2241 - The Role of a Fractional CFO in Scoring Big Wins in Healthcare Finance with Sorso's Stanislav Sukhinin

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1:05With us right now, it's Stan Sukinen. Stan, you are the founder and CEO of Sorso. You are found on the web at thesorso.com. Stan, it's great to have you. Yeah, thank you very much, Josh, for having me. Yeah, you're based in Austin. And Stan, before we start talking about the work that you do and who you serve, regarding what you do when you're not working, are you into any hobbies? Are you geeking out on anything lately? maybe games or tv shows or movies or anything yeah i'm a big big fan of the soccer and i play soccer here in kind of like in the league uh yeah and i'm actually working a lot for these kind of like soccer things i i exercise for like at least like eight times a week to be in the shape like working on my accelerations we have training so it's kind of like a kind of like a semi-professional approach of course we are not professional but yeah So I love this team.

2:06You're a busy CEO. Tell me why you prioritize that time to do that. Yeah, because I love soccer. It's my passion. I have this dream to buy a soccer club. I believe there's a lot of Russian guys. I think we like my soccer clubs sometimes. So I have this kind of like my dream of mine, like to buy just, I don't know, a smaller club. And yeah, I love it. And I think it's helped me. I love how I improve my health, how I improve my physique over like last three years, like exercising a lot, working out a lot. And I'm doing like different stuff. I'm doing weightlifting. I do cardio. I do acceleration.

2:45And yeah, and I play soccer. Wow. So I would imagine, by the way, can let me just ask you, like, and you were talking about, you know, potentially buying a soccer club. I'm sure you appreciated Ted Lasso. But, you know, I'm curious of what lessons you can learn from team sports, particularly soccer, or even your own experience as a player. Like, what lessons have you learned from that sport that's been applicable to business? Yeah, I think it's like 100 % applicable. It's like the soccer game, especially right now, it's about like a team, how you play, about tactics, about strategy. and like I know if you follow there was like a real horrible season from one of the dominant soccer teams this year Real Madrid and actually like before that they both like kind of like the main superstar Bappe and everybody was expecting that they will play way better but they actually play way worse because they have one superstar like Vinicius Jr and he didn't really put a lot of effort at defending and helping team in the first half of the field and Mbappe is kind of the same and it's it's like these lessons you can see across the business all the time you can get like superstars but if they don't work together if your sales team don't work together if your marketing team if you're like a marketing team don't really work with the I don't know support department it's like it's all falling apart right like it's like we see it's in the business every day and like you see it's in circular every day yeah well how does that stand how does that translate to source so and we'll talk about what source so does but do you mind just because we're talking about this like who is source or who are the people behind source so yeah it's me and i have like a couple of contractors that's helping me working with clients and it's like people with financial background and like being on in a c4 positions before and will have extended experience working with different sectors and different companies yeah and you get to be the captain yeah yeah but but hopefully again the captain who's not trying to do everything yeah you rely rely on good people yeah it's i think it's it's a big thing in consulting when you start doing it like there's a big big difference i think in in your framework is it like a freelance?

5:15Is it like a few high-paid kind of like part-time jobs or it's a business? And I think there is a huge distinction, especially in consulting because it's not like manufacturing or like, I don't know, even like e-commerce. Like there's like a subtle difference when you stop doing the actual work and you start organizing business processes around you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's now reveal what Sorso is, who you work with and what you do. Yeah. Right now I'm working predominantly with the outpatient healthcare clinic owners. But I'm still working with a couple of businesses from different sectors. But yeah, I'm providing this fractional CFO service with no full-time cost of the CFO.

6:07and basically like putting this financial function for any company in a proper shape. And if like I can summarize what's how we help business owners, I think the main thing is just identify what's the actual goals, like business goals, personal goals for the business. And then identify in terms of numbers, in terms of financials, how are you going to achieve this and what you need to do. And it's like for the small business, it goes all together with the strategy, tactics, like expanding revenue, different services, different products, your team, marketing, it's all together. So it just like my service cannot work if we don't really look at everything.

6:54Yeah. And so tell me what's going on for those of us not in the healthcare industry. You work with a lot of outpatient clinic owners. Do you mind maybe just giving us what is life like for someone in that space? Yeah, to be honest, it's one of the reasons why I decided to focus on this only industry because there are a number of nuances that are really unique to this industry. And the first and the biggest one, elephant in the room, is how you deal with the insurance companies. And it's very tricky. it's kind of like you have one rate that you're supposed to receive. And then there's an actual rate that you're getting from insurance company.

7:41Of course, if you're working with the insurance company, but most clinics, they have to work with the insurance companies. And yeah, and it's like only this aspect of this business makes it so different. And especially important how you manage your financials, because like these know, like it's not my exaggeration duration or like it's kind of like i'm just kind of like making up stories i know like actual stories where people were thinking that they may they making like x amount of revenue but it's actually was like way lower like i know 60 70 of the x number and they were thinking for a very long time or like in other things for example you have receivables that some things that you're supposed to receive from insurance company at some point in the future and like companies thinks that it's kind of again like a number x number but it's actually way lower and it's happening across the board it's why kind of super super super important for any like clinic owners to be very early thinking about like financial function and how you how you're working with the insurance claims and how you how you just like approaches they should they should be like a kind of like a full-fledged approach.

8:57Yeah. Well, Stan, so why work with you? So if someone is, you know, they're running outpatient clinic, my suspicion is that they're very, very busy, but bringing in a fractional CFO, how does that improve both outlook and operations to work with someone like you? Yeah, I think like the first thing, they're like you don't know what you don't know uh and i see it's across like all owners uh they like first of all they think like probably they they would have like an accountant on a bookkeepers and they think like they have a perfect financials but they don't use those financials to make management decisions and they don't really look at this and usually it's a trash like uh like whenever you look at the financials uh if you don't really review them if you don't really work on a regular basis with your accountant or with your bookkeeper, it's like it's trash.

9:55And what does it mean? Like, you know, like it's a boring topic. Like what's these numbers in the cookbook? So what does it mean for your business? It means that you don't really know what's happened with your business, right? It's like, what is your revenue? I just like give this example, especially for the clinic owners, like you really need to do a certain procedures to make sure that you have a correct number as a revenue the second one you don't know like your margins you probably don't know how much you make it as a gross margin as your operating margins if you don't have a proper procedures it's a first thing so like you know if you don't know like how much money you you made like last month last quarter last year like you can make informed management decisions like i can you open a next clinic like how much you need to invest what's gonna be a period when you receive your money back.

10:48Like if you don't have a proper procedure, you cannot answer those questions. And then helping, okay, like how many clinics you need to open? How much capital do you need? Like all those questions, usually owners cannot answer without like a financial expertise that I provide. Yeah. Well, Stan, when you are working with a client, I'm curious what questions you typically, How do you assess whether or not you're a good fit for, again, an outpatient clinic owner? Do you typically work with where they have multiple locations? Is that factor into this as well? Yeah. The one thing, there's a good ratio of how much you should spend on audit, financial function, and accounting in a company.

11:39and like it shouldn't be more than seven eight percent of your annual revenue it's kind of like the rule of thumb for any kind of business and like this this rule dictates that i'm working with businesses with at least like three million of revenue because if it's less it's going to be very expensive for them it's just like i don't really want to charge them because i know like they will spend way way more money on this function it's too early for them and it's probably they should find like someone like an hourly rate and so on so it's one criteria the revenue should be at least three million of revenue i think another thing like my first question is be like any potential client like what is your goal what do you want to accomplish uh it's kind of like where i started like to understand okay what what's the goal like do you want to get the the most possible distributions every year and to buy a house or pay the college institutions for your kids or you want like to sell business in five years because like the answering these questions your strategy and financial strategy can be completely different like if you want maximize distribution from the waste business right now you probably don't need to grow you probably don't need to open another clinic probably it's like and like just cut certain expenses and optimize things if you need to grow you want to sell you definitely need to open clinics you need to expand And yeah, it's another strategy.

13:03So I started with those questions. I have heard that outpatient clinics and folks kind of in that space, there can be a lot of exits and acquisitions. Is that, am I correct in hearing that rumor? Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's crazy. like among my clients, they say like if they go on any kind of like a conference or like a large events, like they always kind of like, like the private equity guys, it's just like looking for them. And like, yeah, it's a big topic right now in different sectors. And yeah, if you grow, especially if you're growing, yeah, you are very attractive target for acquisition.

13:47Yes. Yeah, I've heard so. So to our friend that's listening, they can go to your website. It's thesorso.com, S-O-R-S-O.com. Stan, when they go there, what would you recommend they do? yeah i have like one uh in in a resource section there's a one uh material that i that i prepared based on my experience how you can really improve like your cash flow with kind of like easy easy actions and what like i think like every clinic owner should do how to increase the probability that you've been paid from insurance company and how increase like the just the rate of acceptance and so on. So because what I see like the best practice that I see among my clients if they have like internal department that working with the insurance company and they really working day like day night how to improve this rate how much you paid from the insurance company is like the most successful one and it's like and it affects everything it affects your revenue it affects your working capital so i highly recommend to download these documents in it's in a resource section of my website and yeah it's i think it's very helpful and i put like a lot of experience and knowledge into this document love it love it all right thesorso.com stan suskanen it's been wonderful having you as a guest thank you so much for joining us Yeah, thank you.

15:20Thank you, Josh.

15:49we are empowering one another as thoughtful leaders. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this program, if you're looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, and clients, I have had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders, asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video that you can watch right now with no opt-in or email required, where I'm going to share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies.

16:32Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. Make sure to hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning, that's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed. I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes every single day. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Movement.