66. Don't Run Off The Accountant!

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Who the heck are you and why are you trying to take my job? Those are questions that you might get asked when you're onboarding a new CFO client. In today's episode, I'm going to tell you who might be asking those questions and how you can avoid them. Hi there. My name is Michael King. Welcome to the CFO Report, where I talk about starting, scaling, and optimizing fractional CFO services. Few years ago, we were onboarding a new client and I started to collaborate with the bookkeeper and the tax preparer. And what I realized is very quickly they start started proactively working against me. They weren't sharing information. They weren't telling us kind of what had been going on, why different things had been happening. And what I realized is they thought that we were there to replace them. They thought that my firm was coming in to take over the bookkeeping, to take over the tax preparation. And that wasn't what the case was at all. What happened is I didn't do a good job of communicating with them what it was we were doing there and how we could work to make them and ultimately the client more successful if we were working as a team. It's all about how you communicate. In today's episode of the CFO Report, I'm talking with one of my inner circle members who is struggling with a similar scenario with one of her clients. I'm going to walk her through why people tend to feel that way and what you can do proactively to really be open and transparent and really communicative with your support functions for your new clients so that you have an awesome onboarding experience and that the whole team kind of ends up working together to support your client and you can add a ton of value. Before we dive into that specifically, though, we're going to talk about another issue that I see a lot of people getting into. And that's where a prospective client, like a lead, says, hey, you're a fractional cfo. Let's hop on a phone call real quick. I'd like to hear a little bit more about what you do. Those calls for me typically don't end well. So what I'm going to share with you and with my inner circle member today is how do you avoid those? How do you avoid those? Let's hop on a quick calls. And then you don't have enough time to really explain what it is you do and how you do it, and it ends up being a waste of time. So we're going to walk through that and then we're going to dive into how to avoid that siloed fate with the bookkeepers and the tax preparers so that you can make sure your new clients are off to an amazing start. Let's dive in.

I am struggling to communicate my value proposition as a cfo. I transitioned from being like a financial coach for small business owners, then realizing, wait a second, I'm already doing the CFO stuff. I need to call myself a cfo. Perspective clients that I've been talking to lately, they say, okay, so tell me about what you do. And I say, well, this is what I do and this is how I help companies. Oh, so you're kind of like a supplement to the accountant? Well, like, no, I like to think of the accounting as a supplement to what I do with the strategy. And then the other kind of thing is that a lot of companies seem like they have a finance person who is sort of more of like an administrative assistant type of role, but they're sort of been. They've sort of been put in charge of the finances. They seem to think like, oh, we review our finances, like, every month, so we don't really need any help there. Even though it's very clear from their challenges that they do. And I think you're just, like, running into these challenges, and I don't really know how to navigate them or communicate in a way that demonstrates the value.

Let's unpack that a little bit, shall we? What is your value proposition?

That's very coachy of you, Michael. Well played, well played. Just flip it back on the person you know.

What are you saying? What are you. What are you telling them?

Yeah, well, I tell them that I am able to help drive profitability in their company, to help them improve their profit margins, to focus on their cash flow. And, you know, obviously we do a cash flow forecast and we look at their budget and do budgeting and do a monthly CFO call where we review all the things. But, like, I get that those are just kind of the. That's the service list. Right. But results wise, I help them improve their profit and their cash flow and to think strategically about their finances.

What's causing them to reach out to you? How are you getting connected with them?

One example would be someone who connected with me on LinkedIn. And then we just had a chat. It wasn't like a prospective meeting or anything. It was just like, oh, nice to meet you. And then later on, they had a question about budgeting tools and different things that they could try because they're Expanding. And so they asked if I would be willing to talk with them. And I said, yeah, sure. So I chatted with them for about 30 minutes, and they said, okay, well, thanks. That was helpful. And they said, what do you do, by the way? And so I told them, and that's where the. Oh, so you're kind of like a supplement to the accountant. That kind of threw me for a loop. And then they're like, yeah, we review our finances and stuff. I'm like, okay, well, good for you.

Good for you. All right, so listen, this is where I think it went wrong. You're trying to fight your game on their turf. You're playing in their game. You're on their. Their field, in their hometown. And because of that, you're not able to tell your story the way that you need to tell it. All right, let me explain what I mean by that. Those calls, those. Can we hop on a quick call? They never end well for me anyway. There might be other people on this call that rock them. They don't end well for me because I have a very well defined intentional process, my framework that I use to tell my story. Right. Like, you've seen my sales training before. I think you've seen it a couple of times. Right. That's my field, my turf. And it's designed a very specific way for very intentional reasons, and it's to avoid the outcome that you came up with. We're going to start off, I'm going to. I'm going to find out what their problems are. I'm going to find out what their goals are, what's keeping them up at night. Then I go into that little storytelling about me and my background and my values and all that. But then I start showing them the CFO reports. And as I walk them through my CFO reports, I'm connecting it back to all the stuff they told me earlier. And so now they're not wondering what it is I do. How do I help them? How am I different than their, you know, office manager that's also been forced into becoming a QuickBooks expert? You've got to get them on your. Your turf, on your field, so that you can play your game the way that you know how to play it. Because when you get into these, like, one off. Let me just call you real quick and ask you a couple of questions, pick your brain. Just, frankly, it ends up being a waste of your time because it ends like that. You're going to give them. They're like, okay, cool. What is it you do? Oh, Sorry, I got another call. I gotta go. So I would encourage you, like, avoid those calls, those one off kind of calls. One hour call on Zoom. Be in a place where we can have a conversation, you can be fully present. I want to learn a lot more about you and your business and then we'll see if it makes sense. If there's ways I can serve you, and if they're not okay with that, then that's fine. And if you want to get on those one off calls with them from there, that's. That's okay. Maybe you just want to feel like serving somebody today. I do that from time to time.

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I think I could probably even follow up with them and just put that out there and see if they would want to meet. Do you ever find that there are businesses that, you know, they have a finance team? Do you ever find that people on their finance team feel sort of like threatened by you coming in, taking over, in a sense, you're like, well, this is going to be the CFO and you got to work with them. Like, how do you sort of get buy in if there's people who are the finance team and they're sort of the gatekeepers in a sense too.

That's a great question. And the good news is you get to control how that goes for the most part. On the sales call, when you're talking about next steps, like, once they've agreed we're going to work together, Yay. Everybody's so excited. Let them know that part of the onboarding is that you want to meet their finance team. I want to meet your bookkeeper. I'd like to have a call with your controller, whether it's internal or external. Right. If they're using a firm for their bookkeeping accounting. I want to talk to your tax preparer because I want to quarterback this whole team, right? I want us to all be rowing the boat in the same direction so that you want us to go. And so set it up there on the sales call when you're discussing next steps and make sure that you're like, reiterating to the CEO the importance of that. Say, look, I've seen, like, these can go sideways if you don't introduce me. Is that person that's walking alongside them. I don't know how to use QuickBooks. So your bookkeeper can feel safe all day long that I'm not trying to take her job. Right? Like, say those kinds of things. And when you get on those, like, introductory emails and those introductory calls, really Position yourself as somebody that's there to help make them successful and talk about how you're going to do that. You do need the CEO to kind of grease the skids for you, but really beyond that, it's kind of up to you to make sure that that process goes smooth. If you are quiet, if you're not talking freely and openly and like collaborating with them, it is going to feel danger, danger, stranger danger over here. As long as you're kind of open and honest and collaborative and letting people know what you do and what you don't do and how you can make them successful, 99 times out of a hundred you're not going to face any resistance. Except here's the exception. You will probably come if you're in the game long enough, you're going to come across the situation where there's somebody in one of those roles that knows that they're out of their league and that their work is not good and they're going to know they're fitting to get exposed. And so if you know you do a good job with greasing the skids and you're, you're still getting that, I would probably open my eyes just a little bit wider and say like, let's kind of really take a look at this function and let's just make sure that it's up to par. Normally it's not like something nefarious, it's just where somebody knows they haven't been doing their job or they're out of their elements and the work quality is probably not there. So I have seen that before. But again, 99 times outta a hundred, you're open and honest, you're there to help. It'll go great.

That makes sense. Thank you.

Yeah, great question. Thanks for being here. If you did find that conversation helpful and you want more of that, I would encourage you to check out the Inner Circle. The Inner Circle is my group coaching program where I work with over 130 other fractional CFOs that are on the same journey that you and I are on. If you'd like to learn more about that, go to the cfoaccelerator.com innercircle don't worry, we've included a link in the description below, but check it out. You can try it risk free for your first month. Interact with over 130 other fractional CFOs that are on the same journey that you and I are on. Check out my monthly live group coaching calls. Check out the replays of the last 12 months of group coaching calls and you can also join me for my live Q and A that I do every single month with my team where you can ask me literally anything you want to know about starting, scaling or optimizing a firm again. Go to the cfoaccelerator.com innercircle in the meantime, I can't wait to see you back here next week, my friends. I'll see you. It.