177. The BEST place to find Fractional CFO clients in 2026

I've been running my fractional CFO firm for nearly a decade, but I've signed more clients in the past 12 months than I ever have before. And it's all thanks to where I go to find leads. If you want to sign clients that'll pay 5, 10, or even $15,000 a month with onboarding fees that will blow your mind, then keep watching because I'm about to break down the 10 channels I'm using right now to keep new clients and new revenue pouring into my firm. For each channel, I'll break down the chances of finding clients and and how fast you can expect to reap the rewards. And by the end of this video, I'm going to reveal the one channel that outshines all the rest. This channel can generate seven and even eight figures of revenue all on its own. Let's kick off our list with channel number one, online Business Communities. Listen, every industry has online communities overflowing with potential clients. These are people that are exchanging information about the industry that you serve. These communities are literally everywhere. You just have to Google them. It shouldn't take long to find a handful of communities in your exact niche. But a word of caution, don't go in guns a blazing, blasting, self serving messages. This will hurt your reputation and make it harder to find clients. Add value first and let the members reach out to you when they're interested in learning more. Your chances of finding leads are extremely high in this channel because you're fishing in a small pond full of fish. So stay patient and the bites will come. Now, how fast should you expect to get good leads from online business communities? That can range anywhere from kind of on the spot instantly to just a few months, but it tends to lean towards the few months range. That's because because you're typically gonna need to get involved in the community, add value and build trust over time before potential prospects are ready to talk with you. But sometimes somebody will raise their hand immediately and that's always a great day. Now we're onto channel number two, which is CPA referrals. Most CPA firms have little to no interest in offering advisory services. But their clients are regularly asking them for help on things like projections and financial strategies. Typically, CPA firms are just not built for this kind of service. They're set up for fast and efficient service and this type of work just slows them down. Plus, a lot of CPA firms don't have the technical expertise or the background to offer the kinds of services that you and I do. What's a giant headache for them is actually a huge opportunity for you. Likewise, you probably get people that are looking for accounting services that you don't offer. So let's help brothers out. Meet some local CPA firms and see if you can find a way to refer business back and forth. Create a referral program where you compensate each other for referrals that turn into clients. With the right partner, you'll have a steady stream of high quality leads flowing right to your firm. Now your chances of landing a good lead from this source, they're like medium to high. If you partner with the right CPA firms, they can actually be a goldmine for referrals. Especially if that firm just doesn't want to offer CFO services in the speed this could take a few months. You'll have to develop trust and rapport with that CPA firm before they're just going to tee up any leads. CPAs need to feel confident that they're not putting their name on the line with some dud. They got to make sure you're not a dude, so don't be a dud with them. But once that trust is established, there's some of the most consistent referral partners. Now these first two channels alone have brought me a dozen clients or so totaling over half a million dollars of total revenue. But they aren't channels that you're going to engage with on a daily basis. Once you're building rapport and waiting for leads, get proactive with channel number three, which is LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Think of this as your search engine for CFO ready clients. Dial in your niche filter by size and industry and then Navigator is going to tee up a list of companies meeting your criteria. It does a lot of that like heavy lift for you when it comes to searching, but it's up to you to connect with and nurture those leads. The question people always ask is how much LinkedIn prospecting volume does it take to actually land a new client? And I think Alex Hormozi has a great quote that sums it up. Do so much volume that it would be unreasonable that you would be unsuccessful. The problem is that most people grossly underestimate what so much volume actually means. I think Alex has a great story from his early days that illustrate this point perfectly. When he was struggling to grow his gym memberships, he asked his mentor how he could drive more memberships. His mentor told him that putting flyers on car windshields was by far the best strategy. So over the next 30 days, Alex put flyers on 500 car windshields. The Next month, Alex reported back to his mentor complaining that the strategy didn't work. His mentor told him, Brother, we do 500 flyers before lunch. On a bad day, if you want to be at our level, you've got a 10x or 100x your volume. Those are rookie numbers. LinkedIn Sales Navigator requires that level of volume if you want to be successful. I'm just being honest here. This isn't something that you're going to go and one shot on an afternoon and land a new client. And honestly, overall, the chances of you being successful with this strategy are low unless you're willing to put in that unreasonable amount of work. The success rate is less than 1%. But you will land clients eventually if you're willing to put in the hours and the consistency over time. But in my experience, the spending countless hours on LinkedIn sales navigator will start to drive you a little crazy. You're going to need a break to keep your sanity. And so to mix things up, get out of the office and hit up channel number four, which are local networking events. I'm not talking about conferences. We'll touch on those later. These are business gatherings in your local community. A quick search will reveal networking events in your industry, your niche with business owners that you're looking to serve. But just like the online communities, don't go in there just asking for referrals right off the bat, looking all desperate or you're going to scare people off. Don't come off like that used car salesman. Just go in there and talk to people, make connections and let yourself have a little bit of fun. Let them get to know that glowing personality that I know you have. People are usually guarded when you first meet them, but that will change over time if you show up regularly and act genuinely interested about them and their goals and the kinds of things that they're trying to do. All of a sudden, when you do that consistently, people start to remember you. They ask questions, they introduce you to other people, and eventually they ask you to work together or they'll send you referrals. The chances of landing a client are actually pretty high at these networking events. Depending on the event, if you've niched down and how much you're actually interacting with people and making connections. Let me tell you a story about how I landed. It's like true story here, how I landed my first client using this exact strategy. I was working a Chamber of Commerce event in Denver, Colorado. It was like that typical happy hour meet and greet kind of vibe, you know, held at a topgolf and to be honest, it was most mostly these Chad looking sales guys drinking free beer and chatting it up with other Chad looking sales guys. Good for them. But I wasn't going to land my new clients by chatting it up with these guys. Then I noticed these two kind of interesting looking guys with like the long ZZ top looking beards standing in the back of the room being antisocial. And so I walked up to them and I introduced myself. Well, it turns out they were running a high seven figure it company just outside of Denver. And as we got to know each other, they eventually shared with me that as their company had continued to scale their profit margins and, and profit dollars had actually shrank. And that really picked my interest and I mentioned that there might be a chance that I could help them. And so long story short, I had a sales meeting at their office literally at 9 o' clock the next morning and I signed them on the spot. I ended up making about $70,000 a year with that client, which is not too bad for a happy hour at topgolf. And so I say all that to say like, yes, local meetings can work, but you have to work the meetings. You can't just stand in the back of the room by the punch bowl and expect to land new clients. Now this next channel is completely unexpected and I don't hear literally anybody talking about it. You don't have to go anywhere or engage with any strangers. And the best part is it's literally in the palm of your hand. And what I'm talking about is your phone contacts. Just pop over to your contacts for a moment and scroll. Now you may not have clients sitting in there, but you do have people who know people. You have friends and colleagues, past coworkers, vendors, partners, people who can make warm introductions into clients that are in your niche today. You might think this is a waste to time, but I've seen fractional CFOs land hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue from contacts that they've been ignoring for years, or maybe even forever. And this is one of the best ways to find clients if you're just starting out. So why not give it a try? Just shoot a text to a professional in your contacts and it might say something like this. Hey Bill, long time no chat. I hope you're doing well. I don't know if you've heard, but I recently started a fractional CFO firm. I solve problems like X, Y and Z industry and based on that, who's the first person that comes to mind that could use My services. Now, here's a pro tip. I don't ask your contacts if they know someone. That's a yes or no question, and you'll just get a no or they won't answer at all. What I want you to do is ask them who they know that would benefit from your services. That will force them to, like, think of somebody, and you're much more likely to actually get referrals from that strategy. Now, the chances of landing a client here are medium, and your mileage may vary when it comes to speed. I mean, it could be instant or it could take months, but it literally doesn't cost you anything to just get into your contacts, scroll through, and spend an afternoon texting people if they know somebody that might need your services. Now listen, while you've got your phone out, you might as well move on to the next channel, which is referrals from existing clients. I mean, think about it. If your clients love you, and I'm assuming they do, then why not ask them for referrals? Now, here's a quick story to prove that this channel actually works. A couple of years ago, my firm lost two consecutive clients back to back. And that was a pretty big ouchy because we were a lot smaller back then and losing two clients was a huge revenue hit. And so I'm like, okay, what can I do to drum up some new clients asap? And so I literally pulled out my phone, I texted all of my current and even former clients something that read like this. Hey, I hope you're doing well. Great news. My firm now has capacity for a couple of new clients. Who's the first person that comes to mind that might need our help? I kid you not. Five minutes later, actually, a former client responded with, hey, you know, funny thing. I was just talking about you at lunch yesterday. One of my business buddies could actually use your help. Is it okay if I make an introduction to him to you via email right now? I mean, sometimes all you have to do is ask. The chances are medium to high in the speed. Normally, if you're going to get a lead, it's going to happen right on the spot or within like 24 to 48 hours. Seriously, if you don't have calendar reminders set up to nudge you to ask your current and existing clients for referrals at least like once a quarter, then you're just not even trying to get new clients. Next up is channel number seven, hosting or co hosting webinars. Here's the thing. Webinars are a unique opportunity to educate to engage and to build trust with multiple prospects in real time. Instead of telling them what you do, webinars allow you to show them what you do. That's hard to beat. The chance of landing a client through webinars is medium because it really depends on your ability to kind of drive traffic to that webinar. I mean, if nobody shows up for the webinar, then you don't have anybody to impress. Your chances of this, though, can be greatly increased by driving traffic via co hosting a webinar with somebody who already has an audience. They provide the audience, you provide the value in the insights, and then you have a way for that audience to contact you afterwards. It's a pretty simple model. And if you're able to solve that traffic challenge, the speed at which you'll get a lead is almost immediate. You're going to get like, immediate interest right after the webinar, which is always great. And here's another pro tip for you. The number one question I get asked about with webinars is what should I talk about? The answer is always cash flow. Because cash flow challenges always resonate with business owners. Like literally anybody that's been in business more than five minutes has had cash flow challenges. And the way I look at it is every business, business owner just got done with cash challenge. They're in the middle of a cash challenge right now, or they're getting ready to have a cash challenge sometime in the very near future. And we all know that. And so this is like a universally globally relatable topic. And it's something that you can very easily speak to with authority and passion and interest. And so I'm like, look, when you're in doubt, just talk about cash flow. Now listen, the seven channels that I just broke down already give you enough ammunition to put together, honestly, a pretty killer client acquisition strategy. These are the channels I'm using right now to bring in dozens of clients and millions of dollars in revenue. But we're not done yet. These final three channels, they actually work together to bring in more clients than the rest of this list combined. If you master these next channels, you will get a run rate to a million dollars and beyond. And it starts with channel number eight, industry conferences. If you want to walk into a room with 600 or 1600 or 16,000 business owners, all from your niche, go to industry specific conferences. And look, you don't need a booth, you don't need to do a keynote, you don't need to sponsor anything. You just need to show up and talk to People. I mean, think about the type of people who go to industry conferences. These aren't people who want to be left alone, like the 2,000 people that you have to DM on LinkedIn. People go to conferences because they're looking to solve problems. They're looking for new insights. They're looking to make connections with people who can help them. And because of that, their guard tends to be down and they're open to meeting you. So not only is there a large volume of people, but most of those people are willing to talk about their problems. And there's a pretty good chance that at least some of those problems are the kind of financial problems that you can help them solve. So listen to them, share your knowledge, and be genuinely interested in helping them out. If you want to be successful, follow the golden rules of prospecting, proactively. Talk to people, act interested, and add value first. And then sales opportunities will start to present themselves. And if you follow the golden rules, the chances of finding clients at these kind of events are extremely high, and the speed is lightning fast. And as good as that sounds, conferences can actually get even better. Which brings me to channel number nine, which is sponsoring a booth at one of those conferences. Now, listen, you do not need to sponsor a booth to find clients at a conference, but it does add a touch of professionalism and practicality to the approach. So instead of wandering the conference and talking to random strangers, when you have a booth, prospects tend to approach you with questions. A booth gives you the chance to answer those questions right there on the spot and build trust instantly. Now, here's the most genius booth that I have ever witnessed, witnessed at any event that I've ever been to. And I've been to hundreds. So this was at a conference outside of Denver, and this law firm had bought a booth, but they didn't do it the traditional way. They didn't have the table with the black tablecloth and the signage and everything behind them. They cleared all of that out. And they actually laid down a putting green like a golf putting green. And on that putting green, they put hundred dollar bills randomly around it. And the deal was you got to walk up like any attendee could walk up. And you had one chance to putt the ball. And if it landed, like on one of the $100 bills, you got to keep the $100 bill. And so people were literally like standing in line. There was probably 40, 50 people standing in line to have their chance to win $100 bill in front of their coworkers. But here's the thing that created a line of people waiting to put the ball. They had a very captive audience. And so the owner of this law firm, she's just working that line of people that are waiting to get to where her booth was. And so she has this very captive audience of people, and she's just talking to them, asking them about their problems and telling her what can do for her. And she had a junior associate working the green to make sure that people weren't stealing the money. But what this created was like this amazing captive audience just sitting there for the firm owner to talk to. So let that inspire you to kind of think outside the box and create a reason for people to stand in line and talk to you at your conference booth. But as good as attending a conference or sponsoring a booth can be, they pale in comparison to the final channel on this list. Channel number 10 is actually speaking at a conference, and it is by far the best way to land clients. Look, nothing competes with having a thousand eyeballs all pointed directly at you, especially when most of the eyeballs belong to business owners in the industry or niche that you serve. I mean, think about the speed and scale of this opportunity for a moment. Over the 45 to 60 minutes that you're on stage, you're going to offer hundreds or thousands of people a solution to some of their biggest problems. Finances. In many cases, these are problems that are keeping them up at night or stressing them out and putting a strain on their relationships. It's personal to them and you're about to open the door to a solution. Nothing builds trust and creates credibility and generates more demand more efficiently and effectively than speaking on stage about business finances. There is no way, hands down, no better way to spend your time as a fractional CFO that will land you more leads and clients faster than speaking at a conference. I've done all the things from paid ads to the LinkedIn DM strategies. I've done literally everything over the last decade. This comes from tried and proven data. There is no better way to spend your time to get clients in. Delivering a keynote on stage. Now, just like we talked about earlier, if you're wondering, hey, what is the big problem that I should talk about that's going to capture everybody's attention. I'm going to go back to what I said earlier. When in doubt, talk about cash flow. I mean, seriously, cash flow always works to generate interest. Why do I always recommend talking about cash flow? Well, two reasons. Again, one, it's a universal problem that resonates with every business Owner in every industry. And number two, since I consistently talk about cash flow, I don't have to reinvent the wheel. Every time I speak at a conference, I can tweak my slides to the given audience and the given theme, but always through that lens of cash flow. And I'm ready to go. So here's a quick story to drive this point home. A couple of years ago I spoke on stage about five dead simple things that construction companies can do to improve their cash flow in the next 90 days. I love keeping things super simple when I speak on stage because I found that it makes the material more relatable and easy to digest, which, as it turns out, is fairly rare. So it turns out one of the attendees in the audience had been working with a fractional CFO who was kind of snooty, I guess is maybe a nice way to put it. The CFO had kind of talked down to this business owner and his wife, making them feel stupid for not understanding their complicated cash flow projections and their fancy three way models. And so my whole talk, which was based in simplicity, around cash flow really resonated with them. And so they approached me immediately after I got on stage. And later that day we had a discovery call during lunch and I closed the sale the next morning at, at Starbucks right there in the hotel like conference room lobby area. And that's all because I talked about cash flow and I just kept things super simple. And so you could talk about whatever you want. But cash flow through the lens of simplicity always works for me. Now the chances of you landing multiple clients using this channel, I would say that they're through the roof. Once you get even just okay at speaking, you'll probably have to expand your team with all of the six, seven and even eight figure clients coming your way. So what speed can you expect to land clients? Well, honestly, it's almost instantaneous once you get off stage. Now I know that finding conferences and getting on stage can take a little bit of time, but once you actually get on stage and you've built that rapport within your industry, the follow on opportunities will come fast. And again, you get on stage, you do that 45 to 60 minute keynote, you get off stage. Every time you do it, I promise you, you will have a line of leads waiting to talk to. But listen, when you master this channel, you will become a millionaire. It's just a matter of time and it will happen faster than you think. As I look back at the success in growth that my firm has had over the years, I kid you not. I can directly attribute the vast majority of our growth and success to just being willing. My willingness to get on stage and talk to a group of people about cash flow, something that I'm passionate about, something that I know you're passionate about, and something that frankly just delivers a lot of value and helps a lot of people. And so if you want to build a seven figure firm, I can tell you hands down, this is going to be the fastest way to get there. If you're willing to take that leap. I know it's scary. Talking on stage is not easy. It's not something that most of us are naturally excited about. It's scary. If you're willing to conquer that fear and do what it takes to actually get on stage, this is the path for you to build that seven figure firm. And that's it. Those are the 10 channels that I'm using right now to land new clients month in and month out, year in and year out. If you start putting a plan of your own in place and executing on it relentlessly, your next 12 months will be the best you've ever had in business. And if you want a complete list of the best places to find new client leads with all 25 of the lead sources that I'm using to find clients right now, then check out the link in the description. This checklist is absolutely free and it has everything you need to find dozens of clients and fill up your pipeline. And if you're looking for even more help on landing clients clients, check out my entire series on how to find more leads and close more clients by clicking here.