162. From Burnout to Purpose: Building a CFO Firm After Loss

It was actually just two years ago where you were thinking about starting a fractional CFO firm. The decision to go in or to stay in corporate America was a big one, but it was also a risky one for you.

I am very clear on my boundaries. I'm not going to sacrifice being a present parent for the sake of what I'm building here.

What kind of impact do you see fractional CFOs having for the small businesses?

A lot of it's about building confidence and empowering them. In the last two weeks, actually had an accounting firm owner asked to be a client of mine. He's making eight figures, has been in business for over 30 years. If you're interested, it lives in your mind, but if you're committed, it lives in your calendar. It lives in my calendar every single day.

Where do you find success when it comes to finding prospects?

It's two pieces. One is speaking, and I use that blanket of in person and podcasting.

You come in tomorrow, you've been fired and your replacement was brought in. What's the first thing that they would start doing that you're not doing today? And what is the first thing that they would stop doing that you are doing today? Don't have the assumption that they're making $7 million a year or $70 million a year, that they've surely got all this in place and that you can't add value. Because the reality is we can go in there and take them from single digit net margins to double digit net margins just a few years. That's a big change. That's a, that's a turnaround for a business like that. Lauren, thank you so much for being here today. Let me just go, like right out of the gate and say how absolutely proud I am of the progress you have made in such a short time. It seems like it was actually just two years ago. I mean, we're just a few weeks away from being two years ago where you were thinking about starting a fractional CFO firm. You're asking like, is this, is this for me? Can I make a run at this? You have a lot riding on your firm. And so the decision to go in or to stay in corporate America was a big one, but it was also a risky one for you. But before we get into to all that, let's just go back to, to the beginning. How did you get started? What was the lore story behind it? And how did you end up here today?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you're right, it was two years ago at your accelerator Live that was such a pivotal moment. But going back. So I worked in public accounting for almost 20 years. I was at PwC and it was my first job out of college. An immense amount of experience from had that job. It wasn't when people say, oh wow, you were there so long. I wasn't reporting to the same office, to the same boss. I was doing so many different things. So I continually felt very intellectually stimulated in terms of the things I was learning and the people I was dealing with. But where I came to a point where it felt very overwhelming for me was when I became a parent. To be honest, when I was a working mom in public accounting, it was very hard for me to compete with men that were the same level as me, on the same big team, serving a multi billion dollar corporation that had wives that stayed home with their kids. I was now a parent. I was trying to juggle, drop off and pick up. And I felt like I was terrible at everything, to be honest. I felt like my kid was the last one to get picked up. But I also was the first one to leave the audit room. So I really was at a point where I was struggling with my career. At that point, I took a fully remote position within the firm. So I had a really good gig before making this jump. I had fully remote role for the last five years. So I was working from home. It was so much easier when I got the phone call that one of my kids had a fever for me to get there versus driving 45 minutes from a client site to get there. So I felt like a better parent. I felt like I could get a lot more done personally and professionally. My efficiency was different because I wasn't at the office having coffee and spending time at lunch. I was like just sitting down and doing work. And in 2021, I got a phone call that completely changed the dynamic of my life and my family. My husband unexpectedly passed away. And for me that was such a life change as you can imagine. Here I am now. My children at the time were 2 and 5 and I was now navigating life as a widowed parent of grieving children. I am now the sole provider in my house and I had to survive at the beginning, when grief was very deep. At the beginning, I needed kind of to do the bare minimum as it related to work, like keep paying me, don't fire me. And the firm was very gracious to say that, like the loyalty I showed them over the years and the hours I had done, they showed me such grace with the time they allotted for Me to be out for bereavement, fully paid, and then also the opportunity to work remote and part time. So continue this position and Lauren can work an 85% schedule. So I was working 8 to 3 and I was picking my kids up every day. So my life as a parent and my life as a professional, like, it was pretty cozy at that point. Like for the last few years, once kind of the deep grief started to, the fog lifted, I'll say so for me, it was really an evaluation at that point of like, is this really it, Sol? Serving these multi billion dollar corporations? Like, is this what God has for my path? Like, is this really where I'm supposed to be? And when your life goes through such a significant change, not only was I grieving my husband, I was grieving all the plans I had for my life. Right. When you build your life with someone as a parent, buying a home, like you have two incomes, you're making decisions like, that was completely out the window. And to be honest, there was a bit of liberation that now I could make the decisions on my own of what I wanted my life to look like. And it felt a little soulless serving these clients. For me, I was craving impact so badly. And it was, wow, how can I serve small businesses? I knew that's the path I wanted to go. I didn't know in what capacity. So I was like, well, like, do I need to learn tax? Am I going to have to take some classes? I really had no idea what this world was. And I reached out to a friend who is actually a client of one of our mutual friends, Shannon Weinstein. And he simply said to me, when I reached out to him and said, hey, like, where do I start? I knew he was involved in some of the finances in his wife's business. She had retired him from corporate America. Like, I didn't know where to start. And it was a text and all he said was, can I connect you with someone? Sure. In comes Shannon. So introductions are made. We had a call immediately. She asked me, like, do you want to serve some of my clients to see if you even like this? Like, do you want an opportunity to see how I run my firm? Sure, let's see if I even like this, right? Like, I can't go in all in on something that I have no context for. As soon as I saw the businesses she was serving, saw the impact she was having, and saw how she operated her business, I could bring my experience, help serve her clients well and see what this was all about. And it was, I Was listening to her podcast and she had plugged your accelerator live. And her and I were, like, running late on a call, and right at the end, I was like, hey, Shan, you plugged this accelerator live event in Dallas. Like, what is this all about? Should I go? Yeah, definitely. Let's talk about it. So she reached out to Gretchen, got me a ticket, and down to Dallas. I flew. Still working part full time at PwC, like, lying and just saying I needed a couple days vacation. And here I am, like, going to an event that literally changed the trajectory of my life.

Wow.

So there's. There's a lot there. I'm curious, what was it in your mind, Lauren, that, like, had you realized that serving the. I will use your word, not mine, but was it soulless corporations?

Yeah.

What is it about you that you think kind of cultivated that. That feeling on the heels of severe grief that there's. There's more for me. I need to do something that touches real people instead of a sou. Soulless corporation. Where was that born?

Yeah. And I'll stand on that soulless term. I live in New Jersey, and I served a lot of big pharma companies. Right. So not for nothing, like, my values do not align with big pharma. And for me to continue to make these big companies money by serving them. And listen, like, as auditors, we have a requirement in the markets do financial statement audits. I understand it. But when you're part of such a big operation and you're such a tiny piece. Yes. The people impact is there. The teams, the clients, the contacts, Great. But in the big picture, grand scheme, like, does it really matter that I'm spending time auditing your property, plant and equipment? Like, it's not moving the needle and it's not feeling like a huge value add with the skill set that I've built over 20 years. And so for me, it was really a time of reflection of, like, okay, well, how do I translate the skills that I do have into a world that feels way more impactful?

So compare and contrast that with. With working with a small business and let's call a small business under $50 million or something. For the purposes of this. What kind of impact do you. Do you see fractional CFOs having for. For the small businesses?

Yeah. A lot of it's about building confidence and empowering them. A lot of times they come in with the I don't know what to do anymore mentality, like, I need support, and I'm not sure where else to get it. I need Guidance and really fostering trust in that relationship so they can ask the questions they might be embarrassed to ask. And doing all this at the strategic CFO level. Right. I always am consistently talking about like this is executive level discussions. Like we can have the hard conversations about what to do with your team or the decisions you're making day to day that truly impact the organization. It's just been really cool to see like the lights go on when you're explaining something and they just say I had one recently, just decided I can't believe I wasn't doing this before. Right. And like that to me is better than when you pay my bill. Like I want to hear that all day. I want to understand like how the impact of what I'm doing is directly increasing your confidence in your business that you've built in similar situations where families aren't riding on it, where teams and jobs are riding on it. Like it's so cool to be part of the process of enhancing their business with, you know, just really kind of simplifying it and having relationship.

What was it that they weren't doing? What was this big aha moment that you, you were able to uncover them? Lauren?

Yeah, that client specifically it was is forecasting, right. It was cash flow forecasting. They were looking at jobs and monitoring progress individually, but they didn't have the full picture. They didn't have reporting that was showing them like ultimately how it all fit together. So the AHA really was just taking all the information, being able to present it and show them in a way where they understood exactly where they were heading.

And what industry is this? Construction.

Yep.

How long have they been in business?

Since 2017.

Okay. So seven or eight years they've been in business roughly. What's their top line multiple? Seven figure.

Yep.

So here we've got this multi some odd million dollar business. They're probably growing fairly, fairly quickly. Is that a fair assumption? Yep, they've been around and they've, they've been able to keep the lights on for seven going on eight years now. And I think the important thing for us to remember is we assume a lot of times that businesses have all these things in place, like oh, they've been around for more than two or three years. Clearly they're doing forecasts, clearly they're doing projections and planning and goal setting. What could I possibly hope to come in and add value around? I mean I was just on a discovery call Yesterday with a 66 year old family owned construction business that didn't have those things in place. Either. And they're pushing $100 million a year.

Wow.

And so my encouragement for anybody that's watching this or listening to this is don't just have this assumption that they've been around for seven years or 70 years. They've clearly got all this stuff in place. Don't have the assumption that they're making $7 million a year or $70 million a year, that they've surely got all this in place and that you can't add value. Because the reality is, especially for these individually owned businesses that don't have a PE firm or venture capital breathing down their neck, a lot of times they don't. In the work that we can do, if we, we can go in there and take them from single digit net margins to double digit net net margins just a few years, that's a big change. That's a, that's a turnaround for a business like that. And it means everything to the owners, but also to their employees and their families.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Now, you've been doing this full time for just under two years.

So not even. Right. So I quit my job. It hasn't even been a year full time.

What?

It was right before Accelerator Live last year that I put my notice in. I wanted to go to your event knowing that like, that was coming to an end. So full time, almost a year.

So we met two years ago and you were doing it part time for that full year in between the cfo, Accelerator Live. And then last year was, I think I remember now, we were at one of the VIP events and I kind of, I like, I was like, it's time. When are you going to do it? And then I think it was a week or two later you texted me and you're like, oh my gosh, I did it. I'm in tears right now.

Yeah, absolutely. Literally. You posted something on LinkedIn and you said, hungry dogs run fast. And I will never forget. I was sopping in my house. I was like, I can't continue to do it with limited hours, especially as a single parent. Right. I'm working full time at the firm. Then I'm parenting. I'm doing all the things, the homework, the practices, the bedtime routine. Right, all of it. And then I'm logging in late at night to try to build a business. Like, how is this ever going to get off the ground if it's 10 o' clock at night and I'm spending maybe one to two hours before I'm totally exhausted and really being able to do it? So for Me, it was about investing in myself and really understanding, like, well, what's the worst thing that can happen?

I think investing in yourself. Yes. But I've known you for a while now, and I think there's also something to be said for believing in yourself, in believing that you can actually make something like this work. Just my personal take on watching your growth is, it's that belief in yourself and that watching that seed grow that solved the rest of the issues for you. Clearly something's working because you're in a spot that a lot of us are very fortunate to not be in as a single income earner. You know, your husband passed away unexpectedly, you've got two kiddos, you're clearly a die hard mom, and you want to do things the right way. Lot of us will never have the kind of pressure to figure it out and, and to make it work. You, you took that pressure head on and you ran with it and it's working. So I'm just curious, like, if you had to think of just a few things that have been pivotal for your growth, Lauren, that you would want to share with people coming behind you, what, what would those three growth catalysts be?

So first is resilience. I think when you've been through something so traumatic on a personal level, there is an element of like, here I am, it's now three and a half years later, still standing, my children are thriving. You know that, like to be able to look back and understand, like, if you can walk through something like that, you can handle the pressure of doing this. Like just a little bit of comparison of like what you've been through and what you can do. So that resilience and understanding, like, even on the worst CFO day, it's never going to be worse than that day in 2021 when I got that phone call. That's for sure. That's one, two is faith. And that has really manifested in patience for me that I am very clear on my boundaries with work hours. And like, again, like you said, I'm, I'm a very present parent. And for me, I'm not going to sacrifice being a present parent for the sake of what I'm building here. So that has meant, like, there has been a bit of patience that has been part of a longer term game. But knowing that this is the path I'm supposed to be on, having the faith that's going to come, staying consistent and knowing also like this concept within faith of closed doors being from God as well. Right. Like, I don't take it Personally, if something doesn't go right, like I, I know there's probably a, a bigger reason and a lesson to be learned and things like that. So I think my approach, it has always been, it's not an immediate success. It's not, I'm not going to get the clients that are going to overwhelm me and be able from a volume perspective not to handle it. Like, the intent of going into business on my own also was so that I could build a firm that works for my commitments at home first and foremost. And so that patience for me again has turned into long term game. And like, just keep at it. It doesn't mean you're doing the wrong things if you're not seeing the immediate result. You gotta keep at it.

Couple things that I think that brings up in my mind, let's start with resilience. And when I think of resilience, I'm just thinking of stay in the game. Just, just stay in the game. Even though you're taking some L's along the way. And, and I think maybe resilience goes hand in hand with that faith piece. Like just knowing that this is what I'm meant to do. Maybe I wasn't meant to do that thing today, but just stay the course. How do you know when it's time to tap out?

That's a good question. And I think it's really evaluating, like how much time have I invested versus an roi, right? I think a finite amount of time even going into starting my firm and making that decision, I said, all right, I have enough cash and enough Runway to give myself this much time to figure it out. And if I don't, like, I just have to take the L and pivot, right? So I think it's in your mind understanding that like, again, not the immediate result comes, but you also have to give it a defined time period. And, and really, let's be honest about the effort you're putting behind something because a lot of people want to pretend that they've invested a lot of time and consistency into something and it's not true. Like, be honest with yourself. And let's just say it's social media posting, right? Have you posted every day? Have you posted once a week? Like, and then you're going to tell me after four weeks of one post a week, you're not getting any feedback and no one's coming in the door? Like, you really got to be honest about what it looks like. And for me too, the beginning parts have been so much a learning experience. And I Think about speaking, right? One of the things I love doing now and, like, I have, you know, gotten coaching directly from you. I have invested a lot of time in trying to figure out what that looks like. And like, okay, speaking. Speaking at the Chamber of commerce for 10 minutes gives me experience. I'm learning how to talk about it more and more. So, like, it's going to build the confidence. Did I get a client? No. But guess what? I have experience talking about the things. So when I get on a bigger stage and now I'm getting paid to speak, I can come with a presence that is so different and confidence behind it, because I took those learning kind of stepping stones to get there.

So it's being okay. I'm just going to try to pull some things I heard in there out. So one is be loyal to it. If you want it to pay off, you've got to be loyal to it. I've just learned that lesson in a million different ways in business. I'll say it again, for those of you in the back, if you want something to pay off for you first, you've got to be loyal to it. And you had mentioned social media as an example. I committed to posting nearly daily back in. I think it's been about three years ago now. And it took me almost nine months of daily posting coupled with critical thinking and evaluation of the posts. Like, why did this one work? Why did these 23 not work? Oh, this one has this component that the other 23 missed. Sometimes it's the algorithm, sometimes there's no method to the madness. But it took eight, nine, ten months before I started to see any kind of ROI on LinkedIn posting, and it's now generated millions of dollars in revenue. The other thing that I think is so cool that you talked about in there was speaking. You're a year into this thing, and did I hear you say that you're getting paid to speak now?

I am. I'm getting asked to be on stages. I'm getting compensated for my time, which feels really cool. And, like, that stuff's exciting to me.

Gosh, we can. I want to unpack that later and just maybe we'll do that another time, because I want to hear, how do you find those opportunities? I mean, it's one thing to give someone to say, yes, you can come talk on my stage. That's. That's hard in and of itself. But then it's a whole other game where they're like, and, oh, by the way, here's money for you to do it. In fact, Let me, I just, I want to hear right now if you had to give people, you know, three bits of advice if they want to get started speaking and get to the point that they're getting paid, what does that roadmap look like, Lauren?

Yeah, so I think it's the first thing I just mentioned before is like being willing to take the unpaid stuff and get some reps. Right? Like, it's gonna. Yeah, it's gonna feel hard to like, get a big ask, but also do the big ask. You never know when you're gonna get a yes. It's shoot your shot. It's interesting. I had a call with someone in your inner circle who said, even about podcasting, like, Lauren, how do you get on so many podcasts? I said, just ask like you wanna serve their audience. Right. It's not about, what can I get from you? And I, like, I'm making a career out of speaking on big stages. It's, you're holding this event. I would love to be able to create value for the people that are attending. Right. So if you can convey that clearly just how we do with clients about our value, they're going to understand it's worth something. So being able to communicate that and how you pitch it, and to be honest, each event, I don't have like a, a standard operating procedure about how I pitch for speaking. It depends. But it's personalized reach out. It's not AI doing a bunch of dumps into LinkedIn inboxes. It is a personalized reach out. It's educating myself on, like, what the event is, who' going to be there. So just being prepared and actually having a conversation about how can I help serve the people you're going to have is another thing that I would encourage people to do.

And I'm guessing just like everything else, you've got to do that consistently. You've got to nurture those relationships. You can't just post, you know, ask a few people a few times and then say, well, it doesn't work. This is a long game. Is that, is that a fair assumption?

Yeah, it's really funny because even with a message you think is ignored, there can be weeks, sometimes months that go by, and all of a sudden I get a message back. It's not that you're being ignored. Sometimes they're just not at the position where they're like, ready to set the agenda for their event. Right. So. And sometimes they don't respond to communicate that. But knowing that even if it's quiet on the other end and you're hearing the crickets. It's not a failure. The one that I just recently did, that I got paid for, I followed up probably five times, at least. And it was. I made. And I made phone calls. That was the thing that tipped me over the edge. I written emails. You fill out forms on websites. You send People messages on LinkedIn. Go ignore it. I really wanted to speak at this event. It was local to me. It was my ideal clients. So I picked up the phone and I made a phone call. The woman wasn't there. I called again. So again, consistency and persistence. And maybe that's the auditor in me that, like, I am so used to annoying people to get what I need to do my job. Like, I'm fine with that. And like, again, I don't know this woman, she. She can ignore me and be like, wow, this person's obnoxious. But, like, that's okay, you know, I'm not for everybody, but I was consistent. And it took months for me to book it.

I know how hard it can be to build a fractional CFO firm. We spend our entire careers learning the technical side of things, but not enough people talk about how to build a business around it. The work is hard, and I know that it can get lonely. And if we're not careful, we can end up losing our passion for the work and ultimately, we just burn out. For me, I realized that I needed three things in order to get my fractional CFO firm to the next level. I needed next level training from somebody who had been there and done that before to show me how to get my firm off the ground and how to scale it up. I needed to be around a community of other fractional CFOs that shared my energy and passion for the work. And third, every so often, I just needed a jolt of energy, a fresh spark to reignite my own passion for building a fractional CFO firm. If you're looking for that next level training, the amazing community in that jolt of energy to get your fractional CFO from unstuck and on a new trajectory, then I'd like to invite you to join our industry's only conference in the world, the 2025 CFO Accelerator Live, happening in Orlando, Florida, May 21st through 23rd, 2025, over three days, you'll hear from me and some of the other most successful fractional CFO firm owners as we share the lessons that we've learned in building and scaling firms. You'll get to network and collaborate with hundreds of other fractional CFOs from all over the world, firm owners that serve every niche you can think of and with every type of firm business model you can imagine. You'll walk away from our three days together with a renewed passion and excitement to get you back to your office and start scaling your firm and your impact. Click the link below to grab your tickets. And here's my promise. The price shown in that link is the absolute lowest price we're going to offer. If you wait, you will pay more. So grab your tickets today and join me in Orlando, Florida May 21st throughout 23rd for the CFO Accelerator Live. If you have any questions, just text LIVE to 1-469-515-8087. I cannot wait to see you in May, my friend. Let me ask you or take take us back to that Chamber of Commerce speaking engagement. It was your first one is you got up in front of that audience and roughly how many people were there? Lauren, we'll call it, I don't know, 25, 25 people. What did that feel like in that, that last three seconds before you started talking?

Yeah, I think one big thing that I had to get over and when you talked about belief in myself was really creating an identity in this space. I had been at my firm for so long, like, who's going to consider me a fractional cfo, right? So that's been a lot of like my focus with posting online about like just trying to get out there is really creating my identity in this space. And it felt really uncomfortable because I was so used to saying, oh yeah, I'm a director at PwC. I've been doing auditing so long, like I could talk about that all day. There was part of me that felt so new to executing that I was just like, wow, this feels really odd to be talking about myself in this capacity and to be talking about these concepts with this audience. It was so new. So it was nerve wracking. It didn't feel great. And to be honest, like, I still get the butterflies when I get on stage. I've talked about the same things over and over and over. But like you still have that excitement and that nerves, which I think is fine, and you just keep pushing through.

I still get the butterflies as well. And I've done, I don't know how many times I held just on my own stage. You know, I've got 100, 200 hours of experience and I still get the butterflies. And I hope that the butterflies never fully leave because I think the butterflies keep me humble and Hungry to continue getting better and to continue showing up for the audience. And I'm just worried that if I ever get to a point where it's just 100% no big deal, that that means complacency is set in. And that's probably not a good thing for if you're the kind of person like me and you that are there to serve the audience, complacency is probably your worst, your worst enemy. Okay, so the, the three keys to your growth, you said were resilience, faith with persistence and consistency. I'm wondering on the other side of the coin, Lauren, if you had to pick three mistakes that you made along the way, I would love to hear what those are. And here's a little challenge. As you're coming up with your list, I want one that you're embarrassed to admit.

Let's stay on speaking for a second. I think at the beginning, because I was trying to get reps in, I didn't have a clear call to action. And that was a mistake. I think missed opportunities potentially. And I think part of that was like, again, like, I'm just getting reps and I used all the excuses of like, well, am I really trying to get clients? And it's like, you have an opportunity, you have a stage. So like, be clear on what the ask is. And I'll never forget talking to you when I was going through developing my keynote. I think where I feel a little bit of the ick is like asking for people to be clients. Right. Like at the end and it's, I didn't want it to be too salesy quote, right. And what you said to me is have it be a call to action of, hey, if you're interested in hearing more about CFO services, like, here's my information and have the QR code. And like, it doesn't have to be this pressure filled thing. I think I was overcomplicating that in my mind so much and I was like, do I have to offer freebies? Like, I was just spending time spending my wheels on stuff that wasn't value add and like, when it simply was more about nurturing the relationship after stepping off the stage after getting off the podcast. So I would say that was one big eye opening experience for me after I had already done a bunch of reps, like speaking at several things and doing a bunch of podcasts. So have a clear call to action. And again, what you're comfortable with, it doesn't have to be forced. So that would be one, two is a hard one. To admit, and I know people are guilty of this as well, that I wasn't practicing what I preached. Right. Of updating bookkeeping and updating my forecast. Right. So. And for me personally, it actually is such an important thing for me to do because it directly affects my whole household income. It's like, can I pay the mortgage? Yes or no? I probably should make sure I update those things. So I'll say this year I've gotten a bit better, but just consistency on that. Like prioritize time to work on my business, not in it. Because I think I've been so biz dev focused just given where I am from a time perspective and how long I've been doing this that like just taking a step back and doing some of the internal stuff that really needs to be done is probably number two. Number three for me is probably still a work in progress. The one I'm probably embarrassed to admit. And part of this is the dynamic of my situation and me is of part just personality wise. I am so used to being a doer. I'm an action taker. I'm a. If I say I'm going to do it, let's do it. I have to make decisions all day. I have no one else to partner with in my home to make the decisions. So it sometimes is really hard for me to ask for help and like being able to reach out to get other people's opinions or to actually ask for help without there being a financial tie to it. It's like, well, if I'm going to hire somebody, I'm fine asking for that kind of help. But it's more the intangible, like asking for help and being vulnerable. That like, I don't know how to do this stuff. That has just been an area where I continue to have to focus.

What's something that you've struggled to ask for help on, Lauren?

Oh, it feels like everything. So owning a business is all new to me, right? Like that wasn't something inherently that I knew how to do. So it was everything from, you know, hiring and.

Even just reviewing my own finances. What systems do you use? And like not feeling like a burden. I think for me it's not having that emotional tie that like I'm asking for something that people are like annoyed about. So for me it's even just simple operational things of like, okay, well what do you like about the system you're using? And do you mind spending 10 minutes with me and showing me your dashboards quickly before I even invest time looking into it? So Things simple things like that or it's running the day to day kind of operations of owning my own business. That has been the area where candidly I just have no experience.

Who do you ask? I mean running a virtual firm, solopreneur, Maybe you have no team or a small team. Who do you ask?

Yeah, so let's talk external, then we can talk internal. So externally it's big into your network, right. Michael, you have fostered this community of people that are very generous with information, with time. So those that are willing to talk about what they've done right, what they've done wrong and their perspectives on things. So that's one. I still have such a close relationship with Shannon that started my journey and like I continue. We talk at least once a week just to catch up. Hey, what's going on in your business? Tell me about it. Okay, like what did you do? You know, what do you think about this? So even if there's things because she asked me to, my opinion, even if I haven't experienced it, she's like, well what do you think? You know, so it's like, like a very cool relationship where it's, you know, push and pull both ways, which feels very comfortable for me. And we come from a similar background of being in public. So she's one that I lean on quite a bit too.

So that was external. What about internal?

Yeah, internal.

Has been probably the harder one of me like admitting that sure it might only take me two minutes to do the admin stuff but like someone else can come in and help you at a fairly low cost and to take that off your plate so you can focus on the other things. So for me that's been exploring and having someone contracted in to help me with admin stuff from a growth perspective, not at a point where I'm ready to hire full time cfo as I would love for that to be the trajectory, but I'm just not there yet.

What is something I'm going to put you on the spot if that's okay. What is something that you need to ask for help on right now?

Good question. I'm stumped here. I have to think a little bit. I'm just thinking about like where am I spending time and feeling like it's not the best use of my time. I do have some clients that are on like rogue systems, I'll call them. Right. One of my non requirements has been kind of like what ERP system are you using? Right. So there has been a bunch of manuals that I've Been doing myself, and I think that has been more about control, to be totally honest. Of, like, well, I have to know the numbers anyways. Let me review and, like, update dashboards and things like that. So maybe it's just helping on from an admin perspective. Just preparing stuff so it's ready for me before I even touch it would be the ideal scenario.

All right, there you go. If you're watching this and you want to come in and help out Lauren with some of this admin stuff, you got a good, good person over here that's asking for help. One of the things that you touched on was around the amount of time you spend on biz dev. And I think the elephant in the room for our entire industry is just how much people are off put by doing biz dev and, like, sales and things like that. Can you just walk me through what does your biz dev strategy look like and what have you learned about biz dev? And, like, let's just even go higher level. What does biz dev even mean?

Yeah. So first, I just want to say you're hammering into us that if you're interested, it lives in your mind, but if you're committed, it lives in your calendar. It lives in my calendar. Every single day there's a block. No one touches it. I don't move it, like, and I haven't actually even really felt the need to, but in that time. And it may be different things that I'm working on, but, you know, it can be speaking, it can be podcast pitching, it can be relationship building. I mentioned before we started recording that there's a group that I recently was asked to be a part of, a mastermind full of my ideal clients and at a revenue range, that is exactly, exactly what I'm looking for. And that was one that I was just fostering a relationship. And that started on LinkedIn. It started on LinkedIn in September and didn't actually come to fruition until now. So it's tracking that, saying, when's the last time I reached out to that person? Like, what was the nature of the conversation? Let me pull it up. And like, so it's just making sure to monitor, like, when's the last time I had a coffee with this person? The second touch point always feels a little more uncomfortable. But to the extent you can continue conversations beyond just one, or let me have a call and, like, hear about your business and what, what do I do? Right. Like, understanding there's people you're going to naturally gravitate towards, because not every first Date needs a second date and that's okay too. But there are second dates and third dates and, you know, so on that you need to continue to nurture. So it's just tracking it. And I'm not going to lie too, I use AI quite a bit in that process too.

Wow. Okay, so I wasn't expecting the AI comment that wasn't on Bingo card for this particular interview. But let's come back to that in just a second. I want to hear very tactically for people out there that are like, I need clients very tactically. What kinds of things have you found success in that have given you traction over time in the realm of biz dev? I mean, is it like cold calling? Is it cold emailing? Is it LinkedIn? Is it networking events? Like, where do you find success when it comes to finding prospects?

So it's, it's two pieces. One is speaking. And I use that blanket of in person and podcasting because the other thing that's really cool about podcasting too, I'm smiling because it's the relationships I've built with hosts and their network is an intangible thing. You don't even realize when you're going on a podcast for landscapers, right? Oh, you gotta meet so and so, right? So having an ask at the end of like, is there anybody else that you know that has a show that like might benefit from this or anybody that comes to mind that might need my services or like, how can I help you? Right? So it's just fostering that stuff is something people don't realize, not just about like being interviewed and having stuff to post on social media. It's truly about relationship building, even with the people you're just interacting with. And it's also even with the speaking stuff in person, you might have a meeting, event planner there that you've dealt with that's planning other events, right? Maybe they're contracted out and maybe there's other things that you can go to. Um, so speaking is, is one for sure and that podcasting is more a long term game, right? They can listen to the podcast two years later and actually understand like who I am and what I offer and all the things. But like you've said, speaking on a stage, you walk off immediately. There's questions, there's people coming to ask. So just being very organized in how you're gathering information, just being prepared with getting their contact information. So the ball's in your court and you can do the reach out so you can schedule time. I literally have a QR COD and I have people booking. I start with a 15 minute call and then if I'm having a conversation with them and I understand, like this is a discovery call, I'm gonna confirm to them, hey, listen, I know like my QR code's only for 15 minutes, but this sounds like a more in depth conversation. I'd love to hear more about your business. I'm gonna change it to a 45 minute discovery call. So having a strategy going into that, very tactically like making sure you don't just show up to the event and then you're like, oh crap. And you're writing people's and you're grabbing cards and all the things like you're never gonna remember. So being able to be organized going into it, taking good notes. I have even just a spreadsheet where it's like, you know, I'm sending the slides out, I'm sending the casual forecast template out. I have a checklist that I do with depending on how much time I have. Right. So like offering even materials, you can get people's information, be able to foster those warm leads as well. So speaking is one in the referral partner stuff. It really is a long term game. But it's again consistency and it's building relationships with people that you want to build relationships with. It is really hard on LinkedIn. It is a bit of a swamp. I'm not gonna lie. Like the amount of DMS I get every day, like asking for my time, asking to talk and like they because they want something out of me, it feels icky. I don't want to be. Since I hate being on the receiving end, I never want to be on the end of that where I'm doing that kind of reach out. Right. So that's to be a little more natural. It has to be engaging. It's even just commenting on their stuff or sharing their information or you know, asking about something personal versus something business. I don't know. You just have to foster the relationships differently with the referral partners from my point of view because to me I get so icked from the DMS and LinkedIn. It really does feel like I'm on a first date and the guy's trying to sleep with me before we even ordered a drink.

So we've got speaking in referral partners. What's one more that you found a lot of success with, Lauren?

Those are like the ones that I do focus on. Although I do post on social. For me, again, that's more about the identity stuff and maybe the third One's masterminds. Let's talk about that for a second. So a couple groups that I have been in where again, it's not always like, is this. There's one that I was part of that was actually mom business owners. And like, that's not my ideal client. I, I love that because I'm a mom entrepreneur. But like, and we can talk about things, but you never know whose husband owns a business. You never know like, whose cousin or that world opens up. It's just the ability to see past, like, the initial point of view on opportunities is just again, like something you don't realize until you get in the room.

Any of those things overnight?

Absolutely not. None.

It's. Sometimes they'll happen. I think I've had a few times where, well, speaking on stage can be an overnight win, right? So, like, you speak on stage and I've, I've closed deals within 24 hours of speaking on stage. I would say that that's probably like the main, like the exception. But typically speaking on podcast, most of the time speaking on stage, referral partners, whatever the case may be. Masterminds are another great one. I've been in masterminds where that were one to two years long and I signed clients a year after the mastermind ended. How do you know it's going to work? Because some of these things aren't cheap. How do you know it's going to work?

So I think you have to measure it, right? So, like speaking even as an example, like, what's the return on investment? Sometimes you're traveling, you're not getting paid, right? Sometimes you're paying them to speak on their stage. Like, there is an investment even with that. So it's really thinking about is there directly. Like, at least with speaking, you know, if it's going to be a room filled with your ideal clients, typically. So that one's usually easier to kind of gauge. But when you think about what do you. What are your fees, right? Like, how many clients do I need to actually get in order for this to pay off? The math's not that hard. It usually is just like one for one month, right? Like, it's usually not a heavy lift of. If I have a room of, you know, 300 people, if I can't close one, like, come on, just empowering yourself with, like, you have the ability, when it doesn't feel so out of reach, as to how to get the return. And then I think it's going into it with the mastermind stuff without the mentality of like, I'm just hunting for clients, they can smell that from a mile away. And like that's not why I'm gonna go into a mastermind again. If you're going into that to pour into other people what, you know, great. If at some point that comes back, like to me I see that investment more of like that's going to be an eaten cost and I'm not going to expect any clients from that. And if it happens, that's great. But also I'm there to learn. So like they have expertise in something. Maybe I need to build my business, maybe they're going through something with personnel that like I have it and I can learn from them. So with masterminds, the mentality I think is a little different. That yeah, it's expensive but it's, what am I going to get out of it in terms of who's in the room and what can I do to showcase my expertise without an expectation it's going to come back.

It seems like when we lead with service and that idea of service, there's always some kind of an ROI that that comes from that and very rarely, in fact maybe never. Lauren, I can't think of a time where I'm like, man, I just served too much today. I just gave away too much knowledge for free and I just, I helped too many people today and that's going to cost me a lot of money in the long term. You never walk away feeling like that. But I can tell you there have been times that I've held back because of ego or scarcity, mindset or fear or whatever the case is. And I felt guilty that I was like, man, I had an opportunity here to just turn this onto a 10 and it probably would have changed the game for, you know, whoever was listening to me. So I would encourage people just go, you know, head first, service minded, heart of a teacher, open minded, right? With humility and a growth mindset that you, for you to learn as well is going to pay off in some way, shape or form. I can even tell you there was a mastermind that I joined five years ago and it was an absolute trash mastermind, like and I'm not going to go on air here and like trash anybody. So don't DM me asking whose mastermind it was because I'm not going to tell you. But it was just a bad mastermind and it was, I mean a very multiple five figure. I think it was like 50 grand or something. So it wasn't nothing. But there's even lessons and value from that because what I've used that for is the basis for what we don't want to be. And that has become a lot of the gold standard for us of we're not going to ever do this thing, what this lady did or what that guy did. We're not going to do that in whether it's fractional CFO services or workshops or conferences or our masterminds. So there was always, and I'll guarantee you those lessons have made me much more than $50,000 or whatever I paid for that mastermind on how to do things right. So I think like just go into those masterminds service oriented growth mindset and just know that there's some kind of value here. You're paying for tuition somehow, some way, some shape or form and you'll come away with a positive roi. Every fractional CFO needs three things to be successful. You're going to need a sound financial strategy for your clients. You're going to need clients that are willing to listen and do the work. But you're also going to need accurate and timely books. But if you're anything like me, you don't want your firm handling bookkeeping. You want to stay focused on high ticket advisory services. And that's why my firm uses desmol. Decimal has built their entire company around providing world class bookkeeping and financial operations while providing the best customer service and client communications that I've ever seen. Destination Decimal handles everything from bookkeeping to AR and AP to payroll and invoicing. They even take care of taxes. If you value accurate and timely books for your clients but you don't want to do it in house, then I highly encourage you to check out Decimal, my firm trust decimal for our books and we refer all of our clients to Decimal as well. Click the link in the description below to learn more. I do want to shift gears just a little bit Lauren, and talk like operationally, especially as a solopreneur right now with limited help until we get that person connected with you that wants to help the ERP stuff. What are some operational lessons that you've learned the hard way over the last year? Full time? Two years. Full time, Part time.

Yeah. So I think for me one big area of focus which I didn't like. It's funny for me as I'm going to realize like how much from public accounting translates into this world and the experience I've had there. So operationally I have been very intentional about building process even if it's just for me knowing that I'm not going to have a huge uptick when I try to hire. And part of that is I was in a world where the role I last had at the firm was templated, standardized, we had shared service models. So I was managing a team of, you know, north of 100 people with 80% of those being remote. And it was like, well, how do I best manage people remotely now in this environment? And how can I build that now while I have the time versus when I'm scrambling because I got a bunch of clients and I'm trying to hire and do all the things. So I think operationally it's just been very intentional about process because I, I laugh when clients come and they're like the one we talked about before. Revenue has grown too quickly and they weren't prepared for it. So it's when the clients come, I'm going to be ready. I've got the process, I'm building the procedures. Like all of that lives. It's just a matter of like when the people come, I'm going to be ready to execute, execute on it.

Speaking of the like the people coming, how do you approach pricing? That's something that a lot of people get hung up on. And I know when I started I was charging $500 a month. You can see it in my QuickBooks from back in 20, what was it, 2016 or something like that. We were $500 a month. That isn't the right price, but there's also I think a price where it's like way too high that doesn't make sense. Like how do you find that middle ground and land on a price point?

Yeah, I followed your framework, not going to lie. Right. So after I came to accelerator that I joined the accelerator program you were running that year. And for me part of that was academy and we built out pricing. It was like, well how many hours do you want to work? What, who do you want to serve? And like for me I've gotten a lot of clients that weren't ready from a revenue standpoint to be able to afford my services and I've been okay with that. I'm not for everybody. Desperation in bringing like crappy clients is never been part of the vision. And for me, why not just go and get a multi six figure job that has great benefits and things like that, then be working crazy for clients that don't appreciate it, can't afford it and like I think just staying strong in that price point. So for me I am charging 5,000amonth monthly clients and I'm charging 8,000 for onboarding. So that's kind of where I landed from a place perspective. I do offer a one time service, which I know you guys don't necessarily do, but that actually has been kind of cool because it's, it's been creating service offerings that I think long term are going to end up as part of my strategy. And I've almost been able to test it out a little bit with making a little bit of money. And I say that because in the last two weeks actually had an accounting firm owner asked to be a client of mine. Lauren, would you come and consult with my firm? He's making eight figures, has been in business for over 30 years. That started as a referral partner kind of conversation. We went to a dinner together. We met, he had his admin call me. Can Lauren come in for a discussion? I went physically to the office and had a conversation. We talked for two hours. At the end of the conversation, literally two minutes before I'm leaving, he's like can I be a client of yours? And I was like, you're a firm owner. Like what do you mean like? He's like, I would love your help with process. Cool. Let me think about it. How can I structure this? So I'll say the one time service stuff has been a little bit of a variable but I've, I've been able to determine like how much time am I willing to invest, what are the deliverables and like how much am I worth.

We will link the actually did a whole episode on that framework, the pricing framework. So if you're watching this or listening and you're interested, we'll include a link in the description below. And then I think we can do a little pop up somewhere up here on the screen where you can click to check out the, the exact same pricing framework that I shared with Lauren a few years ago. So I've got a couple fun questions if we could do those now. Lauren. Well maybe this is fun. I don't know. If you were to get fired as the CEO of your firm tomorrow. So your CEO Lauren, you come in tomorrow, you've been fired and your replacement was brought in. What's the first thing that they would start doing that you're not doing today? And what is the first thing that they would stop doing that you are.

Doing today start doing is probably getting that admin support and help quicker than I have asked for it. Right. So really letting go of, of that control or the oh I can just do it that justification. So really I would say that's the thing they would start doing is delegating more. Stop doing.

Oh, you know, that's the guilty chuckle right there. You have. I can tell you know exactly what it is. What is it?

Getting a little caught up in like the shiny thing, right? So, like, I love speaking now. Is that always, like, where I need to be spending my biz dev hour? Maybe I need to be like. Because I have to be realistic too about, like, when can I travel with the kids and everything like that. So, like, that's also why I haven't started a podcast of my own. I'm like, stop going after the thing you think is fun and like, do the things that like, feel a little more heavy and annoying and like, you know, the reach outs and the in person stuff. So just getting over that hump of like the distraction of the shiny thing and being on stage and all the fun stuff that I love talking.

Fair enough. I'm going to poke a little bit. If I have your permission, when can I expect to see a job description from you for this admin help that you need? When? When should I see? What are we at the time of this recording? It's March 18, 2025. When are we going to have the admin hired and when. When will you slack me the job description so I can give you some feedback on it?

My immediate reaction was going to be before Easter, but it needs to be quicker than that. I. I know you and you're going to say, why not sooner? I want to make sure I'm organized with expectations. And that's the reason I say that I think I need to spend a little more time putting together, like, exactly what are the extra tasks? I don't want to start interviewing people without, like a clear expectation of, like, what are you coming to do? Right. And how can it help and what are the hours associated with it? So I think I naturally need to audit my time a bit over the next, let's say two weeks.

So two weeks? Well, let's just make it a Fun number. By April 1, you'll have a job description to me and you'll have started. Let's. Let's just get crazy. You'll have somebody hired before May 21st when I see you at the 2025 CFO Accelerator live. Is that fair?

Fair.

All right, I'm going to call you out on stage on this, so I hope, I hope you're ready. Last question. You ready? Last question. What is the craziest thing that you have ever found in a client's financials? Or the craziest thing that a client has ever told you.

Oh, God. So let's talk. In this world of fractional cfo, right? I think besides just messy bookkeeping and crappy accounting, the thing I've seen most been just the intermingling of personal finances with business finances, to no surprise. And like just some of the stuff they try to sneak in there, but not so sneakily and like to see like child support payments in there or a personal camper, like things that listen, we all know, like that's not a business expense, pal. So things like that. Yeah, I mean, if we were going to talk, in my public accounting days, I could go on about the frauds and the things I've seen. And like the people that tell you the most are usually the operational people, the people you have in a warehouse, the people that are in the nitty gritty. So I would just encourage conversations with cross functional teams, not just the CEOs, because sometimes information comes that you're not expecting.

We found one time a client had a mistress. In the whole way that this got uncovered is he was running his, him and his mistress's airfare in hotels and all of their receipts through the business. And so as the receipts were coming through, it had his is not his wife's name on all of this, on all of these trips and everything. And so we actually asked him like, hey, is this what it looks like? He said it was. And we ended up firing the client over that. I just don't want it. I don't want any of that stink on, on us. But that's the craziest thing that I can remember us ever coming across was like just straight up, a straight up affair. But that was like all the buzz in the office this year, years and years ago. So this isn't a client we've had any time recently. So if you know any of our clients and you're trying to connect the dots on who it might be, you. You have no idea, I promise. Because this was. I'm saying that to whoever's listening right now because a lot of our clients listen. So anyway, that's. That was the craziest thing that we've ever discovered. Lauren, again, I'm so proud of you. Your growth over the last two years has been fantastic. I wish I had seen that kind of growth in my first two years in business. I would be so much further ahead than I am now. And I'm so excited to watch you and continue cheering for you on the rest of your journey. And thank you so much for being here today. I know there's people that heard some of your message that needed to hear it. They needed the encouragement, maybe the fire to get lit under their ass to push them along. So thanks for being here.

Thank you.

All right, I will see you here in just a couple weeks at the CFO accelerator live. 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.