Finding Your Fractional Fit - Sean Dockery - Fractional C-Suite Retreat - Episode #47

Growing a business is hard, but it does not have to be.

Once a week, we take a break from the hustle and bustle in business to talk about innovations and what's new in the C-suite. This is the Fractional C-Suite Retreat, and I'm Joseph Frost. Pull up a seat at the fire, grab a drink, smoke a cigar, and just join me as we relax, learn, and get inspired. This retreat is sponsored by Your CMO, helping organizations grow with better marketing strategy.

Welcome. Today's guest, someone with 15 years of finance, accounting, and operational experience. His cornerstone is scaling operations, integration, financial systems implementation, and board relations. He specializes in building companies' finance functions from the ground up to enable efficient and repeatable data output. He is founder and fractional CFO at Syncopated Synergy. Welcome, Sean Dougherty. Sean, how are you? Good.

You?

I'm terrific. So tell me what— well, I'm supposed to begin with my first question, but I'm going to begin with the question around Syncopated Synergy. How did you come up with that name? I really like it.

I didn't. My wife did. I'll give her full credit. I am kind of a hobby musician. I was a college baseball player, got hurt. And you get— when you play NCAA baseball, you get like, you know, 3 hours back each day. And so I picked up a guitar and it translated into my passion for the last basically 20 years. So Syncopated is a play on syncopated, a typical rhythm in reggae, which is where you accent sort of the offbeat, which is kind of the weak beat. So the idea was, is that we accent the weak part of an organization and then synergies, obviously what it is. So kind of a fun little play on words. Love it.

That's terrific. That's awesome. Well, props to your wife.

Hey, I agree.

Well, good. Well, so the question I normally start with is share with us something that you think that is going on in the C-suite or something of interest to you that you think other C-suite leaders should be thinking about or aware of.

I guess I can speak to kind of the fractional space being relatively new to it, but having been more on the W-2 side of things, I think I'm getting the sense, and I've dealt with this with clients of my own, that they're starting to become an awareness around, do we really need that $200,000+ executive team? There's some objectivity to that sort of outsider coming in and just looking at it as well as the band of experience that you have when you see multiple companies sort of on a, you know, monthly, annual basis. So there's a part of me that thinks in the space that I play in, the SMB space, there's a lot of argument being made for, you can get a lot done with that, you know, one day a week, CFO, CMO, COO, whatever it is. So I mean, you know, in general, you know, the executive experience is a lot of it's around team building, right? And so I don't think that that's changed at all. I just think that as we've moved to a remote environment, you know, kind of post-pandemic, I think it's becoming even more apparent that, you know, we need really solid, in my opinion, solid in-house legacy information type individuals sort of running the show, kind of the more laborious stuff. And then we just kind of need oversight. And when you look at it from that perspective, I think you can drive a lot of results because at the end of the day, we'd be getting into a whole economics discussion. You're still gonna have businesses that always want to cut cost, right? So I'm kind of seeing is, is the best way to cut cost is don't cut value when you have, for instance, in a finance department, an accountant who can turn and burn and get a lot of stuff done. You know, bring in the CFO who just mostly needs to make sure things are staying on track, strategies being met, data integrity exists, and allow that person to really kind of keep, keep things going, if that makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's— I was just having that conversation earlier today. It's fresh in my mind. Like, how does it— how would you say a company goes about identifying a fractional professional that's a good fit for them?

I honestly, I would say it's very similar to what you would do for a W-2. But I think that you have— I think that if you're smart, you do it in a way where you treat the interaction like it's a business interacting with the business. So it's, you know what I mean? So like, for instance, I have a client that one of the things they've openly said they love about me is that everything I do, I do through the idea of what's best for them, as if I was in that seat. So I make recommendations as if I was in that seat. I think a lot of times when we're in that seat, we take it for granted and it gets, it gets taken for granted internally. Whereas if you think of who you're working for as I have a skill set that I can offer you, and conversely, they think we would love for you to help us because you have a skill set to offer, it makes the relationship, in my opinion, just a lot more productive.

Yeah, I refer to that as fiduciary. When we take on an engagement and I recommend this to any company looking for a fractional CMO or CFO or CTO, you want somebody who's a true fiduciary that's got your best interests when they're making decisions and recommendations. And most of the time you get that with fractional professionals that are currently on the marketplace. But sometimes there's what I call imposters or posers out there, the people that represent themselves as fiduciary but might have an alternative motive or ulterior motive, like they have a software they're also selling with their service, or they have a service team behind them that's doing additional work that just so happens the strategy always leads to that one team doing the work. And yeah, you got to be careful. You want someone who's truly a fiduciary in that seat to make the best decisions.

Yeah, I would even go— I mean, this might not be a popular opinion, but I would even go as far as the fractionals that say charge a retainer right out of the gate. To me, it's like, sounds like you're trying to make sure you get a salary, you know, while you, while you iron out the relationship, you know, and to me, that's another kind of red flag. It's like, why would you not want to just be paid for exactly what you're doing? And conversely, they pay. And then as you reach sort of a homeostasis in the relationship, then you can develop something that's fair to both parties. But that's another one that I see where I'm a little, I don't know if I would, I'd be a little hesitant of that company or individual.

Yeah, that's interesting. So when you think of how you charge versus those alternative ways, what do you charge by the hour or do they?

Okay. I charge by the hour and I discount for on the terms of ongoing versus project, obviously. But I'm ultimately trying to get enough data on the hours spent, on what is needed. Because you know this, when you go in as a fractional, it usually starts off as one thing and then it ends up with 15 things that they want you to do once they start to realize what they've got. And so I look at it like, let's get to that 15 things. Now we've got a homeostasis, and then let's discount that rate. Let's turn it into something where it's like, I don't have to clock watch, you don't have to clock watch, but you're 100% sure you're getting all the value out of my services or somebody on my team, versus let's just charge a retainer because I'm worth it. And it's like, yeah, but what if when you start off, you know, it takes— sometimes it can take a month before the onboarding is even like completely done for whatever. A lot of times, like in our situation, company systems aren't, aren't great. So it's like, well, let's just keep being a fiduciary. You pay for what you use. And then as we get more comfortable and we understand what's going on, then let's, let's move to something that's, you know, a little bit more or less, like I said, clock watching.

Yeah. Yeah, I like that approach. So our approach is a little different. We don't charge hourly. That's kind of been a core tenet of ours. We just didn't want to have that as a pricing model. Yeah, but we have a three-stage approach. The first stage is a fixed project with a fixed project fee. It's an audit and the delivery of that audit. So it's a fixed price. We know what we're delivering. We do the work. It could take 30 days, it could take 60 days. And, you know, it's, it's a deliverable. And then we have a fixed price for our planning that we do. It's about a 2-week planning process. We take the insights from the audit and do some collaborative work and we deliver then a 2-year plan and then we get into our— we could call retainer, but it's a flat monthly fee. But it's only after we've gone through the audit and the foundation do we accurately scope what that ongoing monthly work is going to be. So it gives us, you know, kind of the same way you said it, we've now got a little homo, homo stasis, or what do you call it. We've figured some things out, we've got a normal expected work. But then we're all, we're always upside down the first quarter, I'll tell you that, as we take on, there's always more to do with an implementation of the plan the first 90 days than it is, you know, the second, third. So Yeah, but I like your approach, or I like the differentiation between your approach and the, we're just going to start charging retainer out of the gate and we'll work up to it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, hopefully the value will be there and whatever. I think a lot of it too is I personally have yet to have any clients where they knew exactly what they needed. They knew exactly what was going to be done. That just hasn't happened yet. And so in that case, I'm like, well, I want to be fair to you and conversely, you know, fair to the relationship. So it's, I I think that's, you know, your sort of scoping you were talking about for 2 weeks, that for us could be 2 months, you know? Yeah. So that's why I usually tell clients like, look, give me 2 to 5 months or so, we'll have this ironed out and then we'll be in a good spot, you know? And then we can charge something that's way more reasonable. 'Cause it's, you know, being a fiduciary doesn't make sense to be paying hundreds of dollars an hour for somebody, you know, and for a long-term solution, that's just not a good use of your funds.

So I'm curious, you, you, you work with a lot of different businesses and as a fractional, when you go in, are you usually the first fractional or are there fractional professionals that were there before you?

All the ones that I have engaged with so far, I'm the first.

Yeah. Yeah. And then does that because of their position as an accountant, you're not an accountant, but as a financial-focused fractional, do you make it obvious that maybe there's other people on the team that could be replaced, or do you look at it's more incremental value we could find out in the marketplace to add to the team? Like, how do you navigate that?

Yeah, um, a little bit like how when you go in and it's— in, in my case, it'll be an SOW will say, help us with this, and then 2 months later it's help us with these 10, 15 things. I think it's a bit like that. As you know, when you go in, part of the kind of the beauty of being a fractional is, is you are viewed in some percentage of the relationship as sort of an outsider, which is where you become a bit of a confidant. And so that's usually where I find like, oh, okay. So it actually turns out that so-and-so or such-and-such department has got kind of a big problem. And then that's where my referral base is so valuable and knowing really great people in these different disciplines. But I haven't, haven't really been in this scenario. I, you know, I kind of look at what you said as a bit like what an EOS implementer or a business coach would do, right? Where they're going in and they're like, okay, show me the team, show me, just open up to me. But it's kind of like a known relationship when you engage those people. When you're engaging one individual to help with a particular part of your organization. I personally, I don't know, I don't feel great about it, but I feel like it would be a little oversteppy, if that's a word, to just start being like, hey, I know, you know, an entire C-suite, why don't you, you know, engage us for a bunch of things? It looks like you've got problems.

Yeah, yeah. I just think that there's so much opportunity for businesses today to tap into the fractional space that once they get a taste of one, they'll see that, oh, well, I could have a fractional CMO also, or CTO could come in here, or COO, or I'm, I'm, I haven't seen it, but I'm ready for the fractional CEO to, to be a popular thing. Like, I think there's an opportunity there as well.

I've met, uh, one, um, and I, and I kind of, in some ways, depending on the organization, I kind of put fractional COOs in that bucket because a lot of times they, right, I know a couple, but I agree with you. I, you look, we're, there's so much transition in the past couple of years with the business landscape. I mean, you and I had this conversation again in 10 years, who knows how it's changed. But I do think that as we've all evolved our understanding of the work landscape, the articles that come out, the difficulty in hiring in the market, get where it starts to make— it's got to start making people think, where is all of this talent? Like, if it's so difficult to get somebody, and then when you do get somebody you like, you have to pay far more than you've ever paid in the past probably 20 years, um, then where the heck are all the professionals? You know, I was talking to somebody about this recently, and they were like, they're probably just working for themselves like you are. And I was like, well, then it's going to catch on. It's some— somebody's going to figure it out. It's going to become common knowledge. And then like what you're talking about becomes way more common. You're gonna— you might start getting the client saying, hey, do you know a blank? And it's like, yeah, I absolutely do.

So yeah, the, the trends are in, uh, in our favor as fractionals, but both ways, because there's more and more, um, executives leaving corporate America, corporate, uh, Canada, corporate— I, I had an interesting conversation with a Canadian I'll tell you about later. And then, uh, there's more and more businesses that are like, this is interesting. This is— there's a value here that we could tap into. Now, the nuances, it's different. I think, as you said, between a W-2 and a 1099, there's, there's major operational differences. What would you say some of the positives and negatives are with a fractional relationship versus a W-2 relationship?

Okay. I'll use a client actually that I literally just had this conversation this morning. So this client is a bit opposed to internal accounting staff. My argument is I can agree to an extent. Let's say you need 5 people. I can agree. Sure, you maybe don't need all of these people internally. My only issue with that is that unless you have somebody that's like truly dedicated to a client, like that's maybe their only engagement, you know, they work 20 to 40 hours a week, that's all they do. You're always gonna be missing a bit of that ownership. Oh, you know, that institutional knowledge. That's where to me the W-2 is great because you, you know, when you've gone and sat in that seat, you're like, I own this seat. I'm gonna do my best to improve that seat. I'm gonna do my best to think of things in terms of the organization. I think this is what great employees do. And I think that, that's where the W-2 can really pay off. The more obvious ones, which most of us are aware of, is that you're going to start, like I said, taking things for granted. You may just do only the bare minimum. You know, you're— maybe you're tired of the bureaucracy, which is why I think a lot of people are leaving, you know, the corporate America, corporate Canada, corporate Mexico. And conversely, on the 1099, I think it's a pretty just fair opposite. You know, when you're, you're always kind of thinking things in terms of things objectively, you should be, you know, you think of them as a client. It's a B2B relationship versus an employee-employer. And I think that you're also going to see more— I think with the 1099, you also get sort of a generally a sort of expertise, right? I've, I have had a few clients and it's usually We already know you're the expert because you've been referred and yada yada. It's not, this was a job interview, you were one of 10 people and we chose you and we hope it works out. So I think that there's a bit of that, like, you already know I'm the right fit, so let's go make this, this a beautiful relationship. I think that's, you know, and so anyways, my point is, is that like this client, for instance, I, I see depending on the role and depending on the way the organization is structured, I think that there is a really great argument for sort of a hybrid model. I would be hesitant of any organization that's like, I want this whole department or arm of the company to be outsourced and this whole to be in. A great example would be development departments, right? I mean, how often do you see software engineers where it's like there's a few people internally, usually the VP or CTO is internal, right, and VP of products internal, and then you're going to have a bunch of engineers that are outsourced. But there's always like that— there's a bit of that hybrid.

They've—

and maybe in some ways they've been on the forefront of this idea for a long time because of the cost and the scarcity of software engineers.

Yeah, that hybrid model. I just had, um, an idea the other day. There's a company in Omaha that it's called JobShare Connect. They started with this premise that two people can share one job. And there's a lot of benefits to that in the professional workspace. An obvious one is, I guess, a stay-at-home parent that wants to come back into the workforce but not full-time, has all that expertise and skill set. Could you pair them with another stay-at-home parent or an existing team member that just wants to go part-time instead of full-time anyway. But I was just thinking the other day, what if you could take a job share approach and leverage it with overseas outsourcing? Because we— I own an outsourcing company called Guided Outsourcing. We place a lot of marketing, IT, and accounting people, and we place full-time. That's what we do. But sometimes you lack what you mentioned, that kind of institutional knowledge. You lack some of the expertise and direction that senior, more local, experienced folks can, can bring. What if you could take a full-time outsourced person and pair it up with two job share people in one organization or different organizations and get that equivalent of a full-time worker but with a job share approach? I think that I was just— that randomly popped up yesterday and you just brought it back up to my attention today. I think there's some interesting ways you could create this different worker. Like the future work does not have to be you or me doing 40 hours of work. It could be a blended way. And with the remote work that we can do and technology and skill sets, you could almost blend the perfect wines.

And if you want to, like, I'm a big on collaboration. What, how much, there's not really a better way, right? Because when you think of like those organizations where people will operate in a vacuum, they'll hang, you know, hold the cards sort of close to the vest, if you will. You imagine if your organization was so collaborative and so, you know, call it process doc backed, then like something like you're talking about would almost be the best because, because what I mean, look at, look at continuity in an organization when you've got somebody that's been there for 5 years and they're going to leave for whatever reason they choose to or you choose to walk them out. It is, it is such a headache to go through that experience. So like what you're talking about is like, imagine if your organization was built on this idea that we, we all have to know enough and we have to collaborate, we have to be open. There's no operating in a vacuum. I mean, I don't know, that's a very, very interesting theory. It could open up a lot of efficiencies and growth potential that we've never seen because we've always been like, you do this, we have the right, there's a lot of argument that we still have the 1900s factory mentality in our workforce and that's almost like a That's like a, you know, complete 180 from that.

Yeah, I think there's an interesting way to do that. And there's benefits that people expect in that you would only— one of the people would need the benefits in that scenario because you don't— because, well, the benefits are paid for outsourced differently. I think it's like a 1 1 3 type mentality. You put 2 people together and you're going to get the synergies, the syncopated synergy of a hybrid worker. It could be a really interesting play. So I reached out to this group and I'm trying to get a meeting with them to try to understand their model better to see if this might be something we could test and play with.

Yeah, that's a really cool idea.

I think it could work with what you were talking about, these accounting teams. Why don't you take two full-time people and then find 2 half-time people and then augment the 2 half-time people with 1 full-time outsourced person. And you can get the equivalent of 4 people that way with just a different structure. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

What other interesting things have you seen as a fractional out there? Any new trends or technology or tools you come across that are particularly catered well to the fractional approach?

I don't know if I'd call it interesting, but I will say that, well, it's interesting. I don't know if it's— whether it's good or bad remains to be seen— is the sheer volume of networking groups and their ability to help you build better relationships is I think growing. It used to be that there was sort of these like standard bearers and now it's like, I mean, I can't even tell you how many people I've seen in just 3 to 6 months starting networking groups, which is interesting for me because being a fractional, my network, my referral base, my referral partner is, is really my my business development arm, right? I don't have an internal team of BDRs going out there knocking on doors, if you so to speak. To me, that's, that's the most interesting. And I say that because I have two thoughts. One is that either we're going to start to see new sort of standard bearers as far as networking go, or much like what happened post-pandemic, it's going to change the landscape of networking to the point where if you used to be the sort of, you know, I guess I'm gonna keep using the word, if you were the standard bearer for B2B networking or B2C networking, that it's, they're going to get diluted by the fact that we have so much access to the ability to network without the necessary evil of paying an annual membership and hoping it's worth it. Yeah. That's one thing that's— I can't think of a lot, but that one to me is very interesting because, as you know, networking is, is even more so than a W-2 employee. As a fractional, it is— it's where you should spend a good majority of your time.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, the, the whole reason we started our own network of fractional professionals, uh, 2 years ago is we looked around— this is mid-pandemic— and there wasn't a place where just fractionals could go and hang out. There was the traditional TIPS groups and local groups and even industry groups, but just the group for fractionals to network specifically with one another, that was— didn't exist. And that's why we started our Fractional Professional Association. But since then, I've seen a handful of other companies or people starting the same type of networks. And because there is a need that I think that networking between fractionals is a space that needs to be there. Any peer groups adds value, but I think there's some uniquenesses to fractional network. We have a natural one internally with our CMOs, 'cause we've got about 15 CMOs on our roster that have a CMO fractional peer-to-peer network, but outside just the industry, networking with other CFOs, CTOs, and CIOs, XOs, and whatever is helpful. We share the same challenges, share the same client, share the same prospects. So there is value there. Yeah, yeah. And we only charge $10,000 a month to join. Sign me up. Yeah, sign me up.

Exactly. That must be the before inflation. What's it going to be next year?

Oh yeah, it'll be $135,000. No, it's, it's a simple $500 a year. Like we built it so that the cost structure was not impediments for anybody to join that saw value in it.

So yeah, that's where that— and that's, that's, that's a bit of what's also interesting is that when you see a lot of these other ones in the couple grand or more a year, I'm like, I don't know how long you're going to be able to hang on when you've got, like you said, your network, which I haven't visited, so you have to send me some information on it. You know, I'm a part of one that's, you know, about $400 a year and it's great. It's one of the best ones I've come across of probably looking at 10 of them. You know, it's like, I don't know, it'll be interesting to see how it affects those bigger guys and they're kind of, you know, outrageous in my opinion, outrageous membership fees just to get to know people.

Um, well, tell me— let's switch gears a little bit. Tell me something you like to do for fun.

Well, music, obviously. Um, I recently got into ice hockey about a year and a half ago. My, my daughter decided she wanted to play, and I said I've always wanted to play ice hockey, so I got into that. Um, still relatively injury-free, which is always nice. Um, you know, I live in— live near Denver, so Obviously, like in the winter, now the winter's coming, it's gonna be hiking, ice hiking, and snowshoeing. Um, and, um, I ride an adventure motorcycle, so now that's starting to wind down, but I had a lot of fun this summer. And then, you know, the other big one is travel. We, um, now that the pandemic's kind of subsided a bit, um, we, uh, yeah, I've got a couple trips planned, so. Yeah, pretty, pretty straightforward. We got a bunch of animals at our house, so it's got a couple dogs, cats, chickens. So traveling's always an interesting experience because it takes a small army to watch our house when we leave.

Yeah, we've got a little, little multi-poo. I just had to— she's scratching at the office door back there. And whenever we travel, we're lucky enough we can just drop her off with my parents, but This last trip we took to Colorado, we drove, you know, 8— for those that don't know, it's like less than an 8-hour drive to visit my son. We brought her with and we went up to Estes Park, spent a weekend there.

Yeah.

Found a place that was dog friendly and had a beautiful— it was perfect weather. It's like just 2 weeks ago, leaves were changing, went for some nice hikes and just had a blast. Yeah, had a great time.

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, we're big, we're big hockey fans as a family. So obviously now the hockey season's in play, we've, you know, going to a game or watching a game pretty frequently. But, you know, it's a, you know, from being a fractional and running a business, it's a lot of work. So you, when you get that couple hours, if you can, it's so valuable to just turn things off and spend time and relax with your family. And we, we do that probably more, more than anything else.

Do you, uh, follow DU hockey, Denver?

A bit. I mean, you obviously hear— I'm just watching the Avs here, you hear about them pretty consistently. But yeah, they're, uh, we get a lot of players from DU too in Colorado.

So yeah, yeah, my, my daughter graduated from DU last year or in the summer, and, um, they won that national championship. Big deal. We had to hear about it at the graduation 3 or 4 times. The speaker came about it like they were pretty proud of that.

They, uh, they donned Denver Hockey Capital of the U.S. or something like that because there was like them, the Avs, Denver East won the national championship, and some 12U team. And like you said, it's like, it's like every broadcast, every hockey rink I go to, there's some you know, thing on the boards for it. It's on street signs and it's pretty cool.

Yeah, it's a big deal.

Yeah.

Now, do you, uh, have you ever done any curling on the ice?

I have not, but funny enough, when I moved back here in 2015, I, I live off of 6th Avenue, which heads into the mountains, and there's like the Colorado Curling Center, which— oh, you drive by it? Yeah, it's like 5, like maybe 10, less than 10 minutes from my house. And every time I drive by it, I'm like, there's a surprising number of cars in the curling center parking lot.

Yes. So my, my buddies and I have been curling for about 5 years now.

Really? Yeah. They have it in Nebraska.

Oh, yeah. They've got a club, the Exarban Curling Club. It's been around for a long time. We play on a sheet of ice at UNO Baxter Arena. So it's, it's their practice ice. So they'll set that up. 2 or 3 nights a week. There's 5 curling— what are they called?

Lanes?

No, sheets. 5 sheets. And we're just— we're amateurs. We have fun. But the Colorado Club, I mean, that's legit. They've got their own building, their own ice. They probably have a little clubhouse in there. It's probably a pretty nice place. Ever get in there.

I bet you— I should. Yeah, now you're making me think I should go check it out. Curling's like something— it's like, to me, it's like one of those obscure sports that you, you know, you see when the Winter Olympics come along and then you just kind of forget about it. It's not like— I don't— I never think about curling, right? So is it— wait, can you play it in college?

Uh, yeah, I'm pretty sure there's college teams that play, compete. Uh, they may be club But there certainly are, because I know we have people who have played in college that come up and play for our club at times. It's, you know, as somebody who's played a lot of sports growing up and a decent amount of sports in high school, not college, but I never thought of curling as much of a sport. And it's not. It's like, you know, it's like playing pool or shuffleboard or Bowling. I mean, it's an activity, it's fun. There's a lot of skill involved, but there's no sweat happening. You know, it's other than maybe you wear too many warm clothes on the ice and you start to heat up, but it's really interesting and unique. And it's a team sport 'cause there's 4 of you and you're doing the brooms and you have a little strategy and you're, But there's a lot of luck, at least at our skill level. There's a lot of luck, but it's different. It's just something else to do with some, some buddies once a week.

That's all.

I'm—

maybe I'll go see if I can try it. I have no idea what that place is. They might be an exclusive club that I'm not even aware of, but I'm going to have to go check it out.

Well, you— what you might check out is our club does learn to curl. So it's like a, you know, they'll pick an afternoon or something. You sign up and you come in and they just teach you the basics of curling. So you find out what the rules are, you get to practice, they get to play a few rounds, and actually it could be a really fun family event. Yeah, yeah, that's what I was thinking. It doesn't take like all ages and all kind of, you know, sizes and all shapes could probably equally be decent that day, right? Yeah, yeah.

So might be something to do.

Ice bowling. Yeah, it's a lot like ice shuffleboard, um, or darts in some ways. But, um, when you see what they do on TV though, then you have a— like, like any sport, you watch, you've done it, you played it yourself, you watched on TV, you have real, um, appreciation for how good they really are. Because yeah, when you watched it on the Olympics, what is the, the way they can keep those rocks like perfectly lined up and hit their place they're aiming at. The speed that it's, it's phenomenal. Our plate, our stuff's going all over the place. It's going through the house, it's knocking people down, it's dangerous, it's crazy.

Yeah, we got into, uh, archery, um, traditional archery, and that, that's just like you said, when you watch Granted, in the Olympics they are like decked out head to toe for the ability to hit a target. But when you see that like the difference between winning and not is like all bullseyes and one of them isn't a bullseye is amazing. Because when you shoot like traditional archery, you're like, you get a, you get a bullseye in like 50 shots and you're like, I did it. You know, it's like, it's like golf. Like you get one good shot in golf and you're like, I'll be back next year. You know?

So yeah. Well, thanks for joining me on the podcast. I really, uh, enjoyed talking with you. And yeah, now I think I'm gonna— I'm gonna see if we can't— next time I'm in Colorado, see if I can call up the curling club. Maybe you and I can go out there.

Now let's do it.

I would love to.

That'd be fun.

Throw some stones together. It'd be kind of fun. Yeah, be great. Yeah. Um, if our listeners want to get a hold of you, what's the best way to connect?

Um, probably one of two options. Uh, you can go to our website. We have kind of a free consultation button which you can always submit some information there. The website is, um, www.syncopatedsynergy.com. Or I would say just email me. Um, my email is sean@syncopatedsynergy.com, and I'm always happy to connect with anybody, whether I'm— one of the things that I, I really— when— why I started my own business is I really wanted to do kind of right by people. I wanted to do what I call business the right way. So I actually just posted about this a couple of days ago. Like, if you've just got like a— you need to sanity check a finance and accounting thing, you know, I'm happy to sit with you for an hour, you know, no charge, and give you a game plan and some ideas and send you on your way. I mean, I, I really genuinely, you know, have kind of an altruistic mentality about this. And I want to— I want to be more of a help anymore than I do want to help just a particular company. Or founder or VC or PE group. I want to be a resource, so feel free.

That's great. Well, I'm sure people will be reaching out. Thank you again for your time.

Yeah, no, appreciate it.

It was great talking to you. And to our listeners, if you've got a finance question or a curling question, you can reach out to Sean or me. But if you've got— if you enjoyed our talk, Love to see you and hear you next week. Yeah, please feel free to subscribe to the podcast. My, my producers are telling me that I need to ask that question to get more subscribers. We got a lot of listeners and viewers, but I need more subscribers, evidently. So asking for what you want, right? Put it out there in the world. All right, enjoy your week. Talk to you next week. And that's a wrap.

There's another successful episode of the Fractional C-Suite Retreat. See our show notes and more episodes at FractionalCSuiteRetreat.com. This podcast is sponsored by Your CMO, helping organizations grow, save time and money with better marketing strategy and fractional execution. Visit them at Y-O-R-C-M-O dot com. Your CMO dot com. Spelled wrong on purpose.