Growing Your Business With Facebook Ads

A lot of people at the event were afraid that they can't put themselves out there with a personal brand, put themselves on the Internet, because it's scary, and you just have to be, like, 1% more willing than you're not. You just show up a little bit more than you're not. And so you don't have to rebrand yourself as a fractional CFO tomorrow. You don't have to put it all over the Internet and talk to everyone and be like, I'm this expert and I know everything.

Whether you're looking to achieve financial freedom, boost your personal development, or enhance your business acumen, you are in the right place. My name is Simone Luca Radzins, and I am on a journey for true business freedom, and I want to have you along for the ride. Each week, we dive deep into the topics that empower you to live a more free and fulfilling life and also give you the tools to do that in your business. How do you pump yourself up and get in a high vibrational state besides going for walks in the morning?

Oh, gosh. So like music for sure. That's definitely it. It depends on what I'm doing. Like, music is really good. If I have, like, an athletic event, I just visualize, like, me crushing the event over and over again. Those are, like, the two, two ways if I can see the result that I want in my mind. Like, I used to be a competitive athlete. I raced bicycles for years. And the night before, I would, like, close my eyes and imagine myself starting and winning the race, and I could take my heart rate from resting in the 40s to 80 just, like, sitting there thinking, I'm not surprised.

It's mental rehearsal. Like, it's like, this is what I've learned with, like, reading about Joe Dispenza. But, like, you actually. Did you just intuitively know or did somebody tell you, like, hey, if you do this, you probably will see the results in that competition?

Oh, no, I didn't. I wasn't, like, that far in my journey yet. I was just like, I had. I was like, I will whatever I want into existence, and I will make it happen. And I haven't read the Secret or anything prior to that point. I was just like. I wanted it so bad. I was like, I will, like, make the universe happen for me. It sounds crazy to say that out loud now, because I didn't know. This is a secret. This is a tactic. This is what people do. I was just like.

And there was that. And it feels like with you, there's Never a feeling of a doubt like this is going to happen. I'm going one way or the other.

I have doubts about plenty of things, but if I set my mind to it, it's. It'll happen. And if I don't, like, okay, I'll just try it again, whatever. Everything's a function of time. It's not a function of if, it's a function of when. And if you, like, know that to be true, you're always going to get where you want.

And I'm just so. It's so awesome that you applied it to sports and now it's just getting it in the jam of everything. Do you right now in business, how do you apply it? The mental rehearsal.

So I don't do this all the time and I need to do it more often, but I take four or five sales calls every day and like, it can be draining before I start one. Like, I will go for a quick walk or I have a swing chair bench thing outside and I'll sit on that, I'll close my eyes and I'll take a couple deep breaths and I'll just say, oh, I'm. This person's excited to be here. They want to be here. I want to help this person. And I'll try and imagine just to get in the right state. So I guess similar to the thing that I use when I was cycling, but I'm not as intentional about as I, as I used to be, and that's probably something I gotta bring.

What I like, though, is that it's service for you. When you're on those sales calls, if you're doing five a day, it's like taking that break for each person and really thinking, I'm inviting them into a room. How can I best serve them? And then that energy, when you think about it, goes to an act of service. And then what's so funny is like so much of it's a higher level of energy, like gratitude. And so it seems like that's your practice of getting people. What a great way to enter from the, the, the lead perspective into that sales call. It's gotta be. It's.

Yeah, yeah. Because I realize if I'm just trying to take from people all the time, it doesn't really work. And at the end of the day, like I, I open up on the middle of the first call. I was like, hey, can I ask you a couple questions about your business? Where you are, where you want to go? If it makes sense, I'll tell you what we do. And if Not I can point you in the best direction for you. And sometimes that's not working with us. And I don't ever want someone to get off the call and be like, wow, that felt weird. Or I didn't like that. I want them to feel like, okay, maybe this isn't for me right now, but here's what I need to do to get to my goal. And so that way, they feel like it was useful for their time. And I've had people who've gotten off the phone and be like, this was incredibly helpful, because I'm just trying to help them get to their goal. And sometimes that's not working with us. That's fine. It's a much better experience when you're trying to give than when you're trying to take. And, like, people. People see that. Like, they. They just. They, like, know down here. So I just try and do my best. Do I do a good job every time? But I don't know. I'm just trying to get.

Oh, I get it. I get it so much. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna dive into sales. At one point, as we're starting this podcast, I'm so curious. Like, I was like, I want to talk to him about sales. I want to talk to him about how he actually built his first company, how he manages both companies, and ultimately, yeah, I'm actually very excited. I was like, oh, there's actually a lot I know about Charles and a lot that I want the listeners to know about Charles. And then I was like, there's, like, some questions I have about just what the back end of his business is like to run such a successful well in two businesses. So, yeah, thank you again just for being on and getting to talk about business, CFO stuff, and a little bit of Facebook ads. I'm excited to dive deep into all of them. Yeah. When for everyone who doesn't know you, when you started your business, it was much more out of it. Wasn't you seeking the opportunity? I feel like universe delivered. You weren't expecting it. And oftentimes a lot of entrepreneurs aren't into that. That doesn't naturally happen to them. So I'd love just to kick it off with you telling your origin story of actually that jump from corporate to entrepreneurship and how you made that happen.

Yeah. Yeah, this is. I oftentimes call myself the Accidental Fractional CFO because I wasn't trying to do this work. It was. Oh, gosh, was it like 2017? And I worked for a really large company called Siemens they're. They're absolutely massive. 100 billion a year in sales. And my wife, or I guess fiance at the time, saw this lady post in a Facebook group and she needed help with a budget and a forecast, some, like, nerdy stuff. And her. And I've been talking about entrepreneurship. I read some of the Clickfunnels books, was all over the place. What do I do? Who do I serve? What am I? All of that. And we get there, and she sees this lady post in a Facebook group. She needs some help. And she said, you know what, Charles? You should reach out to her. I don't know why, but you should talk to her. And my first response is, no, that's dumb. I'm not doing that. And I just rebuff her. I was like, oh, like, that's nice, sweetie, but it's probably not like a good use of my time or something. I've said to that regards. And a day goes by and I get home from work, and I'm working pretty long hours at the time. And I come home and she said, did you talk to that lady in that Facebook group? She needed some finance help. And I was like, no. I. Like, this is silly. This is dumb. I don't. Like, she probably can't afford me. I just. It's not really worth my time. And I don't know, it's just not probably a good fit. Like, I just totally rejected it flat out. I was like, small business. No. Can I be helpful? Sure. But it's just not going to be worth it for me. Another day goes by, and it's now Thursday, and she asked me again, and I'm like, gosh darn it, fine, I'll take the call with the stupid lady. Whatever. And so I send this lady a message on Facebook, and I sent her a message and it says, hey, I heard you were looking for some finance help. I worked at Insert really large company, Insert two or three impressive things that I've done just to be like, look, I'm not like some dude. If you want to talk, like, I'll get on a phone call with you. And she immediately sends me a Zoom link. And so I am at my job, it's a Thursday, and I run into one of those, like, the little phone rooms that you can, like, get in and just. It's like a tiny cubicle that's like this big. I get in the phone room and I get on Zoom and I talk to this lady, and turns out she owns an advertising agency. She's doing pretty well, has a Couple E Commerce clients, and she needs help with a budget and a forecast, and she doesn't know how profitable she is per client, and just overall needs some help. And at the end of the call, I was like, I can definitely do what you need. I get you those answers. But here's the thing. And I throw out a number that I think is crazy. I totally think she's not gonna go for it. And I throw out this number. And as I do that, something weird happens. So I tell her, hey, it's gonna be $7,500 a month. Excuse me for three months. And inside of that, edit needs to be paid today, all once. And so that's what, 22, $23,000. And she goes, okay. And at that point, I'm like, oh, shoot, I should ask for a hell of a lot more money. This is my first thought. My next thought is, I don't have a way to take your credit card. I don't have an llc. I don't have a. Like, a Stripe account. I don't have a QuickBooks. Like, I've got nothing. I'm just a corporate finance guy. But I know I had to do something. So I write down her credit card and take it all that, schedule another meeting with her, I write down her credit card, and I open up a stripe account and put in all the information. Open llc, do all that. And that was a Thursday. And on Monday, I charged your credit card for $22,500. And at that moment, like, I made $22,500 in one hour. Granted, I still got to do the work, but I was like, wow, I might be onto something. And so ever since that moment, if my wife says, hey, you should do something, I usually listen the first time. I don't let my hurtings get in the way. And that's how I, like, accidentally became a fractional cfo.

I just love it. I love it because it was like, something that you were totally resisting. And then all of a sudden, it's like, all right, here you go. 22,000 makes you really feel very different about your work in corporate, too. Was it just this seems relatively easy. This woman needs a budget, a forecast. It's a small business. I can bust this out. Because I think that's the big thing, is if somebody has a scarcity mindset, they're like, oh, my God, 22,500. I have a lot of extra work to do. How am I going to manage it? Somebody has an abundant mindset. This is actually relatively easy. I just price to Value. It's going to. It's not going to be hard. How was that in terms of just like shifting to delivery of it and build. And just build the business around this service.

So, like the moving to the delivery part, I knew exactly what she needed for her problem to be solved, right? Like, she needed to see the number of hours put in per client. She needed to see the profitability per each client and then like maybe some of the activities that they were doing. And so a lot of the initial setup was, hey, these are the things that you're going to have your team do. Like, I'm not going to do them for you. These are the things your team's going to do. So you need to track your hours. They're going to auto upload to the sheet that I built, and then I'll prepare some analysis on those and then we'll have a conversation about, like, how you should change your prices or change your staff costs or whatever it may be. Like, I don't know what the answer is going to be. We got to get the data. And so that maybe took five to seven hours a month, those three months. So like 7,500amonth into five to seven hours. I don't know what the math is on that. That's pretty good per hour. I'm not complaining. It was, I had a really good job, but it was not that good. And so when I think about it, the analysis that we gave her was able to make her significantly more profitable. I think over the next year, with some of the changes we helped her make, she made an extra 1.1, $1.2 million, 2017. I don't really remember the exact number. And so like the $22,000 I charged her, who cares? So I think a lot of people get stuck in the I have to do it all for them mentality instead of I can get them the right answer and their team can do the thing if they wanted me to do it for them, hire me full time. And I'm really expensive, so I don't. That's not. It's not going to be a good solution. So I think people get stuck in the I don't feel good enough or I don't feel worthy enough or I don't deserve this money. But if you just look at the math, if you can help them make one decision that makes their business 10% better, which is not a lot. Usually small businesses are run pretty bad financially. If you do a million dollars a year and I can make your business 10% better, it's a hundred thousand dollars. You don't think the value is worth half of that.

Exactly. That's wild. It's like you had all of you just knew. And now I think with running this business and your other one, it's. Now you really know how to talk about. Or maybe you always have about the value that somebody's getting. Because you're right. The worthiness piece is so big for business owners, especially accountants, when they're like, it doesn't actually take me that long to do this. And they had been thinking about the time and money equation and not the value that they're bringing. And I love. Actually with the accounting profession, it's relatively easy. Like, I can make you more money. I can increase your profit, I can increase your cash flow. And ultimately, for anybody who's, like, still wanting to play it small, it's like, why wouldn't you work with a larger business? Because numbers are bigger, so your impact can't be bigger. Just to your point. Yeah, yeah. How did you go from this one agency that you helped to then what was your transition where you're like, okay, let me take on a few more. Like, how did you say, you know what? I'm doing this full time. What was that stepping stone for you?

Oh, gosh. So there's a couple years in between the first one I ever did and then me getting into full time. So I ended up taking on this lady. And every, like, a month or two or three, I'd find a new client through Facebook, same kind of way. Like, I would just get in there and give advice and reach out to people. And I was like, hey, if I can solve this conversation or solve this problem, would it be worth a quick conversation? And then just show them how I could help them and then sell them? And so I did that. And the cool thing is I. I borrowed some money to go to school. Right. Going to school is financed by the bank of Charles. Right. Charles was not. Not. Didn't have rich parents, didn't have anything else. The school is expensive. And this allowed me to pay off all my student debt, which was awesome in my career. But the cool thing is that when I started enrolling new clients, the gap between when I started and I was doing it part time and full time was something that I was, like, forced into. And what I mean by that is I ended up getting asked to be the CFO of one of my clients full time. And it was great. I learned a ton. But I didn't really get along with the people I worked For. And at the end of it, I did it for a year. And I had a stomach ulcer, a skin condition from stress. I'm working 80 hours a week again, Like, I'm falling apart. I'm commuting by plane to work each week from Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta. Like, it is terrible. And I have these other fractional CFO clients as well. And I look and I go. I'm earning just as much for my fractional CFO clients as I am for my W2 middle market CFO job. I don't actually need this job or this money. And I actually haven't needed it for a long time. But I didn't realize that, like, I was just like, I'm gonna do the work and I'm gonna collect and keep going. And so I. I made a decision because I've never fully jumped off the bandwagon to work for myself. And I was like, well, I think I spoke to someone. We talked about the happiness equation. And I don't. I don't remember the definition of it, but they were like, okay, if your income gets cut in half, which is still really generous, I can definitely pay my bills on it, but your happiness goes up 10x, is it worth it? And I was like, oh, this is really easy math. Okay. And I chose not to renew my contract. Right then and there. I was like, all right, I know what's happening. And instantly the, like, stress hives all over my hands started to go away. Stomach ulcer just naturally disappeared. Like, I. I lost a lot of, like, unhealthy weight because unlimited travel expense account. Those stakes are great. And I went out on my own, and it was like, the most freeing thing that I could ever think of, to be honest. I. Yeah, I couldn't recommend working for yourself to. I couldn't recommend it more. It has been the most powerful thing that's happened to me. And outside of meeting my partner or my dog, it's like my face is like, right up there of, like, big key moments is like, working for myself.

I think it's massive because when you are working for yourself and you want to continually develop yourself, it's like, you don't learn any of this ever in school. This is like the real true personal for me. It's like the real true personal development of how can you become better? Because we talked about this. It's 80% your mindset. So it's like the like for you. Has it been more of the techno? It's technical growth, yes. But the leadership, what have you seen? Yes, it's free and it gives you time and money and impact. And then for you, where do you see that you've grown the most by running your businesses?

Oh, gosh, where have I grown the most? That's like asking me like, which of your which like life mistakes do you want to talk about today? There's a lot. There's a ton. Oh man. I've got 10, 10 different things that popped into my head. First one, where have I grown the most? So working for yourself. The there's massive variability, right? And when I first started, some months I would earn an insane amount, some months it would be like zero. And I was used to like a steady paycheck, really good and then like a fat bonus at the end of the year. And so my income went up and down significantly. And so I'm a little bit more risk tolerant than most people in general. Like, I. Money to me is video game points. Like, I don't have an emotional attachment to it. However, you still need said video game points to eat food and pay your mortgage and cars and trips and whatever else. And I realized like, working for yourself, you need a way to predictably and like reliably bring in new customers. You need to change your business model. So it's more of a recurring than one off. And so I really wanted to get rid of like the variability of my income and just make it flat so that way I could afford to like, financially afford to go out and do the things that I wanted to do. Because if I don't have a life, like, what's the point of working for myself? And B, so I can have the time to actually enjoy what I like to do, which is spend time with my partner, spend time with my dog, spend time outside. Like, I may live in Microsoft Excel and Facebook ads and sales calls and all that, but like, my favorite thing to do is sit in a hammock. And I don't have my Kindle over here, but sit in a hammock and then read my Kindle, that's my favorite thing to do in the entire world. And so I need to be able to like have the time to step away and go camping and go and do connect with nature and go do the things that actually make me happy. So I was going to say it's like being able to get clients reliably and predictably so you don't ever have to worry about the money problem or like the time problem.

Find that most people get stuck in that equation.

Like the time problem, the money problem, or like getting New clients. Like what?

Having the sales.

So usually, okay, most people I talk to don't have one. And the ones that think they do usually also don't. And I'll explain that here in a second. Most people I talk to has built a business on referrals. And referrals are great. Like, they come in like, I get referrals all the time. But are they consistent? Are they reliable? Are they predictable? Can you turn them up or down at will? And the answer is not really sure. You can hit up everyone in your contact list for a referral. So you can, you know, go out and make a thousand phone calls to everyone in your iPhone contacts list. But really, if I ask someone, hey, how many sales calls did you take last month? And they might say two or three and I go, okay, those are referrals. Those aren't sales calls. Those don't count. How many of those did you take? The answer is usually 0 or under 5. And I go, how many marketing driven sales calls did you get the month before that? The answer is usually zero, but always under five. And so if you don't have control of like new conversations to bring in new customers, you don't really have control of your actual income. And so we end up working for ourselves for that time, freedom for that financial freedom for that location freedom. But if you can't control when you have new people come in your dir and sign on to your business, you don't really have any of those other things. And so that, to me is the biggest challenge I see people have is a, they think they have it, but if you break it down, they don't. And the ones that they know, they don't know how to change that. And that can be really scary when you work for yourself and you're stuck making in a situation that you don't want to be in and you don't know how to get out of it. That sucks.

Yes, it really sucks. You have grown your business by Facebook ads, both those businesses. Is that the only lever that you see as to the drivers of starting those sales calls or those sales conversations as part of the sales system?

So there's a million different ways that you can do it. I'm sure you could go and open Google maps and find everyone in your target market and knock on their door and be like, hi, please give me money. You could do that. You can cold call people, you can beg people for referrals. There's a million things that you can do. The two best ways that I've seen is when you have a reliable way to bring people in. Facebook ads is nice because I know I spend a certain amount every single day. I will get a certain amount of calls on my calendar every single day, and a certain amount of those I will turn to new customers. And it's like a predictable stream. There's just like a fire hose of new customers, and I'm just taking the ones I want and I can open it up or close it off at will. And it's really efficient on my time. Right. These days, I have less time and more money. Now, if I had less money and more time, I would go back to how I got my first customer, which is posting Facebook groups, providing value, doing networking at a predictable and, like, sizable amount to drive a couple conversations a week. So if someone follows you on Instagram, are you DMing every single person that follows you? Are you reaching out on Facebook groups? Like, you need to have four or five conversations with people a week that are going to lead them to grow your business. If you want to grow your business at any appreciable rate because not all five of them are your customers, that's sweet, but I wish that were true, but it's not. So you need to figure out a way to have five conversations a week. And whether it's posting Facebook groups or DMing everyone who follows you or Facebook ads, that's up to you. And I've used all those strategies. I just like Facebook ads because I can have. Me and my team, we have about 20 conversations a day right now. And so that's helpful and that's great. I hired some salespeople from last time we spoke, and I like that because it's works in a perl, a reliable and predictable system. But I'm at the point where I have more money than time.

Yes. But what I like about this, and this is one of my questions, is that people that might be listening, how much should I throw in one month to see what type of results I can get? How do you. How do we answer that question of, okay, this, Charles, is making sense, right? Like, I. I think I should run some Facebook ads. Ultimately, we don't have a ton of time to get into the technical ways of your method of testing and what kind of funnel they go into all that kind of stuff. But I'm sure some questions in people's minds are, okay, do I put in a hundred dollars a day? Do I put in a thousand? Seems pretty high, depending on who's listening to this podcast. Small business or wow, that's huge. 20 bucks a day, 10 bucks a day. How can one start to discern an amount to play around with for the first time? 90 days of doing this, and ultimately, as I'm asking you this question, maybe hiring somebody or finding somebody that that's an expert is going to help you along this way and try to do it yourself also. But I'm just curious, what is an amount that somebody could say, yeah, I should set this aside for my budget?

Okay. So it really depends upon where you want to be. You can spend unlimited amounts of money on Facebook. If you want to give Facebook $100,000 a day, like they'll take it. They will. Now, we don't have to start there and we might not ever actually get there, but that's totally fine. I would say if you're looking to start $10 a day, $300 a month, that'll get you started. That'll get you a handful, well, more than a handful of leads and a handful of conversations and that you can turn into real reoccurring clients, bookkeeping, accounting, fractional cfo, whatever. And so if you are like, are you? And I want to dip my toes in and I want to get started, just commit $10 a day, right? That is a Starbucks and a muffin, right? And so with that, if you are willing to trade a cup of coffee and an English muffin from Starbucks, which is probably $11 now, every day, you will have at least one new customer a month, maybe more, maybe less. Right? And if you do some of the things that we show you, at the very, at least you're charging a fractional CFO customer $1500 a month. Like, what's 300 compared to 1500amonth for an entire year? So that's the very least that I would tell people to start out is $10 a day. We spend like a lot more than that. However, that's where I would say that's a good place to start. And usually at the end of that 90 day period, it's what, $900, like you've already made that back and then some. Now it's just being willing to take the risk to go do it. But if you have a good system, it's not really a risk. It's, I'm putting money in a box and more money's coming out at the other side of it.

It's just a massive the reframe for a lot of small business owners of the time versus the money. It's, oh, spend all this time going to do even. I love Networking events, but like networking events or sponsorships or X, Y, like just putting yourself all over and not accounting for your time as, as that as a way to say what am I actually spending more? If I looked at my hourly break, even doing this versus actually putting some stuff in ads, I think for me that's such a reframe of actually now this is just working without me. I've created this asset. People are coming in. It's beautiful.

That that makes a ton of sense. So I actually just went to a four day event in Atlanta from like Thursday to Sunday. And four, four days, like I blocked off my entire calendar. I didn't have any meetings during that. It was stressful because I had to fit three days of work or five days of work into three prior to that week. And I worked every second until the conference. Like I took calls in the Uber ride on the way to the conference on Thursday. And then for the four days I was there, I was present. Now I'm used to taking about four to five new appointments a day. So that would be granted. I'm not taking calls on Saturday or Sunday, but let's assume they're four work days. That is 20 sales opportunities that I missed going to that event on Facebook. Now at the actual event, I probably, because I had have two calls this week coming up that are scheduled. That'll probably turn into something. So I spent four days of my time to have two potential clients. I learned some stuff at the event. Don't get me wrong, I had a good time, but four days, hotel costs, plane ticket, cost of the event, what did I spend? There's a thousand dollars in the hotel, 500 on the plane ticket, and then another thousand dollars on the ticket. So that's what, $3,000? Yeah, $2,500. Okay. Like I spent about 500 a day on Facebook right now. So I would have spent the exact same amount but had 20 conversations and all of my time back or spent four days the exact same amount of money and two conversations. Now I don't know if the trade offs really there. I think the Facebook ads is probably the better route. But sometimes you got, you sometimes you got just gotta get out of the house. And that's how I justify it. But if you're a busy business owner, like if you earn, if you value your time at $100 an hour, if you're going to spend five hours a day posting Facebook groups at this point, go spend the 50 bucks a day or 10 bucks a day or 400 a day on Facebook and Just take those appointments and like begging for new clients.

It's, well, what I also love about it with your approach, when you do the Facebook ads, it's like you're calling out your ideal customer. You're already talking about their problems. So by the time that they're on the call, like, they're ready to talk with you, versus, like you're @ a networking event, people might not need a fractional cfo. People like you, you're also just developing relationships. So it's. It's a completely different thing. And even if, because I know a lot of people are like, let me go to the chamber of commerce event and pass out my business cards or people don't know that they have a problem. That's the thing. It's like I'm sort of doctor's appointment and I was like, she does probably need a better. She probably does need a sales funnel. Does she think that? No. How is that? No. Like, she has to think that, want that, know that. And that's what's the beauty about, for me about this, about your Facebook or Facebook ads and your Facebook ad strategy and getting them into a funnel that way. It's because they're ready to talk to you.

Yeah, it's. So at this event, I introduced myself to maybe 150 people, right? Like, I was very aggressive. Each person. Hi, I'm Charles. Insert personalized statement beginning. And I talked to 150 people. Maybe two of them will become clients. Maybe two. And I'm great in person. I'm great at sales. That was a ton of time. If only two of those people were qualified, out of 150, maybe three were qualified. But I didn't really have a really good fit with that person. So three qualified, two that I'm willing to talk to. Whereas people are. Because they didn't decide to have a conversation with me about fractional cfo. I came up. Hi, I'm Charles. There's the Facebook ads. They come, they get on, they say, hey, I want more information. They watch a 20 minute video that learns all about my business and what to do, and then they fill out an application and then they book a call and then they get reminded and they get sent more information. So, like, they've already consumed like an hour of content before they talk to them.

It's massive.

So I can do that at scale, or I could sit you down in the corner of a conference room and talk to you for an hour and do that 150 times in a weekend.

No, it doesn't make sense. This is definitely the way to, to do. And especially from the accounting profession, it where it's I only rely on referrals like that is like we talk to old school, new school. Like you watch people with their big fear factor up of this is how you're supposed to do it. I would never run Facebook ads. Like a lot of limiting belief beliefs and it's wow. But look at what's on the other side. Why do you think people have limiting beliefs about ads and just doing things the new way?

That's a good question. So I think accounting, finance general, there's been a group of people who have talk about a big four, right? There's just even like older accounting firms. It's almost like an institution. So for example is you go to school, you get your cpa, you go work for a really large company and then maybe you set out on your own and you got to work for somebody else first. And then when you do that, you have to buy their practice and then you have to like get all the referrals and then you have to go to the chamber of commerce, you have to this and that. And so there's a group of people who are older, who have decent sized firms and that's the way they did it before the Internet even existed. And so if those are the people to look up to in the industry right now, a lot of people have these beliefs that you have to do what they did, but you're not in the same environment that they are. Right? You're not in the same place that they are. And a lot of those businesses are shutting down. Some of them are being sold, some of them are closing down. Their clients are going somewhere. And so all their clients have to go somewhere. The number of accountants going down overall each year. And you can either pick them up the old way, which is not reliable, not consistent, not predictable, or you can do it the new way by using this thing called the Internet. And it sounds dumb when I say that, but people use the Internet for every single facet of their lives. We do our banking online, QuickBooks is online, we call our friends, we're on Instagram and Facebook. People are online all the time and you're online all the time. But somehow they think I can't get business owners online. You're a person, you're a business owner, you're online. So why wouldn't other business owners be online? I promise you they're there. And so there's just this weird disconnect. And I think it's just because it's been done the old way so long that people are going to do what they've always done and they're going to get the results they've always got. World's changed and so those results are not going to be there.

No, totally. It's. Now is the time to embrace all this stuff and maybe we'll think, oh, AI, embrace it all. Switching a little bit of gears on how you are building both these businesses. So we didn't really dive too much into. Okay, we got the origin story, we got all. You were hired as a full time. You also had a few different CF fractional CFO clients. When did you start to niche down? Cause I know that your niche was really then starting to work with E commerce brand. So what was that genus like genesis for you?

So I worked for the ad agency, right? Or I did. That was my first client and they only served e commerce clients. And so through them I got my first couple clients and that's how I became the CFO of one of their clients who was fairly large. And when I left them I realized I had two or three E commerce clients as clients already. And I, I realized I am an expert in, in really large manufacturing organizations. There's not too many small oil and gas manufacturing companies. They all probably have a full time cfo. But e commerce companies, they have a massive problem. And I am an expert. I've hired people, I've negotiated contracts, I've fired people. I worked at a business that was growing 400% year over year. That was profitable. Like I know all the things. And since I had a couple e commerce clients and I was excited about the industry, I was like I want to do more of this and so can I serve other clients? Yeah, if I can. If I worked for an oil and gas manufacturing conglomerate, I'm sure I can figure out a landscaping business. I'm sure I can figure out a small SaaS business. I'm sure I can figure out all these other companies that are probably a lot easier to run. Manufacturing is up there in the complicated realm. I just focus on E commerce because that's what I like to do. I like the clients. They have a big pain point. They have lots of money to spend. They spend 10 grand a day on Facebook. So 10 grand a month to me is nothing. And I like working with the people. Like it's exciting, it's fun. They're usually not good at finance. So I can provide a lot of value and they don't actually want to do it. They just want me to do it. So I just, it felt just like a natural progression. And I know some people are trying to pick a niche and they don't have one. I super recommend it because I'm like an E commerce finance expert. There's nobody better at E commerce finance than me. And because of that, it's really easy for me to get clients. But if I was just like a fractional cfo, I can't say I'm the best fractional CFO in the entire planet. Every single thing. I wish that'd be really cool, but that's not true. But as far as finance expert in the commerce realm, that's me. I am that expert. And so do I want to be good at everything or do I want to be the best at one thing? And I found being the best at one thing is the most powerful thing I've done. Because when I go to an E Commerce event, people are like, oh, you have to talk to Charles. Whether you can afford them or not, it's a different story. But you have to talk to Charles. And so that's been really nice. So I really. If you don't have a niche, a lot of people think they're going to turn away all these other customers. But there's hundreds of thousands of Shopify stores that are make millions of dollars a year, and that's just one E Commerce platform. So there's more than, there's more than enough business for me and probably everyone else who would ever think to do that niche. So people have this limiting belief that, like, I'm saying no to customers, you're actually saying yes to more of the right ones.

Delivery is a lot easier because you're like, boom, this is wrong. Like, you look at the financials and you're like, oh, that's messed up. And like you have your secret sauce, doesn't take you long. But for them, they're like, oh, he's saved me. He's made me this much money. That's to me why, Especially with accounting, like, it feels like, how could you know the nuances of like construction accounting and like, help? That's like really different than inventory. And I don't even know the inventory terms in E commerce. So it makes a lot of sense to, to do the technical and to Nietzsche and especially it seems like for you, when you mentioned like that you were stressed out and when you were doing that full time and that they didn't, you didn't necessarily vibe fully with that team. For me, working with people, if you're servicing people, like, I Have to like them like I have. It's the worst isn't having a client that you don't like is. I'm curious. Is okay. I. It feels like that's your vibe too, of just being able to discern. Are we actually afraid, fit for each other personality wise? Is that part of your qualification?

Yeah. At this point, like if I get on a call and I don't like the person and I don't want to work with them. Oh, a little embarrassing here, but I was on a call maybe like a month and a half ago, and you usually. I pride myself on having a decent level of emotional intelligence, being able to put things the right way, still an authentic way, but just put him in a way that's like proper. Like, I own a business, I gotta represent myself well. And maybe 15 minutes in the call, I tell this guy. I was like, you sounded, you sound like a headache. I don't want your money. And I just blurted it out and I saw the words coming outta my mouth and I went to take my hands up, try and put them back in, and he goes, huh? I was like, yeah, look man, I'm sorry, I just, this is not gonna be a good fit. Here's like an avenue that I recommend you go, but I'm gonna end the call right now. And I ended it. And I was like, there's a better way to say that for sure. But I, like, I just couldn't help myself. And the cool thing is once you solve the like, getting clients reliably problem, you don't have to beg for money, you don't have to stoop to work on people you don't want to work with. And my internal monologue of f this, I, this guy is not going to be a good fit was like so strong I couldn't even keep it contained within. And so when you're offer operating off of like a place of like abundance instead of scarcity, you get to be your true self. And mind you, there's a better way to say what I said. And I got off the phone, I was like, dang, Charles, you could do better. You like, you, you have some emotional intelligence there, buddy. You could use it. But I had the confidence to say, you sound like a headache. I don't want your money. Like word for word, that's what I said. And there's like five seconds of just like silence. He's like, okay. I was like, yeah, I'm gonna go now. So it usually doesn't happen, but that's, that's when you Know that you're operating as out of a place of like abundance. You get clients reliably, like that's the way that you get to be yourself authentically. And it sounds cheesy wooey, like authentic self. But like when you don't need something and you're just being yourself, like that's the most powerful thing and it'll push away the people who don't need to be around you and it'll attract people who you need around you. And it's been like, it's been really cool.

What technically you are doing CFO work. You've scaled that business. Are you doing it with a team underneath you? Because this is what I feel like a lot of experts that have a really great technical skill set. How do you translate that? Coach and train people? They haven't worked at the big oil and gas company, they haven't done all of these things. And I feel like this is what happens with a lot of experts when they want to scale their business. And obviously you've got sales on repeat, not an issue. But how do you really work on delivery and making sure that you can deliver the, the quality that one agency has that maybe your 100th client will have?

Okay, so here's something that I've found is you mentioned this before. When you serve like a niche, the deliverables are pretty similar. So that saves a lot of time. The next point is I've made a couple shifts in my business over the last like year or two that have been really powerful for me. And so I used to do everything is 100 custom and I'm going to do all, not all do all the work from not having a team perspective, not from. I'm not going to do, I'm not going to do the payables for the client or anything like insane like that. But I realized that I was stuck at a certain point, right? And like I was earning well, that was cool. But I wanted more and I wanted to grow something large. And so if somebody's listening and they're thinking, I need to hire 15 people tomorrow like you, you can do 30 or $40,000 a month by yourself. You don't need a team. If you have it structured, you're fine. Now to get past that, you got to make a couple changes. So one of them is I again corporate finance guy, don't bookkeeping. I barely know how to use QuickBooks. Like I can get in, I can get the income statement, I can balance sheet and we're good. So I didn't offer Bookkeeping. And in the last year or two, I started offering bookkeeping and that was powerful and I got someone else to do it on my team. So now I have that offloaded. I get more revenue from that, more predictable clients, they stay a little bit longer. My numbers are good so I can do my job better. Because I never seen a correct balance sheet, like ever. And then I was like, all right, how do I scale the CFO work? And so I brought someone on my team to do that. And this woman has been fantastic. I love working with her. She does a great job. And so I started training her to do some of the CFO work. And so she manages the bookkeeping team and does some of the CFO work. And I do mostly just the selling the client side stuff now and then if there's a problem that she needs help solving. But that took some time. That took like a big not money investment, but time investment for my part to get someone to see the way things I do. Because when I look at an income statement for, especially for an E commerce company, I can spend five minutes asking questions about the business and I can tell you what to do. Right. To fix it. Now I've looked at hundreds of them. So like it's, let's rinse and repeat now. But I needed to get someone up to that level and so I actually had her join me on every single client call that I took for a couple months.

Yeah.

But now she can do it and it's been awesome. So do you need a team to get to those revenue numbers? No. After there, you got to start bringing on people and you just do it one at a time. You don't have to hire someone full time. Like, I started out, like, hey, we're just going to pay you per new client that you bring on. We're going to bring you on slowly. And so now she mostly is working with us and a girl on my team, Sarah. And so that to me has been awesome is you can start off by yourself, you can do pretty darn well, and then you can add on a team and it just works like it's a really scalable model. If you're not in the high volume.

Low price kind of world, which I feel like most of our audience isn't. How, when you're hiring, when you're hiring, how much do you look at technical versus the emotional competence and the leadership?

There's a floor for technicals. So this is a certain amount that you need. But the thing is you can teach technicals, you can't Teach character. And so are you going to show up on time? Are you going to treat people with respect? Do you have a sense of creativity? Are you willing to think outside that box? Are you willing to try something new? Do you do what you say you're going to do? Are you polite even when you're stressed out? Are you excited to try something new? Are you kind? Are you compassionate? Do you care? Are you relational instead of transactional? Those are all things that I look for. I would pick someone who is creative, passionate and dedicated and kind over somebody who's insanely technically skilled. Because I can teach technicals, I can't teach character. But you can't really teach creative thinking. And so I look for that. And then you just got to have the bare minimum technicals. Granted, the staff that I have is well past bare minimum, but the reason I really love them is all the other things in their character. And that's why I don't. I want to keep them around for.

What's the number one value you look for?

Oh, gosh, Number one. I don't know, because I have a couple things. I think. I think the. I can tell you the thing that when people don't have it is there's two kind of things. It's the ability to think creatively, and then it's doing what you promise you say you're going to do. If you can do those two things, we will get along always if you do what you say you're going to do. Like, I. I love that because that's the biggest thing. If you and I are going to meet up, we're going to go get lunch. If I have food poisoning, I will still be there. It's probably to a fault, like I will do. If I say I'm going to do it, it happens no matter what. And I hold people to that same standard. That example is ridiculous. But that's something I've actually done.

Wow.

Not healthy, so probably don't recommend that, but so doing. Yeah, I know, Whole story. But doing what you say you're going to do, and then the ability to think creatively. If I have some of those two characteristics, we're great and those are pluses. Assuming someone's kind, someone's compassionate, someone's trustworthy, some someone's honorary, those are the base level. Like, those are requirements. Those aren't like extras. So we're assuming we have, like, quality content of character. But it's being able to think creatively and what you say you're going to.

Do, those are hard to find. Now, those are. It's not that it's a. In a big supply. And I think those are areas where anyone can embrace, Even if you're a business owner, it's. How can I be more creative? How can I do more of what I say I'm going to do? Hopefully everybody is, but those are really good. So what made you then? Because now you have two businesses. What was that prompt? Right. So you have the fractional cfo, and now you're supporting accountants. What was the prompt for you to not just continue to scale the fractional cfo, but then to actually start supporting accountants learning how to do the same thing? I'm always so curious about that big decision.

So initially, it wasn't a big decision. Initially, I had a friend approach me, and I was talking a little bit about what I do, and he hasn't really heard of the whole fractional CFO thing. And he said, charles, do you think what you do works for someone else? And I was like, shoot, I don't know. He's like, you should try it. And it planted a little seed in my head. And so I found someone who's done some bookkeeping for some of my clients before. And I said to him, like, hey, I just. Whole fractional CFO thing, and I feel like it might help your business. Are you open to seeing, like, what it looks like? And he was like, yeah, sure. I was like, all right, how about let's do this? I have a system. I have a way of getting clients and charging them and selling them and all this, and it works really well for me. I wonder if it works for you. Let's work together over a period of three months, and I'm gonna do some crazy stuff to your business, and if I make you any extra money in the next three months, let me just keep the extra. Any. Anyone who stays after that, just. I want you to just keep it forever. This is your guinea pig, so will cost you nothing, and I will put a ton of work into your business. And he goes, okay, sure. Like, he was willing enough to be like said guinea pig. And I go in, and he was doing like, 33, $3,400 a month. And at the end of the 90 days, he got to 8, 500amonth in recurring revenue. So that's what, an extra $5,000 a month for the next year. So we made $60,000. But he also sold, like, $24,000 at one time. CFO engagements or cleanups or projects in those 90 days. And so for someone who's making $3,000 to $8,000 a month. That's a, that's life changing. B, he sold $24,000 of fractional CFO in those 90 days. And if you're making $3,000 a month and someone hands you a check for $24,000 like that is life changing. Right? That boosts you to a whole other level. And he's gone on to, he's much higher in revenue a month now and he sold a whole bunch of fractional CFO going forward. And so that's when I realized I have a system that works for other people. It would be, it would almost be wrong of me to not share it with other people. I helped change that guy's life. And like he, I talked to him the other day, he went on a 17 day vacation to Europe. That's pretty cool. You can't do that when you make $3,000 a month and you live in South Florida and it's really expensive here. So that's. It just, it feels good to be a part of that. And it's way cooler to take someone from 10k a month to 25 and like now they can send their kids to a nice school, now they can take that vacation that they wanted. They don't have to worry about am I going to pay my bills. That feels way better than taking someone's large business from 10 million a year to 12 million a year. Like that guy can buy an extra Lamborghini or two a year. This other person changed their life. That feels way better on an emotional level to me. And so I've really enjoyed been doing.

That over the last time. How do you spend your time? I think that's like when we think about time management between both of these businesses and living life and all the things is like what's your secret sauce then for managing your time?

I work a lot, but I have gotten really good at getting good people in. Like I told you, I have a fractional CFO on my team. Her name's Sarah. She's amazing. And so she's serving clients and does a great job. I've hired some like salespeople. Right. Like they are amazing. They love helping, they love serving. I've got a bookkeeping team and so technology processes people. Those have allowed me to help scale a lot further past my individual reach and figuring out how to get people results in a shorter amount of time. Because if I get you the results that you want sooner, whether it's growing your accounting firm or making your E commerce business more profitable, If I can get you results faster, you're not going to be upset at me. If I can get you there sooner, you're going to be happier. But also it's better for me because it's a better reward for my time. And A, I live by my calendar. If something doesn't happen, if it's not on my calendar, B, I've gotten really creative on, like, how to serve people to make sure they get better results while taking less time for me, because my number one indicator of, like, success for me is how much am I earning per hour? And it's a function of do to me, that's like the closest proxy of am I earning to what I need to earn? And do I still have a life. And that's why I got into fractional CFO, because I was like, wow, I mean, $22,000 and I didn't work 20 hours to even do that. How do I do more of that? And so that's been my thought. And going into this process is like, how do I help people to the biggest amount possible while still, like, having a life? And as long as I make that, like, my, like, deciding factor, time hasn't been an issue.

Do you. But with both the businesses with your goals, I'm just curious if are you trying to build both of them to hit to a certain amount, or do you. Do you have this big desire we talked about? Like, everybody in the accounting industry needs you, right? Obviously making an impact in that space. But when I think about you have these two businesses have a huge goal to grow it to a certain revenue amount or two or one more than the other. Or do you look at business is just like, generating enough, not even enough, but is it hitting a certain amount or is it generating enough that's going to allow you to retire early? Like, how do you look at your goals with your business ownership?

That's a good question. So, finance guy, I've got a budget and I've got a forecast and I've got like a revenue target. Like, I've got, I've got all that down. That's not like the biggest driver to me. I've been able to pay my bills for a really long time. I think you and I talked another time. Like, there's only fun. There's only so many fun things that you can buy after that. Like, it doesn't really move the needle. Like, I've got a pair of shoes and I wear them every day, and the same pair of shoes, and in three months later, when they wear out I buy the exact same pair. Like, I don't care. What I do care about is I want to change, like the accounting industry as a whole, right? We are stuck in this old model of I work a ton, I get destroyed by my customers, I don't earn what I want to earn. I'm insanely technically skilled. Maybe I have a CPA or an accounting firm. I don't make what I need to make to have the life that I want to have. I'm not location free. Like, I'm like location dependent. And it's not like, what, it's not the life that they signed up for. And so my version of doing good in the world is how can I change that for other people? Like, how can I have people have the same experience that I've had, which is time freedom, financial freedom, location freedom, health freedom, you got to go to the gym. I can't help you with that one. But those are the three that I've received by doing this. And so I want to get as many people in the world a hold of this new model which is being paid for their brain and their expertise and not their time or their money or their hands. Because time and energy in your hands, that's going to be, that's going to be eroded by AI. But your brain and your ability to create value for other people and the relationships you build, AI can't replace that. And so I almost view myself as like someone who's. I've been given something really good that I figured out by accident. And it would be irresponsible of me not to share with other people. Like, I feel like it's my job or my duty. And so if I can somehow figure out a way to impact more people in a positive way, that's my only goal. Like, I, in, in 10 years, I want people to be like, yeah, I'm a fractional cfo. And that has as much like, recognition as like being a CPA or like having that like, title out there. And I want that to be like a respected thing and a craft that people go into, not something they get into by accident, like how I did. So that's my goal, is to change the industry. I know it's tied to a revenue number or whatever, and those will be there along the way.

I always think of it as your North Star. And that gets you up at night, right? Or up in the morning, not up at night, hopefully. But when you have something that. That's what I've always noticed. If I'm actually driven by making an impact for who? That's why I love the cannabis industry. I was like, this is the best thing ever. Like, just coming along, like, in a mission to, like, end prohibition and like, helping businesses that were actually coming to the light. Like, that's what I loved it. And being able to disrupt something and be able to shift because this industry is changing so much, like, shift, actually how the people that are delivering the services can deliver the services and provide more value for their clients is. It's so big because it's not only helping them, but it's also helping their clients. And it's a. And to me, that's worth getting up. Right. Because the revenue always will flow, fall, the income always will fall. I think the. I always thought, like, the bigger of the impact you can make if you're strategic, without you price and all that kind of stuff, the more money you'll have. It's. It's. It really is. And it just seems like it's part of your ethos of just being in service. And I love what you said is I have something that, if I didn't share it, I'd be doing a lot of people a disservice. And how people can reframe what they're thinking about. Yes. Get out there and continue to help more people. It's massive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anything else you want to share before we hop off?

We talked about a lot. We talked about, like, how the heck I got into this. We talked about, like, Facebook ads being the best place to get reliable customers. We've talked about, you know, why we got onto this. I think the only thing I really want to share is if you are offering fractional Civo services, Right. If you're an accountant or a bookkeeper and you, like, feel stuck, you don't have to feel that way. Like, there's a new way and you can do what you've always done and you. You probably will get the same results, but just be willing to try something new if you want our help. Like, you can reach out to us, but if not, like, that's totally fine, but you're doing yourself and your clients a disservice if you're not trying to be actively more engaged in their business. And so, like, my big push to whoever listen to this is try something new, get a little bit more involved, roll up your sleeves and see if you can help a business owner, see if you can make more profitable. God knows they're looking for it. God knows they need your help. So, like, why not give it to Them. And if you find it fun, like, maybe next time, be like, hey, I'm gonna, you know, charge the next one for it and just dip your toe in. You don't have to. Like, we. I learned this over the weekend with people like, oh, I have to be 100 in. I gotta do this. No, just be slightly more in than you're not. Like, be 51% and just be like, all right, I'm going to be willing to try something new a little bit more than I am willing to not do it and give it a shot. And, like, your client will respect you for it. Build something off of that, and then charge the next one. And if you do that, you're changing their life and you're changing yours. So that's what I would recommend.

I want to just before we actually. And I want to dive a little bit deeper into what you experienced this weekend. That's like people having to like, I have to go all in or I'm not going to do it. Is that. Was that kind of a common theme you saw?

Yeah. Yeah. So one of the. One of the things that they. The conference talked about was it was about building a personal brand. And a lot of people are there are, like, afraid to post online or to put themselves out there. And if you're a bookkeeper and accountant, put yourself out there as a fractional cfo. Like, that's scary. That's a new title. There's a lot of stigma that comes with it. I got to be an old white guy with six master's degrees. I'm one of those things. I'm white. That's it. But I'm not old. I don't have six master's degrees, and it's changed my life. And a lot of people at the event were afraid that they can't put themselves out there with a personal brand, put themselves on the Internet, because it's scary. And you just have to be, like, 1% more willing than you're not. You just show up a little bit more than you're not. And so you don't have to rebrand yourself as a fractional CFO tomorrow. You don't have to put it all over the Internet and talk to everyone and be like, I'm this expert and I know everything. You just gotta be able to say, hey, I can maybe help with that. Let's have a conversation. And that's a lot easier to do, and you'll get that little win, and it'll build your confidence. You'll do it again, and then maybe In a couple months. Maybe now you can say I'm the best fractional CFO in the world at this niche, or maybe not. But either way, you can help some people. So just be a little bit more in than you're not, and you'll get there a lot sooner. People, there's a confidence issue with a lot of people, and if you're able to get over this and just try a little bit more than you're not, you look back six months and you'll see, wow, like, I've grown so much, and you were just a little bit willing.

I mean, it's confidence and competence, right? Like, just continue to do it. You're gonna develop that confidence. Ah, that's big. I know. Well, it's a good, good spot to wrap it. Charles, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for listening to this podcast podcast. I'm so, so happy that we are connected and part of a community that are really focused on building true freedom in our business and in our life. So if you love this, if you liked it, if you found some value in it, please make sure that you like it and you subscribe to the podcast. If you're feeling extra, extra grateful, share it with a friend, anyone who might have needed this. The more people that we can help collectively, the better we're all, all going to be. Until next week, have a beautiful, lovely, happy and fulfilled week.