, twelve new clients a year. Like that's that's ridiculous. I mean you've got a a multimillion dollar firm in in no time, especially if you're you're serving them well. Uh can you walk us through what is your niche? If if somebody on the street I mean s clearly construction and

uh trades, but is there anything beyond that that that you look for that you would consider as part of your niche or your ideal client avatar, I ideal client profile? There's all the acronyms out there. How would you def describe an ideal client for Backbone?

Um, which is a pretty blanket statement when you really uncover what is contracting mean, it can mean a lot. But basically, you know, we're looking to work with complex businesses who have inventory work in process um or some type of balance sheet movement where they're like, you know, cash flow is not

Not simple. But beyond that, we're trying to work with clients above five million in sales, typically under a hundred million. I think our largest client this year will probably be in that eighty million dollar ball b ballpark. Um, I would say we were probably falling somewhere in the 10 to 15 million on average. Um, we work with profitable companies. I actually don't mind saying that. Uh, we're not a turnaround specialist.

Um, you know, I had bankers early on like try to give me like these crazy scenarios for me to and I'm like, well, how am I getting paid here? Um like no, I not to say we need to work with very profitable companies, but we work with generally profitable companies. And we're trying to help them

um get become more profit cash flow positive. So that's really the demographic. Uh, but then the psychographic I would say is equally, if not more important, which is why we brought on the exception that I was talking about. And that is We are generally looking not generally, we are always looking to work with folks that are teachable and humble um and have a growth mindset. Meaning uh you could be a ten million dollar contractor

right down the street with fifty employees, has work in process, complicated business, but doesn't want to grow. It doesn't work. Uh and I would I you know, I would be the first to admit there's no reason to s pay us eighty to ninety thousand dollars a year Um if you don't have an ROI attached to that. Meaning if there's no dollars and cents that, you know, the love language of business is money. Let's face it.

Right. It just is. Anyone that tells you anything different is flat out lying or incompetent. So if you can't connect your value back to how you're gonna help your client have more money, like let's make it real simple. Do they have more money? Yes or no? And if they don't, um, that's a really hard value proposition to continue to service them. So for us, like there has to be a growth incentive.

Um, and more and more we're actually finding that uh we like working with clients who have an exit plan. Like they have a date, a number in mind. Um, why? Because of exactly what I just said. It's much easier pill to swallow to say, we're gonna pay back three you know, three hundred thousand dollars for the next three years, roughly, right? I'm rounding up. But we know that we're a$30 million company with an EBITOP 10%, and we have a multiple of four in our industry. So if they can even help us.

you know, a a half a point, the three hundred grand doesn't it is a no brainer, right? Or maybe it's not even that. It just expedites the process. Or it helps us, you know, with our quality of earnings. We don't we have less other advisory expenses. So You know, there's there's gotta be a connection to value. And when I say value, I'm not saying that like pie in the sky value. I mean dollars and cents in the bank.

Because A, it's a it's a person's life that you're you're actually failing, right? So as the leader, when I select somebody to say, hey, come work for Backbone CFO, and it doesn't work out. whether it's my fault or on my on us or on them, it doesn't matter. Like you really are impacting somebody's life. And I always look at the people component of it and it it I hate that. You know, as a leader there's a significant gravity and weight.

on hiring, right? So every time we say yes to that, like there's a a significant amount of domino effects of consequences that are gonna result to that. When it's great, it's great. When it's not, it's terrible. And there's doesn't seem to be a whole lot of middle ground there. Um, so I would say hiring the right people. And then the second one that's kind of bit us in the ass if I'm being quite honest.

is not hiring fast enough. Um, and the reason that hurts, it does two things to your organization when you do have a decent pipeline. One, you're overworking your people. Um we this really hurt us in Q three and Q four of twenty twenty four, this past year. Uh we had a just we were landing deals and we had a consistent flow in the pipeline and we kept hiring well, two things. One, we were hiring behind uh behind closing deals.

In other words, we were waiting for deals to close, build up a queue, and then hiring, and then boom, we brought somebody on. It's like, congratulations, you got hired. Here's six clients. And it's like, I don't care how good you are.

And how experienced you are. That's a tough it's a tough um it's a tough endeavor. And uh and we faced the results of that uh a little bit this past year. And then the second thing is um You know, obviously when you when you do that, it selling becomes difficult, right?

You're about to close a deal and they're like, All right, we can start in two weeks, right? And I'm like, Yeah, we can start in two weeks for sure. Um, you know, and then I'm immediately hanging up and calling my business partner, Hey, when is that person starting? What's their start date? Can we start'em earlier?

Um, and that's not a great feeling. So it hurts selling, you know, with confidence and then it hurts the person really because they don't get a fair shot at onboarding with your processes and procedures and training and everything else. So

But what about three to six months from now? How am I deploying our resources? Um, do I really and that goes back to kind of hiring and our listen in our business, we don't have to go buy machinery or equipment. We don't have inventory. Um, our capital is really deployed in terms of growth.

Um, in one of two ways, continually business development and marketing or hiring or both. Um And you know, there's operational expenses, but let's face it, uh um, by and large, the software and stuff we buy, you know, pay for uh you know, Microsoft three sixty five or Google like

It's not that expensive. But where we do have a significant responsibility is planning our resources to hire and market and be out there in business development. For us, that got expensive this past year. Um, you know, very expensive. We're looking at myself, you know, I don't Certainly I'm in the six figure range in terms of how I'm deploying capital to be in various groups and environments and being around other CEOs, you know, which is great results.

But it's not it's not small dollars now and travel and everything else. So, you know, I would say that's definitely bit me in the butt. Um In the past for sure.

And this is I'm proud to say this and equally sc scared to say this. Um that person will have either one but maybe no clients when that person starts. We knew it was the right thing because we wanted to get out of this trap and this uh this terrible cycle of you on board t Monday and Tuesday we're dropping you two clients and Wednesday there's two more. Like we just wanted to get so far away from that. Um

But I would say, you know, continuously making, we made it a lot last year. Sometimes we try to hire ahead of capacity. People we hired didn't work out. Um, and as a again, as a leader, especially I'm a I'm a people person. Um so I feel like that's a reflection on me, right? As as the the CEO of this company. You know, certainly there's a lot of contributing factors, but like the fish stinks from the head.

Um and the truth is that's been my fault, my burden to bear um to to bear. And uh the downstream effects of that have been tr you know, the I hired a recruiter last uh was it Q one last year? last first and last time that all happened. Um I I truly felt like I went to the bank, took out twenty five thousand dollars in cash, went into my backyard and lit it on fire. Um I mean I still like there's a lot of mistakes I can get over. That one hurt so

so bad. It's the tuition, I guess, of being an entrepreneur, but like some of this stuff, dude, you can't get it back, right? I mean it's it's uh it's behind us, but it like there's some mistakes that uh it might take me a little while to to get past.

Um, and looking back, it was an absolutely terrible decision. Probably put the recruiter in a bad position, to be honest. And I I say that not that the recruiter was bad or did anything wrong, but I think in our business. And maybe this is me classically saying like our business is so unique, but like most of actually our entire team. No, we just hired our first uh

a CFO who came as a he worked for another fractional CFO firm. So that's that's not true. So four out of the five of us have never been a fractional CFO before we became a fractional CFO at Background CFO, myself included. So what does that mean? Well It's it's difficult if you're just gonna go be another CFO for the manufacturing company like I was. Well, I could probably easily replicate what I did in that environment into many others.

But what we do here I think is so unique to even translate it to a recruiter so they have the context and the perspective of what they're looking for in betting. It's very difficult. Um and it pains me that I made the decision to think that Um, that was the right move, but uh it wasn't and I won't be doing that.

He wasn't like ready to jump in two weeks. Like he had a lot going on and he had a lot of uh financial upside to stick around for certain periods, right? And I want people like that. But I had to network with that guy literally for years, um, before I actually tried to convince him to come work for me in twenty twenty two and he flat out said no. Um that's cool. Like and now now he's saying yes. So it it just was the right season, but my point is now it's

Much more proactively being in front of people, communicating the vision of what I'm doing, what we're doing, and really getting people to buy in. And you never know when the right time's gonna be.

Let's talk about the biz dev pipeline. That's probably the biggest thing that the vast majority of our industry struggles with. It's not our fault. Nobody's we've never been in a role where we had to know how to do that before. And so now we're coming in. We need this brand new skill set. For somebody that's just getting started or maybe has been in business for a year or two and they haven't

got that full pipeline yet? What advice would you give to them on on where to start and and how to think about it?

And the value you're bringing is good enough and it will be. Um, and you're finding the right person and the right people you need to help, you don't need 25, 30, 40 people in your pipeline. You don't need social media spending. You don't need to go crazy content creation. Um, you just gotta be in the right place.

uh kind of rubbing elbows with the people that you serve. And it's not as hard as you think to come across those. Thank thank God. There's a lot of environments that are already created that you just have to show up to. Um, and you have to be a i in that mindset of help first, give first. And if you do those things, if you're there, if you're helping, you're giving. You'll that that will come back to you. Um, and that sounds really fluffy, and I hate fluffy things so much, but the truth is like

It's a lot in most people, like you said, don't come from a sales background. I did not. And for me to get out of my own um I get out of my own way, really, was just to say I do the hard things. I have this sign somewhere in in here, I don't know where it's at, but it's like, you know, work harder, nobody cares. Like get get out of your own way. Like no b your wife. And your kids don't give a shit if you don't like selling. They like eating and it costs money. So just go do it.

Now, don't wait till tomorrow. Um, you know, I I tell my team all the time, hungry dogs run fast. Get hungry. Um, it's good if you're not eating today, right? Because you're probably gonna be hungry tomorrow. Um, so you know, set it up that way to where you need to you need to run fast. Get in those environments where you know your business owners are. And I'll tell you just what's worked for me, uh, in in what we do. Um, like I said, I spend

a lot of time, effort, energy, and resources at this point in being in things like this stage, C twelve, entrepreneurs organization. I'm constantly Um, my my assistant's staring at me right now like with my our schedule, like it's wild. I'm constantly somewhere. I don't know that it's gonna be replicatable to be s you know, three, four, five million in sales, but It'll get you to a million. Easy, easy. Pick one of'em. You're a you're in a million dollar company.

I wanna say eight or nine guys right now. An EOS implementer, a wealth advisor, a tax uh firm. We have a marketing agency, a health insurance broker, um, a couple other brokers of things, right? Brokers of things that know people. Um and they are they have my very similar ICA were we're in many cases exact.

Um we meet once a week for uh 30 minutes and we literally round Robin referrals to say, Hey, what meetings were you in last week where your current client shared a pain point? Because I guarantee if they're any good. There's probably an issue in marketing, sales, finance, insurance, right? Like every business. And if you have seven people in your little circle that I'm sure there's someone that can help them. And just go create that. Like go just start it. Find people, rally them, pull'em in.

Don't charge anything. Don't there's no like we buy each other lunch every six weeks we meet in person. Just go start that. You know, we've gotten a bunch of leads from doing stuff like that. That's a great starting point. It costs nothing other than your time.

actually through an EOS implementer who is now our EO uh EOS implementer um had just reached out to me on LinkedIn and said, hey, would you be interested? I mean it was really that simple um to be quite frank with you. Uh because why does it have to be complicated? Um sure. Can I show up on a Zoom call to potentially get referrals every m Friday at eight AM? Yes, I can do that. And if it doesn't work, guess what? I didn't pay anything and I just don't show up the next week. So like

You know, uh now I think you need to go into that with a give first, help first mentality, and that's a whole nother conversation, but just start. Just do that. Find four people. Why not?

the process by which our team follows the quality control is ensuring that the process is being followed. And I would say, you know, once you get once you have osmosis and you break off and you're now two people, right? So that's start that's when it starts.

At that point, you have got to figure out a way to have quality control on your process. And it's not it I can tell you it becomes pretty challenging with where we're at. Uh, you know, there's there's there's a few of us now. Um So we have uh as of today three full time CFOs, myself, and we have two subcontract CFOs. So, you know, there's uh I mean I don't have clients anymore, but the four of them, whatever that number is, do. And then we have another one starting uh April first.

It's a lot I mean, it's a lot of meetings, it's a lot of advice, it's a lot of reporting, it's a lot of time. Um, and I'm constantly talking with my um my business partner about how does how do we set this up?

So that we have the time, energy, effort, resources, systems in place to make sure that we're not just micromanaging people. At the end of the day, we're actually trying to help our team succeed. Because if we do that, they help their clients succeed. So it's actually a trickle effect, downward effect. Um and I would spend a lot more time doing that. Um it's now just percolating to the top, you know, and and I think I would spend a lot more time doing that. Uh what I would spend a lot of.

that are specific to the construction industry, which is our niche as well. But that's kind of like our standard way of doing it. Now on the quality control side, it like how do we make sure that those standards are being used? And how do we make sure that the, you know, the client is getting a consistent product and that if we had to swap out CFOs, that the replacement CFO would do something that looks

a whole lot like what the other CFO was doing. And so we've actually mandated that everybody in the company now reviews at least one CFO call per week. And we've come up with a checklist of things that because we have an agenda for our call. I talk a lot about the agenda and the flow. And so we have an agenda that or a checklist that looks a lot like the agenda where we're asking very black and white questions.

Did the CFO do this? Did the CFO ask this? Did the CFO set the agenda at the beginning of the call? If they did, did they generally fall that follow that agenda? And so we have it processed out.

And we structured it in such a way that even my executive assistant who knows nothing about CFO work can watch the a a CFO call to make sure that the product was the the process was followed in the product is something that if you just factor out their perspectives, the CFO's perspectives, is it a consistent product?

And that's kind of been our first draft with it. And that's been going really well. We've we've reviewed uh dozens and dozens of calls over the last thirty days or so. But then to take it to the next level. Flying the entire team in here in two weeks. And we've actually put together a slide deck template where each CFO is gonna get in front of the whole company.

and do presentations on each of their clients and there's a whole agenda that they're gonna follow through that again takes that level of accountability to make sure that they're doing the right things.

They're asking the right questions, they have the right strategies in place, and to let the whole team poke holes in what they're doing with the clients. And uh, I was actually on the phone with our CO yesterday and he was like, I think this is gonna make people feel a little bit awkward, and I'm like, that's

That's fine by me. What I want is a better product for our clients. I want our clients to have the best possible product that our team can provide them. And so that's kind of what we're working on right now to help with that. standardization and then quality assurance. Cause I think you're right. Like you get to a point where you've got half a dozen or more CFOs. You want to make sure that it's not just all willy-nilly and you know wild, wild west, everybody doing their own

And we give some examples. Now that's the meat of it though, right? Like that is not one sixteenth of the score. That actually is like the entire score. And when you kind of sum it all up, that's where I said earlier, like And we actually went through this in our L10 yesterday. Can you can you look me in the eye, you the CFO and I'm the client and tell me that you've helped me make more money?

And for us as CFOs, we have to not only recognize it, but also be one hundred percent okay with it because it's the right thing. And for us to actually stand behind our service, I wanna make sure that we can It be asked that question and emphatically answer yes. So we're actually doing something this week where we're going client by client and identifying how we're helping them make more money. Very simple. So

Um, and I don't know that Jim spending five days a week one day per group or something like that is gonna equal five five X growth, if that makes sense. Like I think there's probably something

where I sense a different season of business development coming, um, a different method, a different mode. And uh and I would say I would if I was a new CEO walking into the exact pipeline we have, the exact client bench to the exact CFO team we have, I would look hard at probably doing uh getting more creative on on business development.

Um, and I think that really i I think it's starting to get sussed out. I think clients today, prospects today are much more educated about what to expect from a f a fractional CFO versus let's say three years ago. But I would say we still have a lot of work to do as an industry to say if we're gonna call ourselves fractional CFOs

And we're gonna work with clients. And the clients could be all different shapes and sizes in industries. So like, you know, that doesn't matter. Um, but the result of working with fractional CFOs should yield or will yield. something and to me that really is growth. I think for us we're talking privately held businesses by and large. Um

uh small businesses uh you know and and I think for us these are entrepreneurial led businesses and I think we have to help them grow. I think that really is the standard and and how do we uh as an industry how do we make sure that that is is the standard um that we're setting.