In this episode of the CFO project podcast, we answer your questions around why business owners hire CFOs.

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Welcome to the CFO project podcast. Today, we're talking all about why business owners will hire CFO in the first place. To help me with the discussion, I've invited a fellow member of the CFO project, Jeremy Towler, to the show. Jeremy, welcome. Thank you. It's an honor to be here. And I'm super excited. Yeah, I'm excited too. I'm really excited because you recently posted we have a wins board in the CFO project.

You recently posted that you got a brand new client. Tell us about it. Yeah. So I kind of had a situation where I, had 2 or 3 people come in, so to speak, ask a lot of questions. And so ended up closing, both the two out of the three. So super excited. I focus more in the trades area.

So both of them were tradesmen. Hvac company. And so. Okay, I'm excited to kind of expand into that. And then a plumbing company. So awesome. That's really cool. Well, congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. So, I think, I think this is gonna be a great episode. So let's dive in. What's our first question? Robert wants to know.

I'm curious, what thought process does a business owner go through when deciding to hire a CFO? That is a good question, Robert. Jeremy, what? What are your thoughts? What's the thought? What what do business owners when when they're being pitched to CFO service. When they when they when they hear about a CFO service. What what do they what goes through their mind?

I think the first thing that goes to their mind is what is a CFO service? So a lot of times I find that that's that's my biggest question. So I usually try to break it down to just say that we are, you know, business advisors that come in and just try to make sense of the numbers, you know, and I use all the time people, launch businesses not because they are good at launching businesses or owning a business just because they're good at their craft.

So I try to come in and help them understand the numbers and make it make sense. So I think once we can take it, the numbers and break it down just to be simple and make sense and not be this scary big thing in their head, then they can wrap their mind around the CFO service. Basically, I tell them I'm just going to be a coach.

I want to look at, what the numbers are doing because they tell a story, and then I want to make it make sense and connect it to your business, like what's actually happening or this, this KPI or this thing that's happening in your business that you say is an issue. Why does it connect with, you know, and real world?

Like what does that mean with sales? What does that mean with, you know, the amount of leads that we're getting per month and then just try to make it make sense to them. And I think once we take it from this big scary monster and we wrap it around it, and this is just going to be a conversation every month and a relationship where I can walk away feeling good and better about my business.

Then I think that that helps their mind wrap around what a CFO, service really is. Yeah. No, I totally agree with you. I love how you said a couple times you said what it means. Like, you help the business owner understand what it means because we all have to remember that business owners. And in your case, you just landed a plumber.

Somebody underlying business, somebody else's Hvac business. I'm willing to bet that they got it into that business because they were an expert, either plumbing or heating and air. Exactly. They didn't get into it because they graduated from some fancy college with an MBA. All right. What could I do to make money? I'm going to start a plumbing business.

I'm going to start Hvac because most people don't start businesses that way. I start a business because I understand their craft of the business. And so they end up with a big business. Sometimes, like in your case, these your clients ended up with a substantial business where they need help. Some they need our help. Somebody like a CFO to help them.

But we have to remember that these are people. These are business owners again that understand their craft. They don't understand numbers yet. They want to understand what's going on in their business. They do. They just don't want to be an accountant. And and when accountants and bookkeepers give them data, the pals, the, you know, the, the, the balance sheets, all these apps that hook up to QuickBooks, the you know, all this data, this information, they don't really want to look at it in my opinion.

They want you to tell them what it means for them. So I love how you said that. You you know, you you tell them what it means because that's that's so important. The business owner doesn't want to be an accounting. It's just like when I go to I'm not a car person. I'm not a mechanic. When I go to the mechanic, the car place to get my car looked at, I know something's wrong because the dashboard is telling me something's wrong.

I don't know what the mechanic to sit there for an hour trying to make me a mechanic and go through all the parts, I don't care, just tell me what is wrong and tell me the solution so I could fix it. I mean, it's just as simple as that. I, I think also to Robert's question that business owners don't want necessarily to hire a CFO, they just want the end result of a CFO.

And in other words, a CFO, when done right, is somebody that helps a business owner understand what's going right and what's going wrong and just give them corrective actions, tell them what to do so business owners aren't waking up at night thinking, oh man, I'm going to hire. I think I should have a CFO today. I don't think that's what that's going through their mind.

I think they're thinking something's wrong with my business, or should have hired this person yesterday that, you know, with this large salary, or can I afford to buy a truck or, you know, do I need, you know, should I raise my prices of so to what? I would love to have somebody to talk to about this kind of stuff.

And there's really not that many people in the business owners lives that they can talk to because their accountant, the person they should be talking to, is busy being an accountant, recording the past, keeping the books and it. If we as the accountant or bookkeeper in their lives can help them answer those questions, then I think they would be more willing to pay us for this service.

And then later when we start to sell them on the service, then we could say, oh, well, it's the CFO service, you know what I mean? Like like we're it's like we're putting the cart before the horse. Does that make sense? And you agree. What do you thought? What are your thoughts? I completely agree, and I think it's got to be something that they want to talk to us.

We have to make it fun and engaging and and also add value always. But it can't be all about the numbers. It can't be a boring conversation. Oh my God, they're not going to want to to connect with us each month and we're not going to have them very long. So I think like helping them, you know, and, you know, diagnose I guess, or figure out the things that's keeping them up and what's going wrong.

And just like you said, giving them like this is the solution. That's just the one clear path of how to get to get this fixed. It's golden, but we have to do it in a fun way. It's got to be it's got to be a conversation, right? I mean, we all people listening to this podcast or watching this podcast, we like numbers probably be I mean, right where else?

Why else would you listen to a podcast on CFO or accounting or whatnot? We we are numbers people, but we are a very small minority. We have to remember this. We are a small, very unique group of people as compared to the billions of people on earth. Most of them are not numbers people. The last thing they want to do is spend any more time than they have to.

Talking to somebody about numbers, just like most people don't want to spend any more time than they have to going to the dentist. It's just something you, you know, they just don't look forward to. But if we, like you said, if we can make it engaging and fun and and easy to understand and we could put it in language that they get, then it it is a game changer, the game changer.

And people love talking about themselves and their business because Ahmeds there. It's it's their baby. Totally. It's it's what they love. They know their it's their pride and joy. And they are confident in that area. They're not confident in financial. So they don't wanna have a conversation about something they're not confident in. I mean, they just don't. 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. Excellent. All right, so what's our next question? Katrina wants to know as a bookkeeper, my clients are asking me questions that I know I should be charging for in something like a CFO service.

How do I convince them they need a CFO and more importantly, to pay more for it? That it's a good question because I do a lot of accounting. So bookkeepers that are giving away advisory services for free. So what what's your thoughts? Jeremy. Yeah. So my thoughts and some of this might be personality. I'm just a pretty straightforward person.

So I usually have the conversation, you know I just have the conversation. So so when they're asking me a I'm like hey Mr. Client, that's an awesome question. But that's kind of dipping into strategy. And right now, you know, our agreement as I record the past, we have conversation about the past. Just like you. I'm a business owner too.

So if I am giving this to you for a lower amount and charging more for, you know, other clients, that's not fair. And I know you like to be fair to your clients. So so I would love to have that conversation with you. I'd love to to talk strategy and be able to solution this for you. And I can do that.

But we're going to have to, you know, kind of change our agreement a little bit and just kind of go from there. I think when you do it with, being nice and kind and you break it down to understand, like, you own a business, too. And this isn't fair because business owners want to be fair to their customers.

Then usually it's a pretty good conversation. I've I've had pretty good success with that. But, you know, in the past, they usually understand no one's got mad at me, but I think it's just really being bold enough to have that conversation. So I would love to solution this for you when you pay me. I love that. I love how you position that, because I think there's a couple things going on here.

One, you're making it. You're you're showing them that, hey, this is a service they may not even know about. This is something else that you offer and you can even go into it. It's like, hey, that's a great question. I would you know, that's questions like, that is what I answer every day with clients that are that my CFO advisory clients.

And it's not even questions like that. It's, it's we dive deeper to find out even the the root causes as to why these problems are issues and are happening. And so I love doing stuff like that. But, you know, like you said, Jeremy, you know, we're I'm doing your books or I'm doing your taxes. And that's what this is for.

So would you, would you be open to us having a conversation about what it would look like for me to be your CFO or advisor? I mean, I think in some cases it, you know, you want to keep your clients happy. And I think depending on the question itself, you could probably give a taste of like help them give a surface level answer, like give them a taste of what it would look like to for you to be their CFO, but then say, look, these types of conversations are really what I'm passionate about, and I would love for you to be a client of mine, a CFO advisory client of mine.

So let me, you know, let's have that conversation and then then you can go down that path. So I completely agree with you, Jeremy. I think the other thing that people like, you know, Katrina, I don't really know the background here, but the idea is that I think a lot of accountants and bookkeepers are giving away advice because for free, because they're not confident that the advice is a value.

I know this sounds crazy, but I think they're thinking, well, you know, I'm not really sure if the advice I'm giving is all that good. So I there's no way I can charge for it. And I think there's this imposter syndrome thing maybe going on. I think there's this confidence thing that I'm not really sure. I mean, I'm, you know, a lot of accountants think I'm.

I'm just a numbers person. I don't know anything about running a business. And I think they discount the fact that that you know more than you think you do and that the accounting is the language of business that most people just don't speak. And if you can understand the drivers of of number of accounting, the drivers of a business through accounting, you know, way more than you think you do.

And I think you shouldn't discount that when you're like, yeah, exactly. It's having the the confidence to kind of sometimes that you start crystal ball, present the crystal ball because this, you know, this is life changing. This is, you know, kind of coming in and getting to monitor and the 16 drivers and every month and kind of have those conversations.

This is and and it can take somebody from in their life from being stressed out which affects their marriage. And it affects the way that they, you know, interact with people and their kids too, like just feeling better. And so I think us as you know, you know, numbers, people, numbers, nerds who understand it's kind of almost their duty, you know, so to speak, to kind of come in and help them see that.

And, and I would agree. You said kind of give them a taste. I think when we give them a taste and we take their numbers and give them, you know, a free financial assessment or even just solution a little bit in the call to help them see that this is what you're getting. I think that builds the confidence.

And, and the question to ask, how do you convince them? I don't really think you're convincing them. You're showing them, and you're giving them that confidence. So it makes the sell a little bit easier or makes them writing the check a little bit easier just for them. I didn't even pick up on that. You're right. How do I convince them?

We shouldn't have to convince anybody of anything. They shouldn't. They should. This service should be sold very easily, much like if somebody's been in the desert for 100 days. You don't have to sell them on a bottle of water. We don't know they want it. They they just need it. It needs to be positioned in a certain way to get them to buy it.

So. Excellent. Hey there, Adam Lane 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 3:00 pm eastern and 12:00 pm Pacific. Go to the CFO project. Com and click on Free trainings to register. All right. What's our next question? Julie wants to know, is there a certain type of business owner that is more likely to hire me as their CFO advisor than another type? I personally think I think, yes.

But Jeremy, you started off what are your thoughts? Yeah, I think yes as well. At one I will one I want to say I think all business owners need this, but yes, I would say, I would say the ones who are struggling to figure out what's going wrong with their business or, or or just struggling to, to grow it, you know, there's there's ceilings in businesses.

Sometimes we can hit a ceiling and not. No, not, you know, break that ceiling and just think somebody come in with fresh perspective and new ideas to help you, you know, kind of show that ceiling so you can move on. That's where we come in. So I think it's those type of, you know, business owners who are just kind of in that that moment where like, something's wrong and I don't know what's happening, you know, or those who I just can't I can't break the, the million dollar mark.

Like, like help me strategize this. So I think those are the ones that that benefit the most from us in our service. Yeah, I totally agree. There's some sort of pain there and they can't really put their finger on it, but they know something. They're they're they're overwhelmed and they're insecure with their ability to run a successful business.

And there's just something going on that they would like to solve. And they don't really know what that is, is even is. And I think those are type the types of business owners that would hire us more. I also think that that business owners that are more an expert at what they do, rather than a business owner being an expert, a business owner about Harris, more like in your case, the heating and air and plumbing.

I've I've had several, I would say probably of all the clients I've ever had, half were in the trades business. And I don't think that's a coincidence. I think it's because they are service based businesses. Most service based businesses are started by service based experts, everything from an architect starting an architecture firm to a to a hairstylist starting a hair salon to a chef starting a restaurant to plumbers starting a business.

These are people that are experts in a field, and all of a sudden they because they're good at what they do, their business gets large because a lot of business struggle with sales. But when you're good at what you do and you're competent and you start a plumbing company and you're art, you have a lab, you know, you have some tools, you have a van, you put a website up and you start getting calls, and you go out there because you're good at what you do and because you're you're the owner of the business and you start selling, you get traction.

And then after a couple years, you start hiring at, tech on your team and maybe an office person and then more tax. And then all of a sudden, five years later, you have five vans on the road. You have, you know, 20 technicians and, office team. But you, the business owners in this mindset of, I'm a plumber, I happen to own a business, but this is what I know.

And all of a sudden all, you know, they're getting these letters from the IRS and the their cash flow is tight and they're, you know, they're you're struggling to meet payroll. And, you know, they have all these bills coming due and they know they need they need to get more sales. And they don't know how to go about doing that.

Exactly. And all these things that the business owners are not not understanding, but they can't really put their finger on it. And they're not the last thing they think about is, oh, I should get a CFO because that's the person that will solve this problem. It it's just they're just overwhelmed. They're confused. And I think those are ripe for hiring somebody like us.

And a lot of times and I feel in my personal training they kind of it's a snowball. So, so they they put their head down and they go do what they're good at. So they go do more plumbing or they go do more dentist work. All the while, they're creating more problems for themselves because they're making the monster bigger.

So they truly need us at that point, that totally. But that's what we do when we have a skill and we we feel like something's not right. We we go work or skill. So. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, Jeremy, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on the show with us today. Yeah, it's been great. It's an honor and I've had a blast chatting with you.

Yes, absolutely. Everyone listening or watching. Thank you so much for spending the last few minutes with us here on the CFO project podcast. If you haven't already, sign up for our five minute weekly email where every Wednesday we send practical tips for accountants and bookkeepers to escape the accountants trap. Go to the CFO project.com/newsletter. See you next time on the CFO project podcast.