Michael King explains how to get clients to actually use financial tools. You need three things: make them uncomfortable with the status quo, show them a better future, and give them a clear path to get there. He maps this to cash-flow forecasting in three simple steps.
Hey, there. My name is Michael King. Welcome back to the Connected Accountant, where we talk about starting, scaling, and optimizing fractional CFO services. I can tell you that as a fractional cfo, one of the most frustrating things for me is when I put a bunch of time and effort and energy into creating tools for my clients to use to make smarter decisions, and then they don't use them. In a recent coaching call, I had one of my students, she was frustrated because she had put together a really robust cash flow forecast for one of her clients, and they weren't using it. They were still making spending decisions without consulting with her or using the tool. And in the call, I coached her.
Through how to apply what I call.
The human action model to drive her clients to use some of those tools a little bit more often. And I share this with you today.
Because I want you to be able.
To apply the human action model if you get stuck with one of your clients not using some of the tools that you provide for them. So let's go ahead and dive in. Alex, can you go ahead and roll the footage, please?
One of the biggest things that the biggest responsibilities that you have as a thought leader is exactly what you said first. You know, I talk about this thing called the human action model, okay? If you guys have pen and paper, write this down, because this is gold right here. It was a game changer for me when I got introduced to it. There's three conditions that have to exist with somebody before they'll take action. Number one is you've got to make them uncomfortable with the status quo. Okay? So let's use weight loss as an example. In order to get someone to lose weight, first, it's like, okay, my pants aren't fitting right, I'm sleeping bad, and I feel like crap. I'm uncomfortable with where I'm at today. Okay? So you first got to establish. Get them uncomfortable with the status quo. Okay? Now think through the lens of cash flow forecasting.
Okay?
Hey, you want to go hire an executive assistant, an onboarding manager, a virtual assistant, right? All the same crap all of those coaching clients talk about, right? I need an obm. I need, you know, this and this and this. You want to hire them, but you don't even know if you can afford it, Right? That's the number one reason people don't is the fear that they don't know if they can afford it. How do I know what I can afford? Okay, so you're painting those things that get them uncomfortable. Okay? Number two is you have to paint a picture of a better future. Wouldn't it be great if every single time you decided that you wanted to hire somebody, join a mastermind, a coaching program, get a new office space, you know, whatever it is, you had a.
Singular tool that you could go to.
You punch the numbers in and it tells you if you can safely afford to do that. Coaches love the word safe. Okay? If you can make that decision and feel safe and empowered doing it and know if it works. Okay? So now we've got the discomfort, We've got the clear vision of a better state. And the last thing, and this is normally the one that people goof up. You've got to show them a clear path from A to B.
Okay.
If you want that, I can show you how to do it. And it's really three easy steps. And really, a cash flow forecast is kind of three easy steps. How much money do you have now? How much is coming in? How much is going out? Okay. Really, it's not any more complicated than that, Although we a lot of times make it more complicated. Right. So your job as the thought leader is to create all three of those conditions, and then they'll do it. It's very possible to do that, but that's really the challenge that you've got to break out of the commodity and just doing, like, bookkeeping. You'd want to get those three conditions to exist for anything. You're trying to tell.
It.
