From CFO to Fractional Leadership Navigating AI and Financial Growth with Tom Schultz

A great FPNA person in my mind is someone who knows what's behind the number. A great FPNA will be able to translate what's happening in the real world into the numbers and then they'll take the numbers and they'll forecast or model them to get their desired outcome. And if you look at the CFO in the finance department, the controller and everyone below them tend to look backwards in history. Then over the last five years that demand has grown so much for fractional CFOs CFO tend to flip forward. So the FP and a person really is more forward looking than anyone else in the finance department. Reality is growth is so fast.

How do you see FPA changing over the next few years?

I'm a little bit concerned about that just because.

Abacum is the leading mid market FP and a solution trusted by hundreds of companies to eliminate the spreadsheet struggle. Visit Avicom IO today and multiply the impact of your finance team. Hello everyone. Welcome to FPA Tomorrow where we delve into the world of financial planning and analysis, examining its current state and future prospects. I am your host, Paul Barnhurst, AKA the FP and a guy. I will be guiding you through the evolving landscape of fpa. Each week we will be joined by thought leaders, industry experts and practitioners who share their insights and experiences, helping us navigate today's complexities and tomorrow's uncertainties. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting your journey in FP&A, this show has something for everyone. Before we introduce this week's guest, I want to give a special thanks to our title sponsor for this episode, Abacum, whose support makes this episode possible. Now let's dive into the world of FP&A. This week we are thrilled to welcome to the show Tom Schultz. Tom, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

Excited to have you. So Tom comes to us from Greensboro, North Carolina. He's currently serving as the founder and CFO of NextGen CFO, a fractional CFO services. He earned his MBA from the University of South Carolina and he also earned a BA in Psychology from the University of Michigan. And he is also the author of so youo Want to be a Fractional cfo. So we're going to start here. This is a question we ask every guest that we start with. So Tom, in your mind, what does great FP and A look like?

A great FPA person in my mind is someone who knows what's behind the numbers. The numbers are on your screen, on your spreadsheet, on Whatever. But there's stuff happening behind the scenes that represent numbers from. And so what we do is a great FPA person will be able to translate what's happening in the real world into the numbers and then they'll take those numbers and they'll forecast or model them to get their desired outcome or potential outcome.

I really like that. It's definitely about a lot more than the numbers. I would agree with you. And I'm curious, with all the technological changes we've seen over the last year, how do you see FP and A changing over the next few years? What do you think maybe some of those biggest changes are going to be?

Well, I'm a little bit concerned about that just because I think that the pre built dashboards and the artificial intelligence, I'm starting to see that stuff that we used to do, the blank spreadsheet is now being done for us. So the young people coming into this profession concerned that they'll take that stuff for granted, not really learn down to the root that we learned. And so I'm, I'm just, I'm hopeful. I know it'll be enhanced through all these pre built dashboards of the AI, but you know, I'm curious to see how the, the teaching of this stuff goes and how the people turn out.

Yep. So it sounds like, excited to see where technology is going to take us, but concerned that it will, I want to say, shorten or doesn't give the incentive for the people coming up behind us to really learn in depth like we had to correct.

I still remember when I was a kid, I used a slide rule. I was really young and then I graduated to the HP12C and then I was with spreadsheets and I thought I'd be, you know, good with spreadsheets for the rest of my life.

It's still, it's still progressing, no question about that. Technology is constantly changing. It's pretty amazing to watch. So why don't you go ahead and tell our audience a little bit about yourself and your background.

Yes, I was a CFO for about 15 years back in early 1990s. And I worked for a company that, this was my first CFO gig. Worked for a company that made pharmaceutical packaging. And when I started with the company, we were $10 million in sales. And in my 15 years there, I've got the most incredible CFO education because we bought companies, we sold companies, we did joint ventures, did a joint venture in Mexico and in Poland. So we had the, you know, the foreign currency expertise or you know, experience and then I helped the owner sell the company at the end of 15 years. And so here I was, you know, for about a year I was doing two jobs. I was the CFO for the company, but I was also the only person in the company that was working the due diligence and working, working with the potential suitors. And then we got up to closing date and right after closing date, the owner of the company was cashed out and the PE group about us brought in a new CEO who was my best friend for about 3 months and decided that after 3 months he had gotten all the knowledge he needed out of me and decided to he wanted his own CFO. And so that was back in 2006 and that was my launch at 2. Fractional CFO work.

Got it. So you've been doing fractional CFO work for almost 20 years?

18, but it's counting.

Yeah, you know, like I said, almost. Close enough. 18, 20 round. Right.

45 companies I worked for in that time.

45 companies. Wow. So tell us, how did you get started in fractional CFO work after you left your last job?

Yes. Well, it was really by accident. The owner of the company that had just sold and that I had just left, he called me up and he said, you know, I'm doing some angel investing in this small company and he wants to do a follow on investment and I just need someone to go in and look at it and see if it's worth making that follow on investment. And so I went in and determined that indeed the product was good, but the guy had no financial expertise or any anything. I mean, he was just spending money. He was coming in, he was depositing it, he was spending it and he was not really tracking or controlling it. So the investor said, if I invest more money, will you come on board as a fractional CFO? Well, actually we called them part time CFOs back then. We didn't call them fractional for a while. And so I went in, that was my first part time CFO gig. I was just a half day a week. And it was just something I was doing to tide me over until I found my full time job. And then two months later I get another call. And this was someone who knew someone that I knew. And he said, I heard you're doing this part time CFO thing, would you be willing to come in and talk to me? And so I went in and talked to him and that became a one day a week that was a general contractor, which I had no experience working with in the construction business. But I became a general contractor CFO one day a week. And so I was quickly becoming more discriminating in what I was looking for as a full time job. And two months after that I got a freelance job working for a PE backed company that was rolling up companies and just needed help in general. And I that filled up my days so that by the time I got to one year anniversary of leaving my prior job, I told, I sent out an email to all my network of people that I knew that were looking for a job for me. I said I'm not looking for a job anymore. I'm looking for this part time CFO work. And so they that launched it was accident, but it worked out great.

I was going to say it sounds like the happy accident. That worked out well.

Correct.

That's great. So by the end of that first year you had what, three, four, five clients it sounds like. And kind of away you went.

I had three clients, one of which was three. That a three day a week assignment.

Okay, so exciting. So I know you know, as you got into this at some point you decided to write a book about fractional CFO services. So you want to be a fractional cfo, right? Kind of. What prompted you to write that book?

Well, it really goes back to that first year or two when I was being a part time cfo. I, you know, looked on the Internet. It was, you know, 15 years ago, what 18 years ago. So it was not as robust of information on the Internet back then. And I talked to lots of people and, and it, there was not much there to give guidance or help me. I was wishing there was, but there wasn't. And so I thought for years about writing a book. Just put it on my bucket list, you know, hey, I'd like to write a book. And it sat there in my bucket list while I was going through my career working with multiple fractional CFO companies. But what hap. What's been happening, what was happening all along is the. I would get phone calls from people saying hey, I know so and so he's interested in becoming a fractional cfo. Could you talk to him about what it's like? And invariably it was someone who had just lost their job, they didn't want to leave the area, they were a cfo. And, and so I would talk with him and I would tell them exactly what it was like and we would do that over lunch, over coffee and I sat back in about nine. Let's see. So it's 2022 of June I said, you know, I'm kind of tired of all these. I added up to about 50 or 60 of these lunches or coffees just talking to people and telling them what it was like and having to repeat the same thing over and over again. I said, now's the time I need to write that book so that when someone asks me what is it like to be a cfo, I can handle my book and say, all right, read the book. And then if you still have questions, then we can talk after. So that was kind of the seeds of that.

A great way to be able to avoid having a lunch every week and be able to tell people, look, here's your resource. Come back if you have questions.

Exactly.

So next question I have for you is I'm curious your take. Do you think FP and A professionals are well positioned to be fractional CFOs?

Well, I didn't really bring this up in my background, but I started as an FPA person. I got my MBA from the University of South Carolina and went to work for a company called ncr. I don't know if they're still around. They made National Cash Register it stood for. And we were making computers, actual mini computers and manufacturing facility that was supporting close to a billion dollars worth of revenue. And I slotted into the accounting department and they made me the standard cost analyst is what my first job was. And then I moved over to be a pricing analyst. And through all of that I was basically doing what FP&A is today, I believe. And so that was my beginnings. Then I moved from there to be a controller for a women's clothing retail chain. That was my first controller job. And I was doing FP and A work while I was there. And so yeah, I kind of parlayed the FP and A into controller and then eventually into a cfo. And I think that FP and a great foundation for doing that.

If you think FP and A professionals are in a good position to be a fractal cfo.

Well, think about it. They have P and A guy, they're going to do cash flow projections, their new forecasts, they're going to do models of things, financial models, and all of that is future looking. And if you look at the CFO in the finance department, the controller and everyone below them tend to look backwards in history and the CFO tends to look forward. So the FP and A person really is more forward looking than anyone else in the finance department I think. So that's a great foundation.

I would agree with you? I do. FPA is definitely forward looking, right? It's all about how you get to best spend that next dollar versus what happens historically like accounting or others. What other skills do you think are needed? You know, obviously an FPA professional gets a lot of budget forecasts, a lot of analysis, a lot of those, you know, kind of how do you best spend the next dollars? Are there other skills or other things beyond just FP and a that you think an FPA professional needs as they're looking to be a fractional cfo?

Well, until about five years ago, you know, the only people really coming into the profession, the vast majority were CFO skilled CFO people. So I mean ideally their p and a person could go on and be controller and then launch to a CFO from there. That would be ideal. But then over the last five years that demand has grown so much for fractional CFOs that a lot of people outside of just CFOs are, are moving into it. I've seen, in fact I've had phone calls over the last few months just from my book that have, from people that say I want to be in fractional cfo and a lot of them are FP and A people. It's like I want to make the jump from FP and a fractional cfo. And what I generally counsel them is there are gaps you need to fill in. And so I, you know, I coach them that it could be somewhere online. There's some, some good online coursework on how to be a CFO and it's geared toward people who are controllers maybe now and want to be a CFO. There's some good LinkedIn sites and to try and increase that knowledge level that a CFO would use. But it really, it depends on the client. You know, if the client's a five million dollar company, you know, the CFO has to be a well rounded person, understand everything from accounting to working with banks to working with insurance, to you know, probably some HR and payroll things. And you know, for a FP and a person to walk in on day one and say, and encounter that it might, you know, be a little uncomfortable for them at first. So I would also, I also coach them to go find an existing fractional CFO firm that has analysts in their, in their group. So some of them have controllers and financial analysts and they, you could get on board with them to start and then you could work your way up and have that mentor develop you into that fractals. So that's, that's another way.

Yeah, I think that's really good advice. A lot of times to start by working for a firm. I know I did a little bit of work for one that does a lot of fractional CFO accounting, a lot of different fractional work, and having that mentorship and that experience where you go from FP&A to being someone who works with a firm to do fractional CFO work while they fill in those gaps is a good way to go versus jumping out on your own. And, you know, either not being able to fulfill the client's needs or, you know, really struggling to get up to speed and maybe, you know, not not meeting all those requirements just because you don't have the experience.

That's.

That's a good point. So, you know, next question I have for you. In your book, you tell meeting John Smith and counseling him about fractional CFO work. Can you tell us that story?

Right. Well, John Smith was actually a composite of all 50 people I met with, so it wasn't a real individual. But generally speaking, there I would sit down with someone and they would tell me their story of, well, I want to be a fractional cfo, and here's. Here's my background. But there are a lot of things that they need to take into consideration. First and foremost is, do you have the financial wherewithal to become a fractional cfo? Because in our business, it's very rare for someone to be hired on as a fractional CFO to a firm and get a salary. Usually you get a percentage of what you bring in from your client work. And so when you start out, you're not going to be necessarily given a full client load or you might have to go out yourself and earn your own clients. And so you need a counsel that you need six months of living expenses to be able to ride that out until you can fill up your book of business.

That makes sense.

I actually talked with John Smith throughout the whole book. So a lot of aspects, that was my theme, weaving through the book of meeting with John Smith and talking to him on all the various aspects. We talked about the fractional CFO being a trusted advisor to the owner of the company or CEO. We talked about going in and cleaning up messes. Interesting thing is that even though I'm a cfo, sometimes I walk in and if there's no controller there, I've got to roll up my shirt sleeves and put on my accounting hat and do some accounting and controller work.

And now a word from our sponsor, the fp, and a process is broken. You know it is and I know it is. Putting together management reports takes forever. There is a growing demand for operational insights and running scenarios or preparing budgets will inevitably break your spreadsheets. It doesn't have to be this way. ABACOM is the leading mid market FP and a solution empowering hundreds of finance teams to eliminate their spreadsheet struggle with automated reporting and forecasting. With abacum, finance teams can see every financial and operational KPI in real time, forecast revenue more accurately, build headcount plans, budget their spend more effectively, and run any scenario with just one click. ABACUM is the most scalable FPA solution for finance teams. If you want to double your output, half your reporting time, forecast your performance and become a strategic partner to your business, visit Avicum IO today and I'm curious how often when you get into a new company, is the accounting a mess in the fractional CFO space? I've heard that's often a challenge. So what's it typically look like when you get in there?

Usually it happens when there's a controller who left and the owner of the company tries to find a new controller or accounting manager or lead, full charge, bookkeeper, and it's two or three months and no one knows what they did. And then I walk in and it's a mess. And so they look to me as a fractional cfo. They say, hey, can you clean up the mess? Oh, I can, I can clean up the mess. But you don't want to pay me what I would charge per hour to clean up the mess. But I can oversee the process and help you hire the right outside service or professional to bring in to do that. So the mess, I mean just debits and credits stuff doesn't get posted right. Just things get piled up. And then the worst part is when you go into a mess that someone was there and they were posting things wrong. I had, at one company I went into, they had a, they were, they were doing online bill paying through their bank, but they weren't recording the payments into QuickBooks. So they put the invoices in QuickBooks and then they weren't recording the payments and they didn't do that for about six months. And so that was just a mess to reconcile a bank account.

Yeah, I know that's helpful. Definitely that can be a mess. That's what I was looking for. Just kind of interesting story there. So I'm curious if you were to offer any other advice beyond kind of what you've mentioned for our, our audience, which is mostly fp and a professionals on becoming a fractional cfo. What would that be? Any additional advice you'd give them?

Yeah, I, I would advise them to, to try and work your way up in the company you're in. I mean, I, I don't know what your audience normally is like, but I was an FPA and then I was a controller and then I was, you know, CFO and, and that was a normal progression. But if not, if you want to be a fractional cfo, that's something. If you read my book and you're excited by the opportunity, I would definitely encourage you to look to the existing established firms and try and get on board with them and try and work your way up with them. The reality is growth is so fast in fractional CFO work that you won't be an analyst for very long because they will need to develop you quickly to become a fractional cfo. And being able to have a mentor to show you through all the, all the ways through that, that's just wonderful.

Yeah. So it sounds like kind of two things. I see. There is one, work your way up to a cfo, then go out and be a part time cfo. Two, if you don't want to go that route, try to get an analyst type role or something where you have a mentor, where you're working with a firm that has others and you can help build up those gaps in your skills.

Right? Yeah.

Sure.

There are fractional CFO firms out there that don't have financial allies. So you could almost be an FPA guy and not to steal your name, but you could be an FPA guy that's selling services to CFO firms or directly to companies that don't need them. I mean, they're, you know, so that's, that's another alternative.

Yeah, being the fpa, advisory services, focusing on just that versus the whole fractional cfo. So I'm curious, how often do you see companies come to you that have supposedly had fractional CFO or you know, the FP and a support and all those things they needed before but are unhappy with the level of service they're getting. Do you see that a lot?

I get that from time to time. Not a lot, but usually what's happened is I will coach and mentor a CFO to be the appropriate CFO or the FP and a, you know, it's usually a staffing issue. And so what happened is I walked into one place where you had an accounting clerical person and a cfo and what happened was the CFO was doing controller work and book to augment the clerical person. And so the owner called me and said, I'm not getting anything out of the cfo. He's not doing CFO stuff for me. Well, because he was bogged down in this stuff that was kind of lower level and we didn't have enough resources at the lower level. So we hired another clerical person that was like a super clerical that could also do closing the books at the end of the month and all of a sudden, voila, we had a cfo. And so, yeah, I've worked alongside and mentored and just, you know, you didn't ask this question, but in the company's size of 5 to 50 million, which is kind of the sandbox I play in, there usually isn't a budget for an FP and A person. So a lot of times it's me as the fractional CFO that's doing the FP and A work. Sometimes I get a good enough controller for a bigger company. A $50 million company, we've got a good controller who does FP and a work, but it's typically fractional CFOs still doing FPA stuff.

Yeah, no, that's fully my understanding. That's typically what I see. And I, I think that's why a lot of people that are in FP and A consider going this route because there's often a lot of overlap between the two. And speaking of that, how big of a role do you play in the budgeting and forecasting process as a fractional cfo? Let's say the company does have a good controller. In that situation, how heavily involved are you still in the budgeting and forecasting? If they have somebody doing the basic FP and a work?

Yeah. So I'm in a one company, 39 sales and the controller has always done the budget for years. And I am really minimally involved. I'm there for the, you know, the high level meetings, but I'm very minimally involved. I've got another 30 million dollar company I went into that had never done a budget. So here I am, I'm the budget guy. Just because they didn't have anyone in the, they had a controller who had never done budget. So I, I did the budget and I, I, you know, I'm in favor of streamlining. I'm more of a top down budget guy than a bottoms up detail. And so did that answer that question?

Yeah, that's helpful. So I'm, I'm curious from your perspective, what's the hardest part of getting a company to do a budget for the first time.

The hardest part is first of all convincing the owner that they need to do a budget or the advantage of doing a budget. But once that's over, then you've got to convince the senior leaders, the managers, whoever's got their piece of the budget, you know, starting with the sales folks. Oh, we always do a sales budget, but, you know, they never shared it with the company. And so then you've got to go down in manufacturing operation. You've got a plant manager who's got a budget, materials and things like that. So they've never done it before. So the, the hardest part is just introducing it to them. And you know, the way I do that is I produce historical data. So I'm saying, I'm wanting, I want a material percentage out of you for the sales that we're going to project. And so, you know, but the material percentage has been 50% two years ago, 49% last year, and now, you know, and so show them the trend of the, of the costs and all the expenses as well.

So makes sense. So I'm curious from your perspective, where you sit, what is the key to being a great business partner for finance? To be a great business partner with the business. What. What's required?

What is required? It's gotta, you gotta be part of the business. So I'm here only one day a week at a client. The senior leaders as well as the owner come to me with financial questions. So they do that. I'm a trusted advisor, not only to the owner, but to the other senior leaders. And I get them their answers. And I'm kind of the liaison down to the controller and the historical financial reports. But I also am always looking forward. So the looking forward part out the front windshield of the car, that's, that's what I do. I, I'm usually ahead of everyone, frankly. Yeah, I'm looking one year, two years, three years down the road and trying to model that in the financial projections. And that allows me then to go back and say to the, to the other managers and say, hey, you know, in order to get here, how do we, what do we have to do in order to get there? And there's some really good discussions that come out of that.

Got it. Thanks. That's really helpful. So next question I have for you. Why do you think many companies are so late in hiring fractional CFO and these advisory services? What's your, from your experience, what do you think? The main reason is that they often, you know, Delay that longer than they probably should.

Yeah, I mean it used to be that they just didn't know about them and now it's becoming less and less the case. And now I think there's a lot of people that are just, you know, they own a company, remember now we're in the, we could be in the 2 million to 50 million dollar in sales, you know, range. And so, you know, owners of companies, especially privately held ones, you know, it's their money, you know, the business profit is their money. So they feel like they've got a controller that's good enough and they don't really know what, they don't know what they're missing. And so usually it takes a point of pain, what I call it, so, you know, a mess that needs to be cleaned up, a bank that's turning the screws on them. Or it could be they're sitting in the country club after a round of golf in their next door. Their, their golfing partner who's their next door neighbor says, you know, I hired this fractional CFO and we've just gone gangbusters on what, what, what he's been able to bring to the table. And so it, it's slowly but surely happening. But it's more in private that are slow to higher objections. If you're out there fundraising, I've seen, I've seen pre, pre revenue, pre revenues, higher fractions because they need navigation. Navigation investors, sure.

Yeah. When you're raising funds, I would imagine if you don't have any of that experience, you're going to want support there obviously. But like you said, you know, private companies that haven't raised any funds, you know, family owned or whatever, and it's like, right, well that's all my money. I'm doing good enough. I have a controller. Why would I spend, you know, another couple hundred thousand a year, whatever it costs for fractional, you know, 50,000, whatever the number may be, what am I really going to get for it?

Right.

That makes a lot of sense to me.

Yeah. When I come into these companies, if there's not been a CFO before, usually the owner of the company is the wearing the CFO hat and they're not doing it very well but won't admit it.

Yeah, no, that, that's not surprising. A lot of times CEOs will try to wear that hat. You know, first budget might be done by the CEO, but if they have no finance background, they're going to be missing on a lot of things. Hey there, it's your host The FP and A Guy. And today I'm thrilled to talk to you about Plan Buddies where professionals meet excellence. This isn't just any community, it is a community ran by and for planning professionals. At Plan Buddies we're all about fostering connections, sharing sharing knowledge and providing mentorship among FP and A experts ready to elevate your career. Visit plan-beddies.com and become a member today. And here's a special treat. Use the promo code the FPNDaguy that is the FP and a guy for an exclusive 25% discount on your first year membership. So this next section is what I call our kind of rapid fire section where I'm just going to. There's a number of questions I'm going to ask here. You get, you know, up to 30 seconds to answer these. You know, some of them will only take you a couple seconds. You know, some you may want to go a little longer. But the first one is do you prefer to use Google Sheets or Excel?

Excel.

All right.

Actually I grew, I grew up on Lotus 1, 2, 3 and then they dragged me over to Excel just because Lotus 123 went away and I just. Most of my. Actually I have yet to have a client who uses Google Sheets.

And what are the industries you're mostly supporting? I'm curious because I would have expected a few.

Yeah, manufacturing, distribution, you know, usually it's. They're established firms, they've been around for a while. You know, they're not. I don't usually get involved with early stage and pre revenue stage companies, so.

And now I'm curious, do you use any kind of planning platform or do you use Excel for your own planning for your company?

I use Excel primarily. But you know, my real answer to that is depends on what the client's using or what the client owns. They've all got their own ERP software. If there's something they've already got, then we'll try and expand the use of that. I've got one client right now that we're using. We have great Microsoft Dynamics and we're using Power bi. So that's our platform, I guess. But I've got other company clients that we don't have anything really. And so it becomes by default spreadsheets, Excel.

Sure. Yeah, no, totally understand. So sounds like in the manufacturing industry there's probably a lot of different erps you see from microdot. Microsoft Dynamics, Netsuite, Sage, QuickBooks. I'm guessing on some of the smaller ones.

QuickBooks. On smaller ones, yep.

Any other big ones you see are those kind of the most common ones.

You see, they're a little all over the map. I've got, I'm in one manufacturing company. They, they've got an infor system that's called M3. Who's that? Ever heard of that? But they got hundreds of clients. And then I've got a forklift company that has their own system that no one's ever heard of but it's designed specifically for forklift companies. So it's, you know, what, what you said literally. But the interesting thing is you might find this interesting. I ran into a guy who's a CFO at $100 million company and they're still on QuickBooks Desktop. It's like what is that still like, you know, have you not outgrown it yet?

You would think they have outgrown it, but yeah, I've heard of a few that size. It's always surprising to me when they get that big and they're still using it because they're definitely. It's not designed for mid market company.

Nope.

So you know, I use QuickBooks but I'm a business of one so.

Yeah, in fact I do too for my one person and so I'm curious.

With your firm and yourself, are you using generative AI today?

We are not actually. You know, we've got 16 CFOs in our group and but can be very.

Helpful in that area. So I'm excited to see where it comes. So if I asked you to list one, one technical skill that you think is most important for FP&A professionals to master, what would it be?

I guess it would be the spreadsheet.

Not surprised. I think a lot of people would say that learn the spreadsheet. What would the soft skill be? The one kind of soft or human skill that people need to master.

I would say listening and talking with people. I mean I, I'm, you know, someone that just sits in their office and deals with the numbers. It's, it's okay, I guess. But if you can walk out and go out into the operation, whatever it is, go talk to a salesman, go talk to whatever, you're going to learn so much more about the business and what's behind the numbers.

Agreed. I couldn't agree more. Being, being a great communicator and spending time with the business is just huge. Y so this next section is called the get to know you section. Okay so this is where we want to get to know a little bit about you. Tell us about a favorite Hobby or passion that you have?

I like bicycling, cycling, long distance on the road. So that's, that's kind of my passion. I used to be a golfer, but I just don't have time for golf anymore. It's cycle a lot.

Cycling and golf. Used to be golf, but cycling mostly. If you, if you could recommend one book to our audience to read, what book would you recommend?

I would recommend Scaling up by Guern. I can't remember his last name, but it's talking about taking a small company and growing it up. All the different areas.

Perfect. So scaling Up. Next question. What is your favorite travel destination?

Charleston, South Carolina.

Why Charleston?

We just, you know, it's just a beautiful old city. It's got all the old historical stuff. It's just the people there are so laid back and comfortable and of course, there's beaches there. And it's just a. It's just a relaxing place to be. So we've been going there, my wife and I, since, I don't know, since we got to know each other. And, you know, our daughter went to school at college in Charleston, so that gave us the opportunity to go four or five times a year to visit her and also go down there.

So fun. That's. That's one place I haven't been. I'll have to add that to my bucket list.

Okay, there you go.

If you could have dinner with one person alive in the world today, who are you going to dinner with and why?

One person alive and I didn't come up with this, so I'm gonna wing it. I would say Jamie Dimon.

Why Jamie Dimon?

He is a banker at the top of the financial. He, you know, JP Morgan Chase and everything I read from him or hear from him just kind of makes sense. He's got that worldview that not a lot of people don't have yet. He seems to make sense and his, his way of looking at finance.

Yeah, I, I definitely think he does have a strong worldview. I've read a lot of, you know, things from him that I could understand. So he would be an interesting one to have dinner with. I'll have Fly on the wall for that dinner.

Okay.

All right, so, you know, we're going to head into our wrap up section. Just have two more questions here and then we'll let you go. What advice would you offer to our audience? To be a better FP and a business partner. That's. What's that one piece of advice you're going to give them?

Yeah, I, I guess I've already said it a couple times is to get out there and talk to people, walk around. When I actually when I was at first, my first FP and a job, I got these things, seen these atomic fireballs, little candies around. Candies, they're very hot, put them in your mouth. And I used to grab a handful and walk around and just go up and down and talk to people in the area and they would be appreciative. It'd be a good pick me up to get this hot fire fireball in their mouth. And so it got to be that they would welcome big smile on their face when they came by. But every time I went by and I talked to them and usually what are you working on now? What are you working on? And so it gives you a great perspective on the business, but it also gives you great interpersonal skills.

Yeah, I know. I agree with you. I'm 100% with you. Getting out and meeting with the business, talking to people, spending time with them is the best thing you can do to be a better business partner. It starts with getting to know their business and getting to know them. It's hard to be a business partner if you're behind a spreadsheet all day. Great. So last question before we let you go here. If someone wants to contact you, what is the best way for them to do that?

Well, the best way at the current time is just to go to my LinkedIn profile. I've got Tom Schultz and you know, you can find me in Greensboro, North Carolina, but I'm not sure how many Tom Schultzes there are, but you'll see me. My tagline starts with author of so you want to be a fractional cfo. So that's where all my content is at the moment. I think down the road I'm starting to get so many phone calls from people that want to get into this profession that I think I'll probably have something a little more professional. But at this point, if you go to my LinkedIn site, that would be good.

Perfect. Well, we'll go ahead and put that. We'll put your LinkedIn profile in the show notes. We'll also put a link to your book. Appreciate you carving out a few minutes for us today. Tom, thanks for being on the show.

Thank you for having me.

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