108. CFO Stories: From Bank Teller To Fractional CFO (Aaron Hill)

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How does somebody go from handing out lollipops at a bank to becoming a co founder of a fractional CFO firm? That's exactly what we're going to find out today in this week's episode of the CFO Report. I'm talking with my friend Aaron Hill, who literally started his career handing out lollipops as a teller at a bank. And now he's running a very successful fractional CFO firm in Atlanta, Georgia. One of the most interesting things about Aaron and his firm, watchpoint Group, is that they do the normal FR fractional CFO things like forecast and projections, but they also offer a service that I haven't seen any other fractional CFO firm offer. What is that other service and how did Aaron get his start? Let's find out. Aaron, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thanks for having me. Michael, what's it been, about a year?

It's been about a year. We met last year at the CFO Accelerator Live. I have been fortunate enough to be working with you pretty consistently ever since. It's been really awesome watching your growth and your firm's growth over the last year.

Yeah, well, it's been tremendous for me from the inner circle to, you know, the accelerator live. Just getting there, obviously, hearing your journey over the last eight years and learning from how you built your firm has really helped me and our firm kind of build out what we're planning over the next several years. So thank you for that.

Of course. So talking about stories and getting started, you started off as a bank teller handing out lollipops, and now here we are today. You're running a fractional CFO firm that's growing really, really fast. What was that story like, Aaron? How did you go from. From lollipops to fractional cfo?

When I started, I got into banking when I was an undergrad for the sole purpose of I don't know what I want to do, but if I get into banking, I understand how the money system works and I'll get face to face with these business owners and understand how business works. So if I learn nothing else in that, then it's a win. As a bank teller, I didn't know what I wanted to do at the time. The goal was to be a loan officer and help small businesses grow their business with loans. And it's never really deviated too far from that in my journey, I would say as I worked my way through the bank, from small business lending to corporate lending to lending to large private companies and Publicly traded companies. I really learned the common themes with businesses with how they generate cash flow, how they make money and then how they finance their growth. So when I was in the corporate banking group, we were working with kind of lower middle market, call it 50 to 250 million in sales, and then some large corporates as well. So we would take what we learned from working with large corporates and how they approach capital allocation, financing the business, and we would bring that down market and really advise the small business and lower middle market companies on how to forecast, how to plan, how to think about how they finance their business. And from that, you know, it was a real value to a lot of our clients. And I had the opportunity to join one as a CFO about six years ago. So from there I did that, helped them build out their whole financial planning and analysis capabilities. They had an accounting team, strong accounting team, but they didn't have real strong forecasting capabilities. So I helped them build that out. We helped grow the business and then from there for that role moved back to Atlanta. I really love the CFO work, I really love the banking work with multiple clients. So I was like, how do I combine these two? And that's where this came up. I found, I started find your content. I had no idea what fractional CFO was. I knew I wanted to do consulting for small businesses and middle market businesses, but I didn't know what the fractional CFO position was, that it was as robust as it was. And I mean it's, the industry's growing, you know, rapidly. Would you say 7,8000 fractional CFOs now? And it's, it continues to grow and it's, it's a real value to these small businesses and lower middle market companies that don't need a full time cfo, but they need financial leadership. And so doing this on a part time basis for multiple clients is a win for the clients and it's a win for what I wanted to do with my career.

I want to pick apart a couple of the things that you said there or not pick them apart, but I want to dive a little bit deeper into a couple of the things. One of the topics of confusion that comes up a lot, Aaron, is where do you see the line between FP and A in cfo? Where does FP and A stop in a CFO start?

They're blended. So I'll tell you, when I was in the full time CFO role, the only reason it worked and me being a former banker is because we had a strong Controller over the accounting group. So I'm looking forward to right the FP and a looking forward, he's looking backwards, making sure, you know, compliance, everything's, you know, within gap, you know, managing the day to day transactions. And we were tied at the hip and together we were a strong cfo. I learned a lot from him from the accounting side and he learned a lot from me on the forecasting side. So they're not separate roles. They have to be working together to effectively work within a company. So one's forward looking, one's rear view looking, but they have to communicate as a team and work closely together. That's the only way it works in that same light.

Aaron, how do you see the role of the fractional CFO being different from the role of a full time cfo? What's different in your day to day or the deliverables that you provide? Now as a fractional cfo, what we're.

Doing, it's a mix. A lot of what we're doing is project work. It starts off as project work, really helping the company build out their FP and A capabilities. Half of my clients have CFOs, half of them don't. So the ones that do have CFOs, they've got an accounting team. And so I'm working with the CFO and the accounting team to build out the FP and A capabilities. The ones that don't have a cfo, it's a little bit more broader reach on what we're doing. We're getting more into the accounting, not doing the accounting work, but we're having to really lead that effort more to build out the accounting capabilities. Here's the beauty about fractional CFO work is when we start, we come in a little bit heavy, build out the infrastructure and then we train the team on how to manage it. And then we can work our hours or time down. Many times we're still engaged because we know so much about the business now and we just reduce our fee based off what we're doing at that time. A lot of it's overseeing, managing and then advising. And then a lot of it turns into, once we set up the whole fpa, get that running efficiently, it's working well with accounting now. It's like, okay, we need to go access capital. And so with my banking background, it's like, okay, here's how we need to look, here's how we need to mitigate risk to go access growth capital via bank debt. So that's what we do and then we Go get bank debt to fund.

Growth is a fractional CFO now for a couple years, is that right?

Yeah, just over a year now. I've been doing this. Yeah.

So you've been a fractional CFO for just over a year now. What is the biggest misconception that you had about building a firm or something that you didn't realize had to be true? And you're smiling, so I'm really excited to hear your answer. But I think for a lot of us when we get into it, it's like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize this was part of the game. What has that been for you, Aaron?

Doing the CFO work is one thing, and doing the CFO work in house for one company, and I know it's kind of touching on your last subject, is you're narrowly focused on, you know, this company, this performance. Here's the things that we need to do to hit our strategic objectives in this three years now you're managing multiple companies. You know, you're an advisory role, you're helping hands on do some things and you're having to manage multiple clients. So that's one difference. And then now building a firm is not only are you managing clients and doing CFO work, now you've got to do sales and marketing. Now you've got to build out the back office. How do you be more efficient? That's one challenge with doing fractional CFO work is you have a. You only have a certain amount of hours and you have to be really efficient. So you have to find ways in your everyday work and your deliverables of what you're delivering to your clients. How do I get more efficient? So that's what I've spent the last year on is really how to get efficient. And now it's like, okay, how do you start to build the infrastructure? How do you start to bring in other people, other resources? Whether it's junior financial analysts helping you modeling, whether it's sales and marketing training helping you, you know, go to market and build your brand and pitch to, you know, just the operational challenges with just managing a team. So putting all that infrastructure in place is what I'm kind of getting into now is like, how do we do this? Continue to deliver CFO work but build a firm? Who are the right people to bring in to help us build it?

Where have you found success, Aaron, when it comes to identifying those efficiencies? What's been a big unlock for you that's given the most gains?

One, it's with the client is setting clear expectation and deliverables. Obviously you don't want scope creep, so. So being really clear and aligned with the client on what you're delivering and when you're delivering it. That's one. Now, as far as the delivery goes, I love Excel, I love Microsoft. So it's like, how do I get more efficient? And some of the things I'm doing with the forecasts, I'm building with, you know, some of the reporting, how do I improve, how fast I can deliver, you know, those reports, the forecast, forecasts, updates. And so I've taken a lot of Excel courses. I've taken a lot of, whether it's webinars or online training or, you know, just kind of digging into it and figuring it out. That's been a been big unlock for me, you know, one, being clear on your deliverables and two, how do you get more efficient with those deliverables? Those have been the biggest as it relates to the client work, as it relates to everything else in building a firm, that's where I've learned a lot from. You learn a lot from others. And you know, with the inner circle, it's the collaboration and learning what others have done well, what others have tried and not worked so well. And so trying to take those insights from other people's experience has really helped us kind of jump start. Because at the onset it's so overwhelming of like, where do I start? I've got so much to do, I don't even know where to start. So it's been helpful. The community, the community aspect of it's been really helpful.

If somebody's listening to this, that's in that season of overwhelm right now where there's just so many things to do. I don't know where to start. What advice would you give to them, Aaron?

Define what you're really good at. And I struggle with this on the onset. And I struggle with this. As a cfo, I always wanted to wipe the banking off my resume. And I always like, all right, five years as cfo, I'll wipe the banking off my resume. Looking back now, why, why do I want to do that? That's part of who I am. That's part of what I did. So now after a year, it wasn't clear to me, like, I want to cfo. Now it's like, hey, I want to do forecasting and I want to do capital raising via bank dad. That's what I'm good at. That's what I'm efficient at. So Pick something that you're really good at, focus on that, collaborate with others that are experts in the other areas of the office of the CFO or outside of that, with building a firm. Let them kind of manage that, and then you'll learn along the way. And as you learn along the way, you'll develop that skill set where you'll be more efficient doing those things as well. But don't try and do everything at once. Pick your niche and stick to that and deliver that. That's how you're going to be the most efficient. That's how you're going to get the most value for your firm. That's how you're going to deliver the most value for your clients. And that's something I struggled with on the onset, but now it's. It's become clear to me about plenty of mentors, yourself included, to tell me that. It took me having. Being full of clients and still not being where I wanted to be. I was like, I'm not very efficient. I need a niche down. I need to get more efficient. So that would be my advice, is focus, effort, and niche down.

Why do you think you had this internal pull to take the banking off of your resume or off of who you were?

I think a lot of it was just that. The way I thought of it, the prestige of the office of cfo, that it was an elite role, that's what I wanted to be known for. But it's no different. It's just, you know, like I said, the CFO is an office, and it's a lot of people with a lot of expertise that come together and work together to help the company run from a finance and accounting standpoint, I care less about that now and more about what my skill set is. Because when I would talk to clients and I would talk, try and talk to them about everything within the office of cfo, I wasn't expert on it. So I wasn't delivering a ton of value. When I talked to them about how to forecast, how to plan, and how to go get bank debt, when you see their eyes light up and they're like, wow, this is some cool. I'm like, okay, so I know something now. So let me cling on to what I've learned over the years, because what I learned doing hundreds of transactions on the banking side is not something that everybody sees every day. And so that's a real value to a lot of people. So how do I deliver that to deliver great value to the clients?

One of the things you brought up a Couple of times. Now, Aaron, is niching and figuring out kind of what your place in the, in the fractional CFO world is. How do you define your niche for you?

My niche on the FP and A side. I'll give you some examples of clients we're working with. We've got clients that are growing rapidly and cash flow flows tight because they're growing and there's money that needs to be purchased, inventory to hire people to expand, product lines, need equipment to do that. What we do is we come in and help them forecast that out. A lot of companies I see small businesses and kind of lower middle market, they have robust accounting departments, but they don't have robust FP and a team. So that's where we're niching down, is helping companies build the FPA capabilities. And then once you do that, it's like, all right, now we know where we're going, we know what the cash need is, how do we finance it? And that's where I start to bring in my banking experience to that conversation. So that's where we're focused and we're focusing on high growth companies that need access to capital to fund growth. So as of now, you know, all of our clients are in Georgia, we're in Atlanta, and most of them are in manufacturing or industrial or some type of distribution business. Very capital intensive businesses. So it marries well the forecasting piece with the debt advisory.

Do you ever have a concern or a worry, Aaron, that with as specific as you are, and what I heard you say is we're working primarily with like manufacturing businesses that are located in the state of Georgia that need help with forecasting and raising money through debt. That's a pretty specific niche. Do you ever worry, gosh, are there enough businesses out there that fit inside that box to keep the firm growing? Or like, how do you think through that? Because I think for a lot of people listening, there's this mindset that the more that I niche, I'm going to eliminate market and I'm not going to be able to get enough clients for me to hit my goals and to reach my ambitions. You've gone like the other way and gone super tight. How do you think about that?

So it is counterintuitive, right? So initially I didn't, I was like, I'm not going to niche down. I didn't niche in banking. It was, you know, obviously whoever needed to growth capital needed bank debt. But as far as industries, I didn't niche down and I didn't, I didn't think we needed to. We were kind of generalists. And so when I began doing fractional CFO work, I started on that same path. I don't want a niche down. And I kept having mentors tell me, you need a niche, you need to find your niche, you need to find your niche. And I'm like, well, you're limiting yourself by your, you know, your ideal client or, you know, potential clients. But it's quite the opposite comes to find out. So as I have cleared up my message to really define what my niche is, when I'm out there talking to bankers or prospects or, you know, other advisors, it's a whole lot clearer to them, who they know that needs our service. But if I'm broad in my message, it is kind of. They're kind of like, oh, yeah, you know, that's great. I'm. There's probably some people we know, but when you're clear about this is who I'm focused on, they start to think of specific names. And then when you're talking to prospects as well, it's real clear on the value that you can add because you are focused on exactly what they need. And so that's been the difference maker. So you think that you're, you're narrowing your client, potential client base, but it's quite the opposite. You're actually open up the doors to much more opportunities because you are focused. You clearly define how you can help these companies, and people start to think of specific names to introduce you to.

It sounds like referrals are a big part of your prospecting or marketing strategy. Aaron, what are the top two or three ways that you're getting new leads and new clients today?

I'm hoping this is just the evolution of where we are. Well, this is kind of the plan is the evolution of where we are today or where I am today. A year into this, and really, it takes a lot of networking, it takes a lot of marketing, it takes a lot of effort to really kind of build a robust pipeline. I've been fortunate enough to have a great pipeline and great client base now, which. The clients that I'm working with are exactly who I want to work with. And so I'm very fortunate for that. But right now, 80% of my clients come from either bank referrals, bankers that are like, hey, I know this company that's growing. They really need some help, or, hey, I want to introduce you to this company. I need you to go in there, you know, work with the CFO or, you know, the owner to really define what the business is forecast out because I'm looking at doing a loan for them, but I need help understanding where they've been, where they're going, telling the story. So a lot of my referrals now are coming from bankers and then also, you know, other advisors of the company, whether it's wealth managers or attorneys, but most of them now are coming from bankers. As we build this out, I think more of it will be direct outreach to, you know, our ideal client profile. We've recently joined a manufacturers association in the state of Georgia. So we've got our first event next month. So I think, you know, networking with a lot of owners of manufacturing companies, they'll start to be a lot more, you know, kind of that direct connect and less on referrals. But referrals are a great source, but they are unpredictable. So for now it's great. And then as we build out, you know, our capabilities to continue to go out and market directly to prospects, then I think more of our opportunities will come from, you know, that direct connection.

A lot of relationship based marketing is what I'm hearing.

Yes, absolutely. At the end of the day, it's, you want to work with people that you enjoy being around and that can help you solve problems. That's what it comes down to. And so, you know, whether it's networking or business meetings or what, but you want to be around people that you enjoy being around and that you can help. That's it. So it's all relationships.

It's all relationships. Are there any hacks or shortcuts or secrets or ways to circumvent that? Or is it just a process of building relationships, getting people to know you, like you and trust you? Is there a hack or a shortcut?

Short answer? No. No. Relationships take time. And so you have to build them. You have to provide value on the onset without anything expected in return. And then, then it will come. So relationships take time. So, you know, I've gone back to the relationships I've built over the last 10 years around banking, the advisors around banking. As I came back, you know, out of the cave of doing the full time CFO work to now, you know, being more out in the public and networking again. So I've gone back to those relationships and I've been introduced to many others, whether they're other fractional CFO firms or other fractional execs. And that's where I'm focused on a lot, is helping other fractional CFOs and collaborate with them. Because, just because I get introduced to A client, it may not be the ideal fit for us, but if I can send it to another fractional CFO that can help them and that's their expertise. Great. And then as we look at, you know, going into a company doing this forecasting and debt advisory, there's a lot of other things that need to happen as well, and some of them need to happen ahead of time. So that's where I've really started having a lot of conversations with other fractional execs, whether it's a fractional coo, fractional, you know, chief revenue officer on the sales side, fractional chief market officer. So all of us coming together to provide a solution to the company is of huge value, especially to small and lower middle market companies.

So over the course of the years, Aaron, with fractional CFO clients, inevitably throughout the years we've had clients that end up needing to raise money for different things. I'd like to pick your brain a little bit about that process and what it looks like, because I know for me, I thought it was going to be a pretty easy process and that we could just kind of waltz right in and guide it. And then we're getting hit with questions and objections and stuff from the get go. The client's looking to us to help them kind of navigate these things and we're figuring it out on the fly. But I have a question for you before we get into some of those details. This business banking thing is kind of your secret sauce. It's like your niche. And I don't think a lot of fractional CFOs have experience in this world. So one of the big questions I have is why are you willing to share this information with the industry so freely?

I think it's twofold. One is I say give back to, you know, kind of the community. There's been so many that I can count on that have counted on to just freely give me information and train me along the way. I've had a lot of mentors, you know, teach me what I know today. So now I want to then give back and help train either others in the industry or kind of that next generation of fractional CFOs coming in. And then the second part is I can't deliver what I do to all the companies that need it. So if I can help others understand the framework of what a bank looks for, what are the key things that they're going to ask for and I can train them how to do it, other fractional CFOs, then they're able to do it and deliver that value to their clients. And so what we do, I mean, what we're willing to do is we run, you know, kind of two models on the debt advisory, aside from the clients that we're working with. Doing CFO advisory too, is we can do the do it for me model, where we would just be brought in by other CFOs to do the debt advisory piece. Or what I prefer is the do it with me model. So that CFO does get an understanding of what it's like going to a bank, what a bank's going to ask for as the company's looking to borrow money for growth. And that is the ideal situation. So again, so that that cfo, over time now has another tool in the tool belt that they can add value for their clients. So that's what I want to do. There's plenty of work, you know, for me to go and do this for clients, but if I can train others how to do it, it's going to help more companies, more business owners, and more fractional CFO firms add value to the business and to their firm.

That's what I love about you and watchpoint, because we're cut from the same cloth in that way. There's, there's more than enough work to go around for everybody. Even as fast as the industry is growing, there's still so many opportunities out there. I like to remind people right now on LinkedIn, I think there's like 12 or 13,000 fractional and virtual CFOs, but there's still like 100 million or 200 million small businesses in the United States. So we've all got plenty of opportunity to go out and have an amazing impact and create a great livelihood. One of the things that you said a few times that I wish I had had known before I decided to help my first CFO client get into the process of bank debt is just what are they going to ask for, you know, before you go into the process? My assumption, just after working with you for so long, Aaron, is there's some certain givens that every single lender, they're going to have some questions that they are going to expect to have really clear answers to. What are those top questions that a fractional CFO should expect ahead of time and maybe even be prepared before they start the process of, of raising money with a client?

The first one, and I think this gets missed a lot when I was in banking and then even, you know, on the other side now kind of doing the CFO work is Telling the story of the business we would get oftentimes, you know, when you think about a loan request, you fill out, you know, a brief application in some cases, and then you submit financials and you're like, hey, this is what I want to do. You know, tell me how much I can borrow. But what works best for a company, especially this growing, is you tell the story. You've got to tell where it's been, where it is today, and where they're trying to go and tell them that story that matches to the financials. So first and foremost, when we go in, if the bookkeeping is not clean and the numbers aren't clean and you can't understand, do any analysis on the financial, you got to get that cleaned up first. So. So getting that cleaned up first. But now I must say that that's, that's basic and that's, you know, you've got to have that for even having the conversation now. It's, how do you tell the story about where you've been and where you're going that is clear and concise for a bank to know. They just want to hear the story first, and then they're going to go in and look at the numbers. And you support that by the numbers. What we do and what we try and help a lot of companies do, given what I know about banking and what we have to put together as a package to submit to credit the credit officers for approval, is we tell that story. We tell it in conversation, but we also, we also write it out. So we give a brief overview of the business and how it makes money and what's happened over the past several years, what we're planning for the next several years, what do we need the money for, and how it's going to help us grow the business. So telling the story is key, and I touched on a few of the others in this. But you got to get the story right and you got to get it on paper. You have to own that story. If you don't, then you're going to leave a lot of it up for interpretation for the banker and for the credit officer. And it's going to be a less efficient process than it needs to be. It's going to take a long time. You're going to get frustrated and you're not going to get the best outcome. So own the story, tell the story, put it on paper, show it to them. Your banker's going to love you for it, and it's going to make the whole process a whole lot more smoother.

Aaron, I know that when I've helped our CFO clients in the past go into banks and try to get a bunch of money, one of the things that I wish I had known was just the simple like, hey, what are they going to ask? I wish I had known ahead of time. What are the lenders typically asking? So that we could have gone in way better prepared than we were, which would have made for a much more seamless process for our clients. So in your decade plus of experience, what are like the three questions that pretty much every lender is going to be looking for? And how should a fractional CFO think about giving those answers in the best way possible?

Yeah, no, that's, that's a great question, Michael. And I think keeping it clear and concise is one of the key points. So the first one is how does a business make money? So clearly define what product or service that business is offering and how it makes money, and how has that been over the last several years and how is that going to remain the same or change over the next few years? So how the business makes money, just breaking it down, real simple business model is number one.

Is that something that business owners struggle with? Telling the story of how they make money? Is that really something that a fractional CFO can add value on?

Yeah, because these business owners are so entrenched into their business and they want to get in the details of, of every aspect of their business. A banker just wants to know, high level, hey, we've got three products that we manufacture and sell. Here's our customer base or end markets, here's who we sell them to, here's the percentage of revenue of each, here's the total dollar amount of each, and that's it. They just want to, they're trying to understand what product or service you're selling, how you sell it, and who the customers are and how long have they been customers. That's all they really want to know. They don't need to know all the intricate details of it. So, yes, a lot of business owners struggle with that. It. And so it's good to have an outsider come in and say, all right, let's, let's break this down real simply. How do you make money? Let's just categorize it out or step it out. Let's walk through that process. And so telling that real simple to bankers is key for them to understand your business.

Great. So the first one is how do you make money? They're just looking for a bullet point explanation of primary revenue streams. Key clients, not anything above and beyond that. Clear and to the point. What's the second thing that they're typically looking looking for?

So when you're going to a bank asking for money, they're going to want to know how much do you need and what are you going to use the money for? Because that's the use case is key in determining the risk level of the loan that they're making. If you're asking for a loan to go invest in an asset, whether it's a piece of equipment or acquisition of the company, this generating additional incremental cash flow to your current business, that's pretty low risk because they are funding future growth and so that will be the primary source of repayment is, you know, that cash flow that you're investing the bank loan dollars into. If you're doing it to just do a distribution to shareholders because they want to diversify their investment, that could be okay too, so long as the business can support it. But it is a higher risk because there's no incremental cash flow coming from the investment or that bank making that loan. So being clear on what you're going to use the money for and then you're going to repay it is kind of that key component that relates to what I define as the sources and uses within the, you know, the, the loan approval process.

Okay, so the first thing they're going to ask for is, is how do you make money? What's the story? The second thing they're going to ask is how much do you need and what are you going to use the, the money for? And there's some different layers of risk in there that they're going to evaluate. What about the third question? What, what is something else? Every lender is looking to understand how.

You'Re going to repay the loan that's going to help with the structure. There's certain terms or repayment structures that they can put in place. But that's where forecasting is so key and comes into play because we can run several different scenarios on kind of stress testing it. What if this happened? Run what if scenarios. What if we only get 50% of the growth that you're saying? What if we don't get any of the growth that you're saying, can the company's current cash flow still pay it? And so, so laying that out for a banker is real key and helping them determine one, the structure and then two, you know, kind of that covenant package of financial covenants of, you know, how they're going to put that into place. It's part of the risk assessment too. So, yeah, how are you going to repay the loan is a key one and that's why forecasting is so key. Awesome.

What's next for watchpoint? Where are you guys headed over the next year?

So right now we have, have. There's four of us, four CFOs. You know, when I, when I spoke to kind of outsourcing kind of other areas. We're currently in process of bringing on an executive assistant to help with some admin stuff. Over the next couple years, we'll probably add another six CFOs. Those will be experienced CFOs that have done CFO work or some type of advisory that. I think that's key. You've got to understand that, that aspect of it. And then we also want to start to bring on juniors CFOs. So when I was in corporate banking, you know, my mentor at the time, or boss at the time, I mean, he brought in several young bankers that were hungry and that were eager to learn and that knew how to do some financial modeling, but they needed reps. And so we want to bring in some young CFOs to work underneath each of our CFOs to get the reps, to get the experience and provide them an opportunity to have a career and fractional CFO work that when you look back 10 years ago, this wasn't really an option. Now there was the fractional CFO work, but it wasn't like it is today and wasn't growing like it is today. So having that as a career option for young individuals, you know, with a few years of experience, whether that's in accounting or finance, to be able to become a fractional CFO under our firm, that's what we want to build. Right now we're running a contractor model. Everybody is a 1099 contractor. So we all have our own entities, but we're all, all collectively working as one group under watchpoint. So it works well. So, you know, those individuals that come on have to have an entrepreneurial spirit. And so we've been lucky enough to, you know, build the small team that we currently have, everybody kind of exhibits that and is aligned on what we're trying to build at watchpoint.

If somebody's interested in joining watchpoint as a CFO or as a junior CFO or maybe an executive assistant, whatever the case may be, where can they go to learn more about you and the rest of the team at watchpoint?

Yeah, so to learn more about, you know, Our team and watchpoint, watchpointgroup.com that's our website. And then also, you know, connect with me on LinkedIn. Those are the two primary ways.

Awesome. We'll include the links to Watchpoint Group and to your LinkedIn in the description below. So if you're interested in joining the watchpoint team or if you're a business owner that needs help raising money, you can also use those same links to connect with Aaron, Will and the rest of the team. Aaron, thank you so much for joining us today. This was so helpful. I know that this is a message that a lot of people need to hear, both in terms of just, hey, it's possible to grow a firm, it's possible to put together a team, it's possible to have success with a niche. And also the banking stuff isn't as scary as long as you got the understand kind of what those questions are ahead of time and how to set your clients up for success. So again, thank you so much for being here, Aaron. I can't wait to see you here next month at the CFO Accelerator Live.

Thank you, Michael.

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.