CFO Client Retention: Adding Value After Onboarding

Hey there. My name is Michael King. Welcome back to the CFO Report, where I talk about starting, scaling, and optimizing fractional CFO services. Today, I want to share with you a massive misconception that I had in my firm years ago. And it was this idea that if we standardized our services, we put like that fixed scope of work in place, clients wouldn't have a reason to stay with us once we got everything dialed in. Let me elaborate. So for my firm, we do have a pretty tight scope of work. We do cash flow forecasting, budgets, projections, strategies, tax strategies, goal setting, all those things. And I know that it takes about six to eight months to really get those things dialed in for any given client. And I worried that once we had them dialed in, there was really no incentive for our clients to stick around. But what I learned, and we've been doing this for years now, is that's really just where the fun starts. That's just the point where we get to really start adding true value to the clients. And in fact, they don't even think about leaving just because those things are behind us. But why is that what has to be true for clients to stick around beyond that implementation period? Today I'm sharing a conversation that I had with one of our inner circle students about why this is true. He's worried about this in his firm as well. And honestly, I hear a lot of firm owners worried about this exact thing. So today I'm gonna walk through what needs to be true. How you can avoid the fate of clients leaving you and really share with you, like why the fun is just getting kicked off once those things are dialed in. And really how to make sure that clients are around for years and years after that implementation phase. Let's check out that conversation. Foreign.

I just had a question that kind of came up in our breakout group a little, maybe a little sidebar. But it was, once you get a client and you've had them a while, and maybe you fixed all the. The things that were wrong in the beginning for them and their processes or whatever. The real question is, when you get further down the road, how do you keep delivering value every month, especially if you're a high dollar client, what are your thoughts? You know, how do you approach that? I've got some that have been around a while, and I'm kind of thinking, well, this is getting the same old thing over and over again, and what do we need to do? You know, I've got some things, but we'd like to hear your perspective of it.

I'M sure Carlos is grinning inside. Right. Because that was something that we were really worried about when we kind of put the. The scope of work around our CFO services and we figured out what the onboarding journey looked like. Not the first month onboarding, but as we dial in the cash flows and we dial in the projection, we've really milked everything out of the SG&A that we can. Right. Like, what's going to keep them around. Right. We were terrified that we were building a client that had a longevity of six to 12 months. That couldn't have been further from the truth. It doesn't happen that way. But there's a couple tricks you've got to be mindful of to avoid that fate. If we were doing a good job as the CFO and we're helping them with those things, we're really embedding ourselves in their team. We're really becoming like part of their team, that trusted advisor. And we're also really understanding what the business owner is trying to do. Where are they trying to go? So, yeah, once you get the cash flows dialed in and the projections up, their margins and those things, I think that's where the real work begins. Because now you can start helping them execute on what their big goals are. Right. Because their goals weren't really to have 5% higher net profit margin. Their goal wasn't really to hire more people. They've got personal goals. They want to sell the business, they want to hand it over to their son. They want to open into a new market, they want to hire all these new people. They've got some big things that they're trying to do, and all of those things should need your help in making them a reality. Because I know you've been in the game for a long time. You know the potholes that are coming, you know, the things they got to look out for, you know, the obstacles that are going to get in their way. And if you're doing a good job during the first, you know, six months to a year of helping them get set up, they're going to know, you know, those things. And so they need you more than ever to help them on the longer journey.

No, that makes perfect sense. Yeah.

They won't leave you.

It's sort of a two different theories. First, getting all the little stuff taken care of, and then let's focus on your big goals. All right. Yeah.

That's where you can start to have the impact. Right. Once you get those things in place. Yeah. There's some wins along the way. That's where you'd start to get some impact though. You're coming next month, right?

No, I'm not. I would like to.

But for the rest of you that are coming though, to kind of highlight this, we're bringing client, like our firm's clients in. We're flying three clients in. They're going to talk about some of those things on stage, right. Just to give you some, some different ideas on what it looks like. Post projections, you know, post forecasts and kind of tell you like, all right, we've been with KFP for four years now. We figured out the cash flows long time ago, right. They're going to like tell you from their perspective why they keep us around.

So.

Good, good question. Valid concern. Make sure that you're figuring out those real motives, those real goals. They have the impact that they want to have, whether it's for their community, their family, themselves, their clients, and help them set those goals. And you're just on that journey with them as the. Is the Yoda, right.

If you will.

That's helping them along the way. They're not going to leave you.

And that could also be part of the sales conversation. I don't know, maybe it is, maybe it didn't. But explain. Sometimes it's a two part deal here, not a two part deal, but we would start here getting your catflow and all that crap rolling and then we want to help you get to your big goals as well. Or would you even frame that up?

I get some alarm bells going off with that from the context of the sales call, specifically because you really got to sell them what they want. Like, we know that they need those things. But if you're talking too far into the future about those things, right, they're like, dude, I'm trying to make payroll this month and you're talking about my five years from now kind of things like help me figure out how to make sure I don't miss payroll again. Just make sure, like on the sales call, like I on the prize does not. Don't add in other stuff. Just keep, keep it on, Keep on the path. That works, you know.

Okay, well, great. Well, thank you very much.

All right, my friends, I hope you found this week's episode of the CFO Report to be helpful. If you did and you're interested in getting one on one coaching from me like you just listened to, then I'd love for you to check out my inner circle group coaching program. You can get started absolutely risk free for your first month. We've included a link in the description below so you can find out more information. In the meantime, I cannot wait to see you back here next week. My friends have a great. Sam.