In this episode of the CFO project podcast, we discuss whether or not you should add CFO advisory services to your bookkeeping or tax practice.

Thanks, Adam. It's so great to be here.

Yeah, absolutely. So, as you mentioned, I founded cloud nine financial. A few years back. I actually come from corporate America. I have a 20 plus year career in various areas, of, of practice, ranging from engineering to account management to sales to director to now to, bookkeeping and firm owner of C and CFO service and a few years ago, I decided to leave corporate.

Kind of got sick of the grind. It's sort of the, the, the, the thing that a lot of people, I think went through during Covid was re evaluating their lives and trying to figure out what makes what makes me get up in the morning, what where can I, you know, have an impact on the community, on the world, someplace different.

Right. And so as I was, I took a year off to actually reflect on that. And while I was doing that, I was, you know, learning new things. I'm kind of a learner of of life in general. And so I was taking classes, I was doing learning about the stock market. I was doing some day trading. I was learning about crypto technology because that stuff fascinates me.

And, you know, eventually, after a year that the money ran out. So I knew I'm like, okay, now it's time to figure out what what it is that I want to build. And I knew I wanted to own my own practice. I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I didn't know exactly what that would look like.

So fast forward. After researching a lot of different, opportunities, let's call them. Right. I fell into accounting, and I thought, you know, I'm an engineer. I love to solve problems. I'm a numbers person. I actually have really, like, good people skills. I love to be in front of clients. And so I. I dug in and I went through some, some massive training for myself in fat, in fast speed writing, in quantum speed, and started my bookkeeping practice, after getting, after gaining, you know, my first couple clients, I realized that small business owners are really the basis of our country, number one.

And they are the, they're the businesses that struggle the most, right? Because they are they have a lack of resources. Right? They don't have as much capital money. Right, to invest in their business as they're growing. And so when I started to work with my bookkeeping clients and meeting them on a regular basis and talking to them, I realized pretty quickly that a lot of them really didn't understand finances.

They really didn't understand what drove their businesses or what to look at or to track. And so I saw a great opportunity here, right, to serve my client base in a, in a much more impactful way. And so, I had originally looked at the CFO project probably about five months into my practice, just because I was curious about it.

I had seen you guys on another podcast, and I met with you and I learned about it, and I go, I think I want to do this, but I'm not ready yet. So I tabled it, put it on the backburner, kept building my skills, and about six months later, I decided that it was time. And so I, that that's really the reason behind it is that I felt like there was a huge need for small business owners, who couldn't necessarily afford to hire somebody full time.

And so being a fractional for them and splitting my time amongst, many clients, I could have more impact on a lot of businesses.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

100%.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, I, I was thinking about this the other day, right? And, in the corporate world, you know, I was I was selling intellectual property. I was selling data subscriptions, services to the biggest global tech firms in the world. And when I think about what impact I made on those big firms, it really it really didn't feel like I was helping any individual person get get, move forward in the world.

Right. And when I was kind of, you know, reflecting and figuring out what I wanted to do, the I guess the impact maybe it was selfish of me. Right? And like, how can I make an impact on them? But the impact is really hadn't, you know, like, how can we help everybody? Right? We're all in this together.

And I forgot your question. Now let's, let's let's pause on that. Right.

Got it. Right. Yeah.

I get. Yes, yes, we're all we're all indispensable in that situation, right? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Right, right.

Yeah.

It's a grind for sure.

No. That's right. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Of course.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And that's so impactful, right? I mean, being a business owner myself, right? I've been I've had other entrepreneurial ventures in my career as well. And you know, the you're doing all of the things, right. You're you're the CEO, you're the VP of sales. You got to come up with the marketing strategy. You're the IT manager, right?

How do you have time to learn all of those things? Well, at the beginning you have to,

right? You don't have necessarily the funds to invest in hiring people out of the gate. So you got to learn it. You got to figure it out. Right. And and so by, you know, how how I have found a way to not feel alone in my business, right.

Is communities one of those of course, being the CFO project. Right. I mean, I find, you know, great support from other other practices, other business owners that are doing the same thing as I'm doing. They're having the same struggles that I'm having. And, you know, it it feels good to kind of lift each other up and support. And I'm in other kind of communities and masterminds and things like that, you know, to to kind of broaden my, my reach and my scope of like what I can learn different things from all sorts of different communities.

And but other than that, you know, I don't think my partner wants to hear any more about finances and business running. Right? My kids, you know, they're too busy being in college and, you know, having fun playing baseball. So like, that's not a, you know, an avenue for me to get support. So it's so important, to not go in to this entrepreneurial journey alone.

And so that's what I feel like, you know, I'm partnering with my clients, right? I'm there with them in the ground. Right? I'm helping to alleviate the stress that they have on the day to day basis so that they can, you know, go do their craft, right. They can go grow, you know, grow their reach in their, you know, the rest of their business based on what the numbers are telling me to guide them with.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Everybody listening. If you haven't already, sign up for our five minute weekly email with practical tips for accountants and bookkeepers to escape the accountants trap. Go to the CFO project.com/newsletter.

Yeah. He.

Yeah. Great. Great question. So the first thing that went through my mind is how am I going to balance my bookkeeping clients and delivering services to them, you know, in, in a way that I feel, you know, proud of and excited to help them. And, you know, do it, do the right way, right, without sacrificing that, and start learning new things and start adding new, you know, avenues of growth for my business.

And so, you know, I guess the

first thing, even before I started with the CFO project, because I knew I wanted to get there, I actually hired, a contractor to start offloading my bookkeeping clients to. Right. And, and I say offloading in a in the nicest of ways. I needed help. Right. And so coming, in order to do that, you've got to create all your processes so that someone can just pick it up and move.

So, like, that was probably the biggest lift for me, was making sure that I had, you know, repeatable processes and steps that someone else could follow

in order to serve my clients in the way that I want them to be served. And so, it took a little bit to, you know, transition all of my clients over.

But I'm now finally, at a point where, I have the the best resource that you can ask for my, like, the girl that's working with me. It's been with me for for quite some time now, and I trust that she's going to do what she what she's doing, and it's going to be, you know, to my standards.

And so that was sort of the first step is how do I free up my time. Right. Because now I want to focus and I want to I want to help my clients and other clients, you know, other, you know, new clients that I'm bringing on, with more strategy with, with more higher level thinking, with, you know, and it's a different skill set, right?

And so my goal was that I want to be able to focus the majority of my time on sales and marketing to find new, you know, clients who needed me and to deliver that service, you know, in, you know, the, the most efficient and effective way possible, right? So, you know, with bookkeeping, you could spend anywhere from, you know, two hours a week to 30 hours a week on one client.

Right? Just getting the job done. But with CFO Advisory Services, I don't have to spend as much time because I'm. I'm doing the big picture. Right? The books are done. I take a look every month at their that they're numbers. I assess it, I analyze it, I meet with my client, we come up with an action plan.

We we focus in on what the one, 1 or 2 important things is. And I can spend, you know, 4 or 5, six hours a month with them and have a bigger impact. Right. And it's it's a higher ticket item. Right? It's a higher skill. I can charge more for my CFO services because that's that's the value I'm bringing and spend less time doing it.

Right. So that that was kind of really my process of of how I got to like, how am I going to do this?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I always, you know, when I, when I want a client first comes to me, they're buying me. Right. And so as I brought my, my contractor on, I, I always get, you know, let my clients know whether whether I'm delivering the services or I have a team member delivering the services is irrelevant because the quality of work that we're going to provide is cloud nine financial quality, right.

So it wasn't like my it's not like my contractor has the relationship business wise with my with my clients. She has the the the contract with me, I with the client, my client with my firm.

I do always.

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Yeah. Now, that doesn't mean I'm not doing anything. I can promise you. There's a lot of other things that still go on. Right? As a business owner, certainly. But, it definitely directs my time in a more effective way. To serve.

Hey there, Adam Levine with the CFO project podcast. Are you an employed accountant or bookkeeper that would like to start an advisory service on the side? Well, we have a free training for you called Side Hustle CFO, where we'll show you how to start a business on the side, offering CFO and advisory services to small business owners. We conduct this training every Friday at 3 p.m. eastern and 12 p.m. Pacific.

Go to the CFO project.com and click on Free trainings to register.

Yeah, thanks for asking that. Because, you know, we're right in the middle of planning season here at the end. It's end of 2024. So, you know, I, I see my business, and I always have, even from the beginning that I wanted to build something that was bigger than me. And so my, my goal is to build my business to a seven figure business, to bring on a team of people right?

To serve more small business owners. Right. I want to impact as many small business owners as I can. And you know, this isn't I'm not just out of college. I've only got a few years left before I kind of want to retire. So I want to fast track my business and and help as many as I can in the next 5 to 7 years.

So that's going to mean, you know, making sure I'm taking a look at my capacity. Right. Hiring at the right times, you know, can just effectively managing that to scale and grow my business, to have the right team members on board at the right times.

Yeah. I would say, you know, keep the opportunities open here. Bookkeeping. Is in a position in the world today where it it's it can become a commodity at some point. Right? I and technology is getting better and better and better. And not to say that there's not a skill in bookkeeping, but there's a lot of things in the bookkeeping space that can be replaced with technology.

And if you don't embrace the opportunities to expand your services and to grow into something that cannot be replaced by AI, then you're going to be left behind. And you may not find yourself in a in a growing situation. And so explore it. And whether it's CFO, advisory or business advisory or some other form that's going to, you know, bring more value to your clients with more of a human touch, you know, jump in, take that opportunity.

It's worth it.

That's right.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. 100. You're welcome. Thank you. Adam, it's been a pleasure.