287. The Fractional CFO Files: The Trusted Advisor with Adrian Message

0:00Welcome to CFO 4.0, the future of finance. The CFO role is changing rapidly, moving from cost controller to strategic visionary. And with every change comes opportunity. We are here to help you take advantage of this transition to win at work, drive your career forwards and lead with confidence. Join Hannah Munro, Managing Director of ITAS, a financial transformation consultancy, as she interviews key experts to give you real-world advice and guidance on how to transform your processes, people and data. Welcome to CFO 4.0, the future of finance.

0:49So hello everybody and welcome to this episode of CFO 4.0. I'm really excited to have with me Adrian Message who is one of the fractional CFOs at the CFO Centre, so part of our fractional CFO series. So welcome Adrian, so great to have you on the show. No thank you, delighted to be here. So just to get us started, tell us a little bit I guess about life before fractional CFO. Where did you start? How did you develop those skills that you use in your CFO role? That's a really good question. I think, to be totally honest, it's slightly random how I got to where I ended up as a fractional CFO. Did my accounting training and I didn't go quite according to plan, so I left that and then went and worked in the fitness industry.

1:39and then from there went into the insurance industry and then laterally into the hamper business. I think what's always attracted me is that it's about the product and do I understand it? Do I enjoy it? Can I sort of get an appreciation for it? And ultimately, can I help? So I guess the two key factors for me is being able to learn and to help. and I guess throughout my whole career, I've done quite a variety of things and quite a variety of things have happened in my career. It's one of those CVs you look at and it's not quite straightforward. It's not that perfect first-time passes. So I was kind of surprised when I got a phone call from the CFO center saying, would I consider them?

2:31Because I would have thought, totally out of my league. But what happened was, I think they looked at my seething and sort of the breadth of experience I've had, which has gone from, I guess, from small companies right up to PLCs and also across most functions, which for some inexplicable reason, I've ended up managing quite a different variety of functions. Don't know why, but that's the way it's ended up. And I'm going to be honest, I can understand that. I think it's a bit like the same with consulting. Actually, the more breadth of experience when you're in that fractional role, the more hats you have to wear.

3:09And so that's where that adds value. So what do you like about the fractional CFO piece? You know, do you feel like it's a typical CFO role? Do you feel like it's a different role? I think it's quite a different role in many ways. I mean, you sort of, I think my first day was, you go on the training courses and you get lots of really good training from CFO centers. So that's great. But what happens on the first day with the client? You sort of, you have your shiny new pencil case and you have your pad of paper with the client's name and you sort of get in the car and you think, I've been charged out this rate per day.

3:52what value am I going to bring here? So I went to my first client, sort of walked in through the door, met him in a local pub. And at that moment, I knew exactly what I needed to do. And it was a very simple question. It was, how are you? Four hours later, I understood exactly what my role was. And I guess it is that trusted advisor style of, I guess, style of help. But I think it's far more deeper than that. You become their confident, you become somebody they can turn to. And with your experience, you can very much support them in ways which, I guess it comes back to they're quite lonely and they don't know things.

4:53So you kind of sort of, you sort of meld yourself into what's required. I think that's sort of quite key to make sure that it's something you want to have or do. there's a real risk that you go somewhere and think, okay, I could be there for the day, which you can be, but you've got to just get emotionally involved with it. You've got to have that sense of I want to be here, not just intellectually or physically, but actually emotionally and actually sort of want to be part of their journey. And if you can do that, I think you build up a good relationship over time. and the the you know there's the phrase that the cfo is the right hand of the of the ceo or the the the owner do you feel like it's a different kind of relationship as a fractional cfo versus maybe a permanent cfo enroll i think it is a a different role because in some respects politics, you can be totally honest, you can be totally authentic in the role you are.

6:04In corporate roles, there's quite a lot of politics and you kind of have to just, I'm not saying you need to, but I think you have to sort of guard your language and you've got to protect your position. Whereas you're coming into something different, you're coming in as you, You're bringing your experience to them and you can give them the feedback, the insights, the support, which I think comes from a more authentic place. And I quite like that. It's more natural to me. In a boardroom, am I at my best in a corporate? Probably not because you're kind of trying to work out what's going on. There's so much sort of stuff going on.

6:52Whereas if it's one-to-one within a group, you're there, you are, it's, it's sort of, it's, it's the, you are having that impact that makes a kind of sense. Absolutely. And you, you obviously, um, you mentioned that you knew from the first conversation what your job was. I, have you found that every customer that you've worked with needs something slightly different? Is their ask of you as that fractional CFO different for each one, or is it the same piece but just with a different flavor? No, every client wants a different CFO. You can definitely see that in terms of they have their expectations, their understandings of your role.

7:40But also, it's the way you adapt to that situation and what you can give in those roles.

7:50Some clients will want you to contact them every day. Some will want just quite happy with the sort of your presence once a week. But you've just got to try and work out what is right for you, what makes sense for them as well. Because if you don't get that, I guess, that sort of equilibrium between the two of you, it's never going to work because they may want to be able to phone you every day. you go, oh no, hang on a second, I've got other clients. But I mean, let me give you an example. One client I went into, it was a really nice husband and wife business. You walk in there and you build your relationship.

8:34And my regional director left and we effectively started working together. And it's one of those sort of moments where you really work out what type of CFO you are, really what type of person you are really down deep inside. And as we're having this conversation, and it also sort of over the next couple of meetings with them, it dawned them that However good I was, they needed a miracle, and I couldn't give them that miracle. But where they were heading towards was going into administration, stroke, lactation. So it was quite clear, but you had to help them understand it. And that is where I think the emotional intelligence is so important.

9:24You've got people there who have spent a lot of money into the business, but it wasn't working. so my role was to take them into that legalized process to protect them as individuals so that was quite a lot of quite stressful in terms of getting them to believe in you but the other really interesting thing in this is that if you go down that process and you know what I knew in the back of your mind was that you're not going to get paid. So it's really interesting. And at this point, I think you work out what type of CFO am I, but also deeper, what sort of person am I? And I decided, well, I was going to get them into this process.

10:13So I recognized I wasn't going to get paid and went with it and spent a number of days helping them and speaking to some their creditors. But I think this comes back to your question is sort of, you've got to want to be there. You've got to work out what type of CFO are you going to be to that client? Because I'm sure some people will walk away and I can understand why, but I didn't. And was that quite early on in your engagement with them that you figured out that they were on that journey? Because that must have been an incredibly difficult conversation to have early doors. Yeah, it was quite early on, but you kind of, it's like, it was obvious, but even with humans' emotions here, and you need to start peeling the onion.

11:08You need to peel back the evidence. And also, I tried to get them funding, and when I heard the funders talking as well, it kind of supported what I was saying. Yes. So eventually it's almost as if you give a little bit of evidence, you certainly get to that proverbial tipping point, and then it moves into something else, and then they sort of kind of trust you. I don't think I'm ever going to be on their Christmas card list. I'm not, but I generally believe we did the right thing for them. and and obviously yeah it must have been in a challenging situation and very different i guess to that the other situation that you're talking about in terms of being that sort of that advisor let's just talk about i guess the different types of cfo that different you know businesses need what how is there a way that you would categorize that are there the types that you can think of in your brain and go, you know, a business needs that type of CFO or this type of CFO?

12:15Or is it more nuisance than that?

12:20I think it's more nuanced than that. I think certainly some companies require the experience the CFO has because actually they've got a specific problem to answer. Therefore, or if they have that specific intelligence come in, it moves them on. Other types of CFOs can very much, again, work on specific areas. But I think where CFOs can really benefit is that variety of experience that they bring with them. and it's the ability to be able to use that experience as and when required. It's drawing upon what's happened in the past and it's little simple things. It's being able to explain what the profit and loss account is and what the balance sheet, how they link together, which I know is not particularly exciting, but you know what?

13:31Occasionally you get people smiling because actually they begin to understand what it all means so it's it's a cfo has it has that experience but also has that capability saying i have no idea what the answer is none whatsoever but guess what i've got a network of people who probably got somebody out there will have that experience and again that's the beauty of the organization i work for you can go out and throw out a question and you get some answers back. Does that kind of answer your question? Absolutely. No, and I think that's the interesting piece, isn't it? It's about that adaptability, about being able to assess what the business needs and then figure out how to leverage the experience that you have to deliver on that.

14:23Yes, I was sort of thinking about that and it's a really interesting question because I think the mistake I made on a couple is you get over-invested emotionally in the organizations. Right. And you kind of move away from what you should be doing because you end up doing a lot of what I call day-to-day rhythmical CFO or really just finance roles. There's one organization where I was ending up doing cash calls every day to make sure we had enough cash for the business. And he suddenly realized, okay, that might have been the right thing to do, but the impact on you as an individual, you actually think, actually, I'm possibly in the wrong place here now, because the organization shouldn't become dependent on me.

15:22I have absolutely failed if I'm not making myself redundant all the time. because I can solve a problem. Let's say I can set up a forecast or a cash or something, but I should be giving that back to the team or somebody in the organization to empower them to move forward. If I'm there six months, nine months later, still doing the forecast every month or management accounts, that's not success for me. Success for me is, okay, we've got a situation. How do we get through it? These are things we've done, right? We're moving on. your team's been trained, empowered, then what else, what else, what else is on the agenda?

16:05It's not doing the same thing all the time. And have you ever come across a client where you haven't been able to deliver what they need and you've had to have that honest conversation with them to say, I'm not the right fit or I've not, I've not got the skills or have you always been in a position where you've been like, yes, I'm the right kind of CFO for you? I think the answer to that is it hasn't always gone according to plan I think I made one client where I thought I was doing really well with them you have the meeting you build out the rapport and you think okay this is going somewhere really interesting and guess what they cut the agreement and decided for whatever reason I wasn't right.

16:58The sad thing is they never told me why. That's a hard bit, isn't it? I'm sort of old enough and ugly enough to be said, okay, whatever it was. But I think this is what comes back to making sure sort of there's perceptions of what we will do. I think it's really important to be able to articulate really quickly if you can what does success look like for you and what success looked like for them and just make sure you're aligned I thought I'd done that but clearly I was horribly wrong well maybe you did and actually what they were expecting versus what you were expecting weren't aligned that's always the interesting bit isn't it yeah maybe it's but i think i'm not sure it's one of those ones the i've sat there and you you scratch your head and um you try what happened here but it it just happened it's but it it's it's it's the way it is and you talked about potentially becoming more emotionally invested as a CFO in supporting the founders etc how do you handle that given that you're potentially working with multiple clients at the same time you know that that's a lot of emotional lifting potentially for all like is there anything that you is there a like do you keep certain barriers or certain remits how do you manage that um not well sometimes um I think it's because the two reasons for me joining the CFO Center were to learn because I want to help, they're kind of my Achilles heels as well.

18:49So you can end up being too involved and, as you described, too emotionally attached. I think if I'm honest, I didn't recognize it. I only really recognized it when I stopped. um but um if i'm totally honest um my partner katherine she pointed out to me so he tapped me on the shoulder and going something isn't right here yeah and that right is i guess it's the way you talk about the clients they the the conversation changes from oh they're really excited we're doing that we're doing this we're thinking about that and it kind of sort of mute and it's i think it's going forward it's trying to work out when you get that sense of muting actually something's changing here i think maybe this comes back to one of your first question is maybe the cfo or support they want is changing as well yeah and actually this is a time to um change but i think the key is is then just having those daily weekly conversations it sounds completely trite but it's just that corridor conversation will go how's it going just ringing up and just keep sense checking it because organizations grow they need different experience and skill sets.

20:23And the beauty of the model we have is that you can move people in at the right times to do the right things. So I find that for me is quite interesting, just working out. CFO isn't for life. It may only be for one day, but it's certainly something that you need to keep thinking about yeah i guess that's the difference the fractional isn't it you know you're you've got to kind of be accepting of the fact that who you're working with and what you're doing might change on a daily weekly hourly basis whereas a more permanent role is very different you know you're in it for the potentially the longer hole but also on that it's you i'm not it's it's almost if when you're fractional cfo you're kind of on stage all day i know you're on stage in in my previous roles but it was so it's almost you can have that downtime yeah if that makes sense you can have whereas with If you're a fractional CFO, you've got to keep giving the value and be able to articulate the value because ultimately they're paying for your services.

21:55But I guess it's sort of trying to move Waveman transactional relationship to something which is really much deeper and actually sort of makes sense. but that constant like that constant being on show and justifying the value like it do you find is that is that more wearing than a typical role like if you don't have that downtime how do you keep yourself functioning at that level because that you know it sounds tiring like adrian you know like do you do you how do you cope with that i think it's sometimes it's easy easier than other times as i think it comes back to how the relationship is going was and then i i kind of liked i think what helped me was having continue continual sort of conversations with the clients yeah it's i couldn't quite get my head around i'm doing a half day this week and i'll do a half day next week i've got to kind of create the right conversation for me yeah because if i can be in that communication channel i could picking up the nuances how things are changing and be able to maybe that point about think well you could do this or you could do that or um have you thought about that and it's yeah it's sort of And then it's very much, I guess you sort of, you're reducing the risk of surprise.

23:38If there's too big a gap, then it's kind of, oh, you restarted the relationship? Yeah. Does that kind of make sense? You almost say it's like, you've got to keep your fingers on the pulse between the engagement. so it's making sure you're you know involved you've got enough I guess insight into the business as it's going that you don't come in the next week and things are all changed because they can in small business can't they they're very different to working in the world of big corporate you can rock up one day and this is happening and then one week later it's it's all change yes and yeah that's that's that's very very true and it's and things do move move very very quickly and it's trying to ensure the client has the right support that they need at the right time and sort of one client was a sort of fascinating business which is really growing very quickly and what I was able to do there was to give them the support in terms of outsourcing their accounting function but and they just relied on a bookkeeper who'd give them their accounts once every eight weeks or something.

25:02So it's a bit slow. Whereas they now have this accounting structure that did all the transactions for them, did all the controls for them, did the reporting. And it's all the relationship changes. It's being able to, I guess, help quickly. Yeah. And you obviously talk about the pace being potentially different with small versus corporate. You know, what experience from the larger corporate environments were you surprised that was really applicable in that smaller environment?

25:41I think the interesting part was just be able to translate experiences and just explain where things have gone wrong. Because I think there's this idea, you look at corporates that they know what they're doing. Yeah. But at times they don't, they're just as helpless. It's just more people feeling helpless just as opposed to one person feeling helpless. So I think it's that, that they go through quite a lot of not knowing. and I think that can be kind of reassuring.

26:27But also you can explain your experiences in these large corporations and sort of tie it back into where you're at and that sort of very much helps on the relationship and builds on the trust. I mean, the conversations I have had is one organization I worked for, we went through a CVA, so a credit voluntary arrangement, and basically had four days to talk to landlords. And all the landlords, it's a retail environment, so there were a lot of landlords to talk to. And that's just really interesting to explain to them the process that you went through. And then it's kind of sort of, it provides a, I think it is that reassurance that you've got somebody there who's got these experiences that, you know what, even if they weren't expecting it, they can help.

27:32I probably wondered there, but that's kind of. and how you know because you talked about obviously the joys of playing politics in big corporate right um and i think a lot of people think that that doesn't exist in small business has that been your experience or is it just a different kind of politics it's a different kind of politics um it's in some respects this can be more personal particularly if you've got um families involved in shareholders and some of the biggest challenges i've had is how do you deal with shareholders who are kind of outgrowing the process that it's all started off very simple in terms of we're all in this together they've allocated themselves the different roles within the business none of them are qualified for it however should we say the ones who are selling you don't necessarily need the qualifications for are just natural sellers but maybe somebody in finance who hasn't got the qualifications kind of has a bit of a limit yeah it's probably unfair to say that but just anyway so I've had a number of times where um or certainly where I've actually had to sit down with one of the shareholders and kind of persuade him life is changing and actually is this right for you to remain?

29:09They turned around and said they're not going, so clearly I failed. But you do have those conversations, so yes, there are politics. Or you have a different type of politics, which is again is a great one to have is enthusiasm to do something. So everybody wants to buy a company because it's great fun to buy a company. And you sort of take them through the process and say, okay, right. You explain them, this is my three red lines. And you go through the process and guess what? It doesn't go ahead. And it doesn't go ahead because of these three red lines, which I had. And also when they come back to you and say, well, thank you for that, because if we'd done that, we'd got ourselves in a complete mess.

30:01So it's a different type of politics. but also there is I guess the other sort of slightly trickier politics when in larger organisations should we say the way you deal with employees is far more structured you have the correct ways of doing things smaller companies maybe should we say Some will be slightly more gung-ho on what HR really means. So this is where you sort of have to sort of help them through the process. So it's quite a lot of experience you bring, and it's also your stories as well. I mean, I've helped to grow a business from 2 to 40 million, which was great fun. Did I know what I was doing?

31:02No. did we know what we're doing probably not but we just had good fun and just really tried to um work out what our customer wanted going to speak to the customer and then grow with it um and i think it's it's those that it's it gives a confidence so let's just take ourselves off on a little tangent and let's talk about that because that sounds like a really interesting journey that you went on with that business you know tell us you know what did you learn from it well what i learned i learned well it was an interesting journey for me because um when i joined the company um again it comes back to what what type of person you are what you want to do and so small you may kind of set the scene small company structure's been there for a number of years all the employees love md new kid comes in new finance person comes in probably sort of everything has no sense of humor etc etc will sit in the corner counting beans anywhere i sort of arrived and and basically there was fraud going on wow so even one of those moments you think am i really here this is is this really happening you kind of have to pinch yourself you're reading textbooks and you then sort of have to ask you ask yourself three questions really it's very simple do I just continue with it because it's a one level kind of easy not do I go or do I stay and deal with it and it was one of those I'm going to stay and deal with it because actually that is the right thing to do so you then go through the process you learn a few You learn a few new swear words and you sort of lose your employment and get reappointed.

33:15And you go through all of that. And at the end, obviously, it went the way it should do. But I had to be there at the disciplinary meetings. And ultimately, I was the one who had to be there when the desk was cleared. So I went through the full gambit. And I, and it's, for me, that was quite forming for me. It was a really tough situation because you've got to imagine, nobody's going to believe you as a new kid on the block. So not only were you dealing with, um, obviously the issue, you're also dealing with a lot of people who won't believe you because culturally they were looking in a different direction.

34:02and having to win them over over the next X number of weeks or months took a time. It really was a lot of being quite careful on how you communicate and what you're communicating, but also just being honest, but in a way that builds. the risk is if you come out and say something straight away, there's no foundation to it. Clearly there's no emotional foundation. So that was quite an interesting start, but ultimately it gave myself and three others a great opportunity to build the business. and we sort of I think it was we just sort of went for it and it was and it was one of those moments I think again very formative where through just just having good relationships with the directors and and just having the right conversations and but also celebrating success it was one of the there's the one company where genuinely we would sort of, as a whole company would go out and have, and have fun.

35:25And, and yeah, that was great. But it was also really curious that we got to a certain level of the, of the company size and it changed. Oh, interesting. I don't know why it suddenly changed, but something happened. happen i don't know whether it's size or something something changed but that type of closeness kind of changed so no so that was that's a great company to work for and you know when you think about your role is on the finance side there how did you become an enabler for growth? Because, you know, there is sometimes this perception about finance as being the no people. CFO says no.

36:22How do you, as a CFO, enable the business to grow whilst making sure that you're protecting the business at the same time? The key thing is to actually want to understand the business i think what in that business because it's moving so quickly it was really important to understand but also to take risk yeah um yes we can we can be incredibly boring we can have lots of reconciliations and bore everybody but that wasn't the style the style was actually We've got to go and learn here. Got to put systems in here that enables and actually allow it to move forward. But also from a risk perspective is we're not going to get this all right.

37:16But you know what? We're going to get 80 % right. We'll be able to financially understand it. But we're holding on to an exercise here. This business is moving really quickly. and the risk and the risk is for finances that you just could be able to work out that balance i mean another example of what another sort of company i went to as a fractional cfo what was really interesting was that um it comes back to the understanding i went into the business and nobody was really talking to each other. Everybody is quite, it's the traditional silo. And I just arranged, we had, I think it was five sessions or three hour sessions, just walking through the business process.

38:13And it's just really interesting. And there's nothing clever about it. It was just, okay, if we start here, what happens here? And you're listening to the conversations and some people going, I didn't realize that. Oh, and it's, I think it's sort of, it's interesting. It sort of comes back to your point about the sort of empowerment, enablement of people. And this is where this organization, it was kind of a bit top down, but actually when you sort of got people to think and actually sort of realize that they got the ability to make change, to move things forward, that then they suddenly realized they could.

39:01So finance, yeah, finance for me is sort of is enablement and has to be a service center. It has to be all out, all throughout the business. I don't want people to fear coming to finance. Finance should, we can be fun every now and again. And it's, but it's interesting you touched upon this point because one of my clients will call me in and we sat down together and he was a new finance director. And I just went through a very simple exercise with him because I wasn't, because I was quite intrigued to understand where he thought he was on his CFO journey. And I think he needed it as well. So we sat down and we used a very simple quadrant, which is very much called transactions, controls, reporting strategy.

39:57And I got him and his team to actually point out where they spent their time. And it was really interesting. They were spending a lot of their time in the transactional and control side, not getting to reporting or strategy. and I explained to him as a CFO that he shouldn't be in those quadrants he needs to be over here in strategy and then it was a case of how does he get there which is a great place to get because it gets a sort of momentum in the conversation and in many ways that's brilliant because you you already have this is where you're going this is your north star and so from that we said okay what are we going to do on transactions well on transactions we're going to outsource so the company outsourced and then what he can do on controls we then worked out actually need to change a couple of people and then he realized from himself actually i need to get myself out of the weeds here and actually really sort of move at least be in reporting then moving to strategy but for me that that was quite a useful tool just to explain the journey but also it was really useful to explain to the board where finance was going where it needed its investments to be placed to support it on that journey and i think like you're saying it's creating that that that moment where they that realization of that you know transactions and controls are an obviously an important part of the role but they're not they're not the role no not you're right it's sort of that that balance between how do i look after the for the cfo how do i look after the business and how do i fund the business and how do I underpin the challenges?

41:57It could be growth, it could be whatever it is. It's how do I balance my time between those elements and where do I need to go?

42:15and it's sort of like those the scales where where's the where's the cfo need to go but also to understand where to go and to be able to lead on it as well and be able to say okay this is what we need to do and this i guess this is what success could look like which again comes back it comes back to, do people really understand the numbers? Too many conversations I've had is that it's focused on P &L, the profit and loss, and you sit there going, this is great, brilliant, okay, wonderful. How are you going to pay your employees?

42:58And it's, oh, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, what we'll do is we'll do X. And you say, oh, no, don't do that. and it's and this is where i think as somebody come into the business is the ability to look at um to draw back the very fundamental insights you can you can look at a business i mean some examples are some clients that work for is is taking forward payments for activities how how is that cash being used and is the business creating a hole so for example let's say there's not one of mine but school fees if you take on if parents are paying for next the whole all school fees the next x number of years you're receiving the cash now you're not you're not going to have that cash when you got the same cost in x years time it's actually getting people to understand you could be creating a hole here they all there already is a hole because that because what's happening is your pnl is dependent on the deposits or the school fees coming in therefore the model isn't right therefore you need to do something yeah understanding the balance sheet and the cash flow and what's coming versus looking back at what you've done so that's for me it's quite interesting in terms of those aha moments and it's but it's sort of maybe sort of trusted advisor is those questions that I find it's quite interesting.

44:50There's an assumption that people should know. And I think there's an assumption that the hard part is kind of revealing that you don't know. Yeah. And there have been a couple of times of very senior people who sort of come up afterwards and go, can you explain the balance sheet to me? Which is great. So then you sit down in the boardroom and you draw up your pictures and you just talk it through. And then every week or so you just, okay, right, you bring a set of accounts along. We'll work through this logic. And that's, I think, in many ways, we keep coming back to the trusted advisor. There's little moments where you have to smile to yourself.

45:37You think, I'm beginning to, the relationship is beginning. It's getting stronger. Or another one where the one director said, can you show me how to run the accounts receivable on Xerox? I don't know. Or I don't know the state of what the customers look like. You go and show them something and it's like Christmas.

46:03Incredibly rewarding, it must be. Yeah. And this is where I think sometimes in our roles we forget. it's the very simple things we take for granted that we should know this and we make the assumption that everybody else knows it but we don't we kind of we don't they don't and it's just trying to work out or you'll have those magic moments where you go okay this is what it means and so that's me it's it's that's you feel so that at that moment you made a difference yeah and there's no director school is there there's no like there's no you know minimum training to be able to register a company and and to do this and it is amazing how many companies get built or without that that strong financial i guess base on which they've built yeah it's and it's i mean i applaud them totally brave doing those types of things i mean is wonderful.

47:08But you're right. And then it's sort of, the companies kind of grow in a certain way and it's kind of, they use their accounts and do the accounts for them. And obviously, they come in late. They're not necessarily correct. There's no real understanding of them. So it's obviously they go for a process. and it's trying to work with the clients to understand the importance of the numbers and the conversations you can have and what it means. Therefore, you need to get the balance between insourcing and outsourcing. Yeah. And what type of resources you need to bring in in-house and then how that resource can help.

48:05And this is where, that's what I'll go back to again, an earlier point is, in theory, I can continue doing these activities, but that's not the way to do it because actually they need to be internalized and therefore bring people in. And I know there was, we've got AI, et cetera, we could do lots of magical stuff, But having a person there who represents finance, who wants to go and explore the business and just be able to structure the reporting that's actually meaningful, that's kind of exciting because you're sort of setting, there's a path there. And it's been great fun working a couple of clients where that has happened.

48:57people will come on board and it's great, then I'll step back, which is fine because they've got the resources that they need. So it's sort of, there's the CFO, this educational process, it's the support which leads to educational which then leads to how do you want resource going forward, which it's kind of interesting. And this is where I think maybe the CFO model is, or fractional, is actually quite good because at what point do you bring a CFO on FD in? Some organizations bring in far too early. You don't need to. Other organizations are too late. And if you do bring them in, who can actually help them?

49:41Yeah. And again, that's powerful sitting down. Have you thought about that? So that's for me, that's really interesting. listing. And so we're coming rapidly to the end of this session, but you know, for those that are listening to this, that are maybe in the corporate world, right in that CFO role or the FD role and going, I'm wondering if fractional CFOing is for me, what advice would you give them?

50:16i would explore it um but you've got to want to be in you want you want to be that type of cfo it is it is risky i mean let's let's face facts you are self-employed so therefore you're very much have to help in the um the hunting for roles and you you have to know how to sell yourself you know have to want to help and recognize that life may not be as sort of say simple in terms of you know you're going to get paid this month so so i think it's it's explore uh look look at your cv and look at all the experience you've got and think about how I could translate that into a small business. But ultimately, actually, in many ways is you've got to be curious.

51:17You've got to be somebody that really wants, wants to be there. Yeah. And enjoy the variety of people and experiences, but also understand You will become that trusted advisor, and that's where the exciting part is. But don't... If you want certainty, if you want structure, that will be a challenge, because it certainly isn't. But if you're like me, you like a bit of chaos and randomness, it's good fun. I love that. And that's a great bombshell to end this podcast on. So Adrian, thank you so much for sharing your experience of the chaos, right? And everything you've learned as both before and after your journey into fractional CFOing.

52:21And yeah, to all of our listeners, if you've enjoyed this podcast, maybe there's some more questions you have for Adrian, then please do reach out to me on linkedin and let me know um and i want to say a massive thank you to adrian for joining me on the show today it's been great to talk to you no it's been great fun and hopefully i made some sense somewhere but thank you i know i think we've i've loved your your talk about ethics about transparency and the on and the realities of what life is like as a fractional cfo i think is so very important so thank you and of course guys if you've enjoyed this podcast then please do leave us a review share it on on whatever platform you you choose to to spend your time on and we'd love to we'll hopefully see you next time on the CFO podcast thanks everyone one of the hardest things I think is actually putting into words what it means to work with myself and the team here at ITAS because not only are we a financial transformation consultancy but we do it using sage technology so rather than me tell you how awesome we are let me introduce one of our customers.

53:26Working with ITAS has dramatically made our lives simpler because there's just such a knowledgeable team there to help us. Before we felt the consultants we were working with at another company, it was always a challenge to get information out of them for them to understand the problem and it just didn't feel like they were on our team. Working with ITAS, it almost feels like you are all employed with us to do it. It's an absolutely fantastic relationship and it's just made it such a smoother process and an absolute fun process working in Sage intact and coming on our calls. I look forward to it now.