106. I Lost $100k on Ads so You Don't Have To!

Foreign.

Michael King here. For those of you that are watching on YouTube, you can probably see I am actually not in my normal studio. In fact, I'm at the Louisville, Kentucky airport. And if you're wondering why in the world am I here at the airport? Well, it's because of marketing purposes. Why in the world would I be at the Louisville, Kentucky airport for marketing a fractional CFO firm? We'll get to that in just a minute. But today's episode is all about marketing and prospecting and lead generation. And what I want to share with you today is I see a lot of people that are doing this wrong right now, and I see a lot of people making some of the same mistakes and having some of the same mindset errors around what marketing and prospecting is for a fractional CFO firm. So today what I want to do is I want to share with you some of the mistakes that I've made that I see other people making today. In fact, one of these mistakes cost me over $100,000 and it was a complete bust. So today I'm going to share with you some of the mistakes that I'm seeing people making, and I'm going to let you know, what are some of the biggest firms, the most successful firms doing for marketing and business development in 2024? Let's dive in. So when I first started my firm, KFE Solutions, eight years ago next week, actually, I had some complete misconceptions around marketing and business development. I thought that marketing was about websites and SEO and YouTube channels and newsletters and running Facebook ads and Google Ads. All the different things that we traditionally think about when we come to marketing. And those are all actual legitimate ways to do marketing. But what I learned the hard way is that many of those things don't really work when it comes to fractional CFO firms. And I mean, if you just think about it, when you think about like a clever Facebook ad is an example, and this could hold true for Instagram or TikTok or whatever the platform is, even Google. The question you have to ask yourself is, is there something in this 30 second ad that is going to capture the attention of the type of client that I want to work with and convince them that I'm the person that they should reach out to to help them with their business financial strategy? The answer is probably no. And I've actually got some data to prove. Three years ago, I set aside literally $100,000 and I said, I'm going to go all in on trying to figure out this this marketing thing for fractional CFO through paid ads on Facebook. And over the course of several months, I invested in really, really good copywriters. I invested in some great landing pages and put together some really, really good ads. And we ran those ads for about four months. And let me tell you what I got out the other end of all of that effort and all of that expense. I got literally three leads and zero new clients. So $100,000 down the drain. In fact, I like to think of that as $100,000 in tuition. It was just really expensive tuition to learn the lesson that Facebook ads, they just don't work the way that we need them to for fractional CFOs. And so the question then becomes, if it's not SEO, if it's not websites and ads and all of those kind of things, what can you do as a fractional CFO to get new leads and to get new business development? And that's actually what leads me to the reason that that I'm in Louisville, Kentucky right now. The most successful firms that I see are doing a couple specific things that work really well when it comes to getting new leads is, as you've heard me talk about before, one of the big things that a lot of successful firms are doing. They're speaking on stage, they're getting in front of audiences that are full of their ica. So for us, we like working with construction firms and professional service companies and things like that. Electrical contractors, concrete movers, those kinds of things. So that's one thing that people are doing that work really well right now. And the reason that that works really well is your audience gets to see see you up on stage. They get to hear you, they get to hear you tell stories, and that develops trust really, really quickly. And that's why speaking on stage is such an effective way to get new clients and to get new leads. And so a lot of people are doing that. It's working out really well. I know that a lot of you, the idea of speaking on stage is probably one of the most cringe things that you could possibly think of. I know that was true for me when I first got started, and that's actually why I'm here right now in Louisville, Kentucky. In fact, I spent the entire day in Indianapolis yesterday meeting with a large bookkeeping firm. Details on who that bookkeeping firm is later. But I'm here to work on a partnership with this firm. And the reason that this partnership came to be is this bookkeeping firm that's pushing. I don't know 700 clients now they keep having their clients asking their bookkeepers for things that are outside of their scope of work. They're asking for things like forecast and projections and financial strategy. And this firm just doesn't do that. This firm has realized that to get to the scale that they need to be, they've got to be have a super dialed in scope of work. It's got to be something that can be systematized and automated and really just operationalized. And in doing that with fractional CFO services isn't really in their wheelhouse now what they're finding is that they're having to tell their clients, sorry, we can't help you with that. And that's not what they want to do. They want to be able to tell their clients, hey, we do a great job of helping you with books and reconciliations and taxes and all of these things. And that's all really important work and we're proud to serve you that way. You need a specialist to help you with financial strategy. And so they're looking for a fractional CFO firm that they can introduce their clients to so that they can still be a useful resource for their clients. They don't have to just say, ah, that's not what we do. Go find a fractional CFO and good luck. So they're looking to partner with a firm like mine so that they can continue offering that value to their clients. So this is a win win for their firm and also for my firm. So I flew out here and spent the day with our chief operating officer yesterday, meeting the CEO, the VP of sales and the leadership team with this bookkeep firm to make sure that we had values, alignment, to make sure that the kind of clients that we want to work with were in alignment, to make sure that our systems and automations work with their systems and automations to make sure that it's really just a huge win for the client at the end of the day. And I think the answer to that question is, yeah, this feels like a really good thing to do. You know, we're kicking that, that partnership off here really soon and we're going to start referring business back and forth here very, very shortly. And so if speaking on stage or doing webinars or those kind of things aren't really your jam, I would say really think about partnerships. Go look for bookkeeping firms or tax firms or firms that are not doing the kind of work that you want to do and say like, hey, is there an opportunity for me to serve your clients? As a fractional cfo, here's the other thing that you don't really think about. Maybe if you don't want to do bookkeeping, how great would it be to have a firm that you can recommend to your clients? You're onboarding them and you realize, like, ah, their books are really bad. I don't want to do their books though, but I need their books to be fixed before I can do the CFO work. Now we've got that tool, now we've got that resource. So when we get clients, we can refer those to this bookkeeping firm that we're looking to work with. So it's really a great lead generator for them, It's a great lead generator for us. And it doesn't take nearly as much stress and anxiety as getting up on stage. So if you're thinking about getting new clients in 2024, and I know you probably are, then I would say, you know, if speaking on stage isn't your jam, really think about partnerships. Think about those kinds of businesses. Like a bookkeeping firm that offers complimentary services to yours that you can send referrals to that you can get referrals from, so that at the end of the day, the client ends up win, you win, and that referral partner ends up winning. It's a great opportunity to get new leads and it doesn't require you to go get on stage. All right, my friends, I hope you found this episode helpful. If you did, it would mean the world to me if you would leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you're listening to this episode. In the meantime, I can't wait to see you back right here next week. I'll see you then.