2285 - The Hidden Benefits of Bringing a Fractional CFO into Your Business with Rockbridge CFO's Laresa McIntyre

0:04Well, hey, Thoughtful Leader. Welcome to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur. On this show, I interview purpose-driven founders, experts, and change makers who are making a real impact in the world. Want to be a guest? Simple. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click podcast. I'd love to promote your story to our audience of over 100 ,000 and across over 2 ,300 daily episodes and counting. Want to get booked on other great shows like this? Simple. Go to podverified.com and get your free guest authority score. Thousands of hosts are looking for high quality guests and Podverified connects you the right way. Now let's dive into today's episode.

0:58With us right now, Larissa McIntyre. Larissa, you are a fractional CMO and you are the founder and principal of Rockbridge CFO. That's your website, rockbridgecfo.com. Larissa, it's great to have you. It's awesome to be here with you, Josh. Before we start talking about your superpowers and who you work with, I definitely want to provide a lot of value to folks that are founders. Maybe they don't have a fractional CFO at this point, but I'm really excited to explore that topic. you and I were talking beforehand you are a Floridian like me and you unlike me get to spend your summers out of state which I'm very much and it's not just and it's not just out of state it's out of country I am actually in Paris right now I've been here since May it has been an awesome experience I you know it's one of those things where you get to explore not just a city but a culture when you when you're here for such a long period of time.

2:01And I cannot recommend it enough to people to do this. I mean, yeah, great. What sort of logistical tips would you give someone who wants to spend a few months, you know, kind of away from home and, you know, just kind of, you know, spend the summers, maybe take your work remotely, like if you have that ability already. But, you know, obviously, there's still logistics about, you know, maybe things like mail and I don't know. What have you learned in this process that you'd recommend to someone who's like, we might, we will definitely be doing this in the years to come. Because as we were talking about beforehand, Florida is a fine place to visit June, July, August.

2:44But it'll be in there every day. You'll feel it. Yeah, definitely. Look, what we did was we set up obviously a traveling mailbox so that we could handle our mail while we're gone. We've got an apartment. We rented an apartment here in Paris. We're actually just about a five-minute walk away from Sacre-Cœur up on Montmartre. There's a lot of outfits like blue ground that have furnished apartments that you can rent for a month, two months, three months. So that definitely would be something I would recommend looking into if you want to do this. Yeah. Did you, do you, do you find Airbnb is the way to go or do you recommend other, I think because obviously their models built more on short-term stays, it's, it's more difficult, I think, to find something that's, that's reasonably priced.

3:37Yeah. That's my experience with the blue ground where they do corporate, corporate apartments. So that makes a lot more sense from a cost perspective. Oh, so, so tell me about the corporate apartments because I've heard of this. Yeah, Blueground. We actually came across Blueground when we were in Seattle and we rented an apartment through them for two months. That's how we did this last year and how we did it this year was through Blueground. It's an awesome place to go to find an apartment. Thank you so much for the tip. I'm looking forward to it. All right. So, So, Larissa, the reason you're here is to talk about life as a fractional CFO and to our business owner audience.

4:18You know, obviously, you know, you have insights to share. Can you talk about the work that you do as a fractional CFO with your clients and like what that looks like, how they knew that they were ready for you and then like how you typically engage together? And again, sorry, this is like a 10 part question. Pick and choose whatever you want to talk about first and we'll carry we'll gather the rest of it. But, you know, obviously, you know, I think one of the biggest questions I'll have is like, you know, when someone knows they're ready. Yeah, I think I think it's really around when you're trying to find answers to questions and you're having difficulty answering those questions, be it that you don't have the data, the reporting in place, or you're just not sure why it feels like your gut feel is kind of going astray.

5:12You know, a lot of founders, they're very ingrained in their business and they kind of understand what's happening on a day-to-day basis, but there reaches a point when suddenly it doesn't feel quite right. And, you know, usually that happens when you're in that, you know, 2 million range. You're starting to get to that revenue that's, you know, seven figures. And that's probably the time to start thinking about bringing in that executive level insight from a financial perspective. Look, when you start a business and you're a founder, you're more focused on the idea that you brought to the table, why you wanted to start your business in the first place.

5:54And maybe you're not a numbers person. I mean, maybe you just need somebody to be that partner that can help you get the insights you need to be able to take your business to the next level. Yeah. Well, what gaps do you usually find that exist for someone that's, they're ready. They're definitely ready for a CFO. I think, first off, it really starts with the foundation of their accounting. A lot of times their accounting is not giving them the information that they need. They've started out in QuickBooks or Xero or FreshBooks. And that's great when you're small. But when you start growing, you need a lot more information.

6:38I'll give you an example. Like when you're in QuickBooks or any of those programs, they'll probably have an account called marketing expenses. And, you know, your bookkeeper or your accountant is booking things in there, but you can't really draw any insights if everything's in one account. You really need to start looking at, you know, am I spending money on, you know, Facebook, LinkedIn? How does that break out? Where am I getting my clients from? Am I able to match my cost of acquiring a client to the spend that I'm making? What's my ROI coming from the market? And when you start asking questions like that, that's when you really need to get some help from a person that can kind of guide you through all of that.

7:23How does life change for the founder? Like, you know, they probably have a decent tax person. Obviously, they have someone, you know, handling the books. But when they bring in a fractional CFO, tell me about their lifestyle upgrade or, you know, just how things change or evolve for them. Well, I think it's more that they have somebody that they can talk to. Being a founder is a very lonely thing. A lot of times you're involved in so many different aspects of the business and you don't have somebody who can be that sounding board to knock ideas off of, or even to ask questions to. And I think it gives them a sense of confidence and a little bit of clarity around their business and maybe allows them to start thinking beyond what maybe they've been thinking about because now they've got somebody who can kind of help guide them from that financial perspective.

8:19And I think it makes their job a lot easier as a founder. Yeah, well, I would hope so. And so what, like, are you meeting often with the founders or like how, how available are you? And, and again, I would imagine like the biggest thing is like, you're just coming in with a completely different level of just, I don't say responsibility or engagement, right? You just, you care about much bigger things than a bookkeeper or a tax preparer, because, you know, usually that's just going to be all very founder or someone else led to, to, you know, kind of just kind of keep normalcy from a financial standpoint?

9:06Yeah, no, look, it's going to depend on each business. One of the clients I have, I meet with them weekly so that, you know, we have a sit down, we chat about what's going on, we talk about, you know, what they're seeing, you know, maybe we'll take a look at the financials. We'll look at maybe their cash forecast, just to kind of level set on what's been happening over the past week. Others, you know, maybe you meet with them once a month. I think it depends on the complexity of the business and really what they can get out of. Look, I'm available. Even though maybe we get together once a week, people can email me.

9:42They can reach out, you know, because business doesn't stop just because your fractional is not there every single day. But, I mean, that's kind of how we set it up is to get a cadence so that at least the founder can carve a time out of their calendar to be able to have a meaningful interaction with the fractional and be able to get the right insights that they need. Well, for someone who's maybe not yet at that level, they're kind of getting there. Maybe it's like imminent within the next 6, 12, 18 months or something. They know that they'll be ready. What are some things that you would recommend that all founders in that position, they're kind of at that mid, kind of getting close to that seven-figure territory.

10:24what sorts of things from the vantage point of a CFO would you say, founders, listen to me, here is what you need to stop doing. And here's what I want you to start doing. Anything come to mind? Definitely cash flow forecasts. I mean, I think a lot of people just go with what's going on in their bank account, but you can get blindsided so quickly. You know, it's not uncommon for me to hear about founders that, hey, I forgot about this really big one-time annual renewal that I have. And now I'm kind of scrambling with regards to payroll. Being able to have that cash visibility is so important, especially if you're in that stage right now.

11:08But definitely a cashflow forecast is like number one. Number two is obviously making sure that you've got a strong foundation from your finances, from your financial information. And, you know, making sure that you're setting yourself up to be able to have the right data so that when you're at that point, when you're ready to engage with the fractional, you've got some data that you can provide to them. And they can help build out that from that point and get you the right insights. Do you just can I'm wondering if you could provide some normalcy to maybe the top one or two things that you see founders way too stressed out about?

11:51Is there anything that in your experience working with founders that we could let them know you're not alone? Oh, wow. Wow. That's such a tough thing to narrow down to just one or two. Oh, whatever. It doesn't have to be number one, but something that immediately comes to mind would be great. Yeah, I think getting stressed out about your P &L, you know, if you're not an accountant, you may not understand the way financials are put together. They're based on a bunch of rules that were created by the investors and the bankers of the world. to make sure that they can provide or at least have financials from companies so they can make apples to apples comparisons.

12:40You know, your P &L is only part of the story. Cash is a much bigger picture for you. And to get stressed out over your P &L, that may not be the best use of your time. I think if you have that in combination with other things and you get a better feel for your business, that's, that's probably the right thing to do. And for someone that's listening to our conversation and they probably need to have a conversation with you, what usually happens and what do they do if they're, if they're interested in having that conversation? Yeah. If they, if they call me really, what I want to do is I want to sit down with them.

13:19I want to understand where, where are their pain points? What are they experiencing right now? That's causing them to lose sleep at night. I want to take a look at, you know, how are your financials kind of structured? What's your financial system look like? You know, what's happening from that perspective? What does your team look like? One of the biggest things that founders should really make sure they're doing when they're engaging with a fractional is looking at culture fit. Remember, this is somebody that, even though they're not an employee of yours, they're going to be spending a lot of time with you, providing you advice and insights, and you want to be able to trust them.

14:00And you want to make sure that the interaction that you have with them is going to be worthwhile. And really, that boils down to culture fit. So you want to make sure you're engaging with somebody that you can feel good about engaging with. So that's definitely something to be looking at as well when you're engaging. Yeah. All right. Larissa, your website, and if someone wants to reach out, like what is that process? And again, what, you know, again, where do they start with you? Like if they're curious, like, okay, I mean, I can reach out, but what are you going to ask me? Like, what are we going to talk about on a first call?

14:34Yeah. The first call, it's just more or less, Hey, tell me about your business so that I can make sure that it fits within my wheelhouse. I don't want to engage with somebody if I can't add value to your business. So I do want to make sure that, you know, I'm a good fit for you. So I'm going to ask you about your business. It's probably going to be about a 30-minute call just for me to understand what's going on. Why are you wanting to engage a fractional right now? What are you seeing that makes you think that you need a fractional? And then from there, we'll dive a little deeper once you're comfortable and we can kind of have a more meaningful conversation after that.

15:13They can go to my website, rockbridgecfo.com. They can click on the book a meeting button or, you know, fill out the contact form that's there as well. And then we can kind of set something up from there. Excellent. All right. Larisa McIntyre, Rockbridge CFO to our friend listening. We have the link all set up in the show notes. You just kind of click around in your app and you'll find where we have that linked up. Larisa, great conversation. Thank you so much for joining us. Oh, it was my pleasure, Josh.

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