March 2, 2022 • 16 mins
Hi! I’m Danielle Hendon – wife, mom, and Virtual CFO to small business owners.
I empower business owners to pay themselves what they’re worth and continue to put more profit in their pocket every year. I do this by helping business owners understand what their financial numbers are and WHY the numbers move. Armed with that understanding, you can take intentional steps to grow your profits.
I bring over a decade of experience in corporate finance and accounting to small businesses on a scale that fits their budget and their needs. My education and certification (as a CPA) gave me the technical knowledge. Using those skills on the job, taught me that accounting and finance is about so much more than numbers. It’s about the people. I LOVE numbers…but I have a genuine passion for people.
When my previous employer closed their doors and severed all the employees, I knew it was time to take my knowledge and passion to the people that needed it most. I started 4 Corners CFO to help business owners take a step back from the burnout, pay themselves what they’re worth, and focus on their joy and reason for serving their clients. I get the chance to change the world by helping business owners like you have the biggest impact they can in their community.
Connect with Danielle:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-hendon/
Get Your Free Path to Consistently Paying Yourself Here https://keap.app/contact-us/7993277615067632
Your hosts: Colton Cockerell & Trisha Stetzel
Click for more about your hosts:
Colton Cockerell
Trisha Stetzel
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Colton Cockerell (00:04):
Hello and welcome to a another exciting
episode of Bridge the Gap wherewe're balancing life through
health, wealth, business andrelationships.
Alright, hello and welcome tothe show. My name is Colton
Cockerell. And with me, asalways, I have my lovely co
host, Miss Trisha Stetzel.
Trisha Stetzel (00:26):
Hey guys not have good Colton. How are you
doing today?
Colton Cockerell (00:30):
Good. It's a beautiful day.
Trisha Stetzel (00:33):
It is a beautiful day. Listen, I am so
excited about being here today.
So that is the first show of oursecond month in the fifth
season. And this month, we'regoing to be focused on financial
wellness. And today we're goingto discuss the importance of a
chief financial officer. I knowsome of you are gonna blow your
minds today, right? But whobetter to talk about all things
(00:55):
CFO and Danielle Hendon, ownerof four corners CFO. Danielle,
welcome to the show.
Danielle Hendon (01:02):
Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to
be here today.
Colton Cockerell (01:05):
Yes, and before we dive in, we do have to
give a shout out to our sponsorfor today's show. And that is
Sharer McKinley Group, LLC. Sowe're gonna jump right on in. So
Danielle, we do not mess around,we just come out just swinging.
Okay, so get ready, it's gonnabe great. So first question for
you. And I'm sure this is aquestion you get asked all the
(01:26):
time. But what are key metricsthat people should look for? Or
that CFO is necessarily whatthey look for whenever they're
evaluating a company.
Danielle Hendon (01:36):
So as a business owner, I'm going to
tell everyone, the first metricyou need to look at is profit,
otherwise known to some as netincome, there's a little bit of
a difference between the two.
But your profit is what you'reputting in your pocket. And
that's the number that mattersthe most.
Colton Cockerell (01:51):
I think I would probably have to agree
with that.
Danielle Hendon (01:55):
Other than that, with kind of my background
in audit and stuff, I would tellyou that the balance sheet is a
really important area a lot ofpeople don't look at a lot of
business owners and accountantseven are focused on your income
statement and what revenue andexpenses are doing. But your
income statements usually onlyas good as your balance sheet is
accurate. And making sure thatthose balance sheet numbers
(02:18):
actually tie out to real data isimportant. So you're making
decisions on reliableinformation?
Colton Cockerell (02:24):
No, I used to think the balance sheet was kind
of like, oh, it's it's a coolform to have income statement.
Yeah. But yeah, I can understandhow the balance sheet is very
important. Can you kind of gointo more detail, what makes the
balance sheet so important, andagain, the accuracy of it
depending or how it how itaffects, there we go, your
income statement.
Danielle Hendon (02:44):
So your easiest reference, most of us, I'm going
to date myself here, if you'veever balanced a checkbook, you
know, kind of what a bankreconciliation is going to be
like, and making sure whenyou're looking at your bank
statement that everything thatcame through, actually got
recorded. That's where thatbalance sheet check comes in is,
(03:05):
hey, I got $1,000 in cash, itwent into my bank account, oh,
man, I didn't make an entry, itshould have gone to my income
statement. And that's really theeasiest way to explain to
somebody what a balance sheetreconciliations going to do.
Colton Cockerell (03:18):
And I can see how that plays into the income
statement. Trisha, I just haveto what that made me think of
when I got married, it was kindof a a adjustment with my wife
because every time mynotification, my credit card,
get swiped comes in, I have tolog it into my phone. And so
whenever she got the credit cardto and I got all of her charges,
I said, Hey, just wanted to youknow, I saw that there was a
purchase, say like, you know,just just so I can track. I
(03:40):
mean, I don't care, but just soI can track it. And she got
she's she's used to it now, butshe was like caught off guard,
like why do I have to reporteverything to you? It was it was
pretty funny, but sorry. I'llpush it. Next question.
Trisha Stetzel (03:53):
My gosh, Colton.
Come on. What a way to start themarriage. What away? Oh,
I know. So I've got two geekynumber lovers on the phone or on
the podcast today. I love youboth very much. But as you both
know, we have a lot of businessowners that listen to our show,
(04:15):
right? So yes, balance sheetsand numbers and p&l statements
and all of those things.
Danielle, how do you I know youcome from a corporate
background, but you now own asmall business as a CFO, how do
we tie all of this together?
Danielle Hendon (04:31):
So I like to give people homework, which
Trisha I'm sure you're reallyfamiliar with giving people
homework. Um, the easiest thingthat I would tell business
owners to do that kind of tiesthis together is to set up a
bank account that is for yourbusiness profits, and put 1%
just 1% of whatever revenueyou're bringing in over into
(04:54):
that account. And I promiseyou'll figure out how to pay the
rest of the bills.
Colton Cockerell (05:00):
That's a that's a good word.
Trisha Stetzel (05:02):
Yeah, like that.
Colton Cockerell (05:04):
You can toy just
Trisha Stetzel (05:05):
so simple. Yes.
Well, and the one thing, the onething, not the one thing, but
one of the things that I loveabout what Danielle does is
she's bringing big corporateexperience to small businesses.
And I think that is superimportant because most of us
business owners, minus you,Colton and Danielle, don't love
numbers, right? It is just oneof those things. We're not good
at it, we get into somethingelse. Because we don't
(05:27):
necessarily know how, right andhaving access to somebody like
you, Danielle, I think is reallyimportant. So as I look at i
Yes, I love profit, I want toput that 1% into my bank
account. I think that's amazing.
But as I'm looking across mybusiness, are there particular
areas, Danielle, that you wouldsuggest we cut costs.
Danielle Hendon (05:50):
Cost cutting is tricky. You want to look at the
costs that are valuable to you.
And that's going to be differentfor everybody. It's a good
expense, if it's adding value toyour business. Being a woman in
business, sometimes our expensescan be a little frivolous and
fun. And you really have to takea step back and look at is that
really helping me make moremoney? With the caveat that I'm
(06:14):
never going to be the personthat says, hey, you need to go
fire this person to cut costs,there is a balance, right? And
you don't want to be sostringent on your cost that
you're impacting the ability foryour business to grow and your
livelihood.
Colton Cockerell (06:30):
That's yeah, that's I'm glad you clarified
that. That's probably probably.
So let me ask you this, becauseI think this is a very important
question. And some peopleprobably don't even understand
that the you know thedifference, or really, you know,
how scale works. But what is thedifference between growth and
scale?
Danielle Hendon (06:49):
I would come back to a word I said a lot
today profits, your growth isgoing to be incorporated with
share price. But for smallbusiness owners, that's the
profit. That's your net income.
Scaling can happen in a varietyof ways. But if you're scaling a
business to, I don't know,100,000 in revenue, but you're
also spending 95,000 In expenseto do it. You're not really
(07:12):
growing your business in a waythat's helping you.
Colton Cockerell (07:17):
That's yeah, and that's I think that's really
important. You hear all the timescalability, scalability, but
again, cost conscious whileyou're scaling. Absolutely.
Trisha Stetzel (07:27):
So Danielle, if I decide that I want to bring
CFO into my business as a smallbusiness owner? What qualities
should I be looking for? Whatquestions should I ask?
Danielle Hendon (07:39):
You would you want to find somebody that is
detail oriented? And in mypersonal opinion, you want
someone that's passionate aboutthose numbers, like you said,
most business owners don't wantto get into the details of
numbers. And you want someonethat really loves it. And I'll
tell you being one myself, it'sit's a puzzle, it's putting
together that puzzle and you getthat final piece in place.
(08:00):
That's the person you want thatfeels that way about your
numbers, and is going to helpyou not just understand the
puzzle, but put it all together.
Colton Cockerell (08:09):
Oh, no, that that makes plenty of sense. And
when does it make sense? Becausewe have a lot of small
businesses who are probablylistening in they're like, You
know what I you know, I want tosee what you're saying. And I
need to do that. I just can'treally afford that. So when does
it make sense to bring on a CFO?
Danielle Hendon (08:24):
There's actually a variety of options, I
will tell you there are CFOs outthere that work in group
membership program, ways thatyou can kind of DIY yourself
through some of this CFO work ifyou're interested in getting in
the numbers. Otherwise, I wouldsay start with a really great
bookkeeper, every business canbenefit from a really great
bookkeeper. And then when youstart getting close to those six
(08:45):
figures in revenue, that's whereI would start looking into a
CFO.
Colton Cockerell (08:49):
That's actually very, I mean that
that's a great roadmap there um,I've never thought about doing
the bookkeeper and becauseagain, balance sheet right. So
the talent talent tight, tyingthat back interest. I can't talk
today. I've been talking toomuch, I can't think straight.
Now. That's great. So thenbookkeeper. When you get to six
figures, that's whenever youstart to actually look at a CFO
and come in, and probably youcan immediately help you with
(09:09):
scale and growth just based onkey indicators and metrics. I
love that.
Trisha Stetzel (09:15):
So Danielle, can you define thought, Oh, I'm
sorry. Can you define thedifference between what you do
what my CPA does and what mybookkeeper does?
Danielle Hendon (09:25):
Short and sweet version, a bookkeeper is going
to take the information you givethem and organize it in a way
that you can look at infinancial statements. The
information they give back toyou is only as good as what you
give to them. Your CPA isusually tax oriented. They do a
lot of strategizing. A virtualCFO or a fractional CFO is going
(09:47):
to step in and there's a littleoverlap. We do a little
organizing, we do some balancesheet wrecks that are similar to
bookkeepers. And we can give youa little bit of tax strategy
normally based on ourbackground, but we don't get
into the details. The CFO isabout gonna come in and help you
really understand what thenumbers from the bookkeeper and
the compliance from the taxside? How do you understand what
(10:07):
those numbers mean? And wherethey're going and what they do?
The why is what drives yourbusiness forward.
Colton Cockerell (10:14):
And so what what, I guess really, I'm trying
to think how I word this, soforgive me, but how does the CFO
help with the overall growth?
Again, I know we've discussedalready, but like, bringing
somebody on, you know, whetherit's, you know, a virtual or,
you know, you actually have aphysical person, you're paying
them a salary. I guess, how didhow does that help with my
growth?
Danielle Hendon (10:36):
So, you know, as a business owner, where you
want your business to go, I betI could ask anybody, and they
can tell me what their goalsare. A CFO is going to help you
quantify those goals in a budgetformat. And then the magic
happens, once you have thatbudget, and you have all of your
numbers in place. You look atthe budget, and you say, where
did we want to be this month?
Where did we actually come in atthis month? What's the
(10:58):
difference? And why is itdifferent? A CFO, a good CFO is
going to help you understand howto repeat the good events, and
how to pivot from theshortfalls.
Colton Cockerell (11:12):
Trisha like how I mean, everything seems
like kind of overlaps. Like ifyou're a business owner, you
have a business coach, CFO kindof overlaps and your CPA CFO
kind of overlaps. bookkeeper,CFO kind of overlaps, like CFOs
running everything. It soundslike they have a little piece of
all that. That's reallyinteresting.
Trisha Stetzel (11:31):
You didn't include the financial advisor?
Colton Cockerell (11:33):
That is true.
Well, I mean, CFO, ChiefFinancial Officer, I
Trisha Stetzel (11:39):
just assume that you need a fiduciary on board,
right? Like pull them all in.
Danielle, one of the things thatI've heard you talk about is
these business owners out therethat aren't paying themselves
enough or don't pay themselvesat all. I know, that's an area
that you specifically focus on.
And I think CFOs in general,right are helping business
(12:02):
owners in that space, can yougive your take on all those
business owners out there thatare yet to pay themselves or
aren't paying themselves fairly?
Danielle Hendon (12:11):
There are so many business owners that I've
talked to, you know, three tofive years away from their
corporate job and still can'treach that corporate salary,
salary. And that that justreally breaks my heart,
honestly, because you put youryou pour your passion into your
business, everyone I've talkedto you, whatever you're doing,
you're doing it because you loveit. And it's so easy to give it
(12:32):
all of your time, your energy,and your money, and you forget
to give yourself what you'reworth. So that's where the 1% in
a bank account for your profitis, it's such an easy step to
take. And you put that bankaccount out of sight out of
mind, that's your money, itdoesn't get mixed in with all
the business money. I also am afirm believer of setting up the
(12:54):
appropriate formations and scorpse and things like that when
you reach a certain incomelevel, and put yourself on
payroll. You deserve to take apayroll. If you're in business
for yourself, if you're runninga business and you started a
business, you're a creativethinker, you know how to get
outside the box, you know how tosolve problems. And if you
prioritize yourself in yourbusiness, you will solve the
(13:17):
problem of keeping the businessgoing. If you don't, it kind of
becomes burnout.
Colton Cockerell (13:24):
Yeah, no. And that's that's a lot of a lot of
good stuff. And again, we'regonna have we have, we have
attorneys already booked up totalk specifically about, you
know, formation and things likethat. So again, she's hitting
like all these just littlenuances like different
professions. I love it. BecauseI mean, it just goes to show how
a CFO has been, I mean, a goodas you say to a good CFO
understands how all thesedifferent components work, at
(13:45):
least on a surface level to makeit all work together, which is
very interesting. Now, let meask you this. And again, you
could probably read restate ananswer, but I'm just curious
what is for all the smallbusinesses out there? What is
the if you can give them anyadvice, what would be the golden
nugget that you could give asmall business owner,
Danielle Hendon (14:06):
I'd go back to the 1% set up a bank account
that is separate from youroperating account. I would even
challenge you to put it in acompletely different bank and
move 1% of your revenue overthere and just leave, let it be
there and be your profit andyour reward to yourself for
running a great business.
Colton Cockerell (14:25):
That That 1% is that's interesting. I've
never heard that before. Butthat is Trisha, you guys would
have to wrap up here in asecond. You got any more
questions?
Trisha Stetzel (14:34):
What if I'm afraid to even go there? Like
why in the world would I need achief financial officer? You're
gonna come in and look at all mystuff and be judgey Right? Like,
what how, how do you go aboutallowing that getting in the
right mindset to allow thatperson to come in and actually
help you as a small businessowner?
Danielle Hendon (14:54):
So my first thing to small business owners
that are worried about airingthe dirty laundry is That,
consider me your your laundrymat. I love the dirty laundry,
the messier the better, the morethe problem solving the puzzle
piecing and, and a good CFO isgoing to be the same way we want
to get into those numbers anddig in and clean them up and
(15:16):
figure out how to bring valueback to your business in a way
that you can see.
Colton Cockerell (15:22):
The Dirty Laundry Well, I'm not a big fan
of laundry, but I try to fold itevery once in a while.
Danielle Hendon (15:29):
Not to be confused with monitoring, money
laundering. We're not gettinginto
Trisha Stetzel (15:32):
that. Okay, not to me.
Colton Cockerell (15:35):
But yeah, it's great. Compliance isn't gonna
improve this now. Thanks a lot.
He word money now. Well, hey,thank you so much for coming out
today. We appreciate having youand just really teaching our
audience and really me andTricia more about the importance
of the CFO I think that'sprobably overlooked a lot. So
everyone, I just want to remindyou that go to our Facebook page
go to we're hosting the podcast,all of her information is gonna
(15:58):
be in the show notes. You wantto contact her reach out, have
questions, she doesn't bite it,I promise. But that will do it
for this week's podcast. Tune innext week for another exciting
episode of Bridge the Gap willbe focusing on financial
independence for the month ofMarch and we'll be talking to
Mr. Hoard who we're going to getall into cryptocurrency, so it's
going to be a blast. So thanksso much for tuning in. We'll see
(16:20):
you next week.
Thanks again for tuning intothis week's podcast. Don't
forget to subscribe and sharethis podcast with the most
important people in your life.
Colton Cockerell with SharerMcKinley Group, LLC is located
at 820 South Friendswood DriveSuite 207 Friendswood, Texas
77546 phone number to281-992-5698. Securities and
investment advisory servicesoffered through NEXT Financial
Group, Inc. member FINRA/SIPCSharer McKinley Group is not an
(16:41):
affiliate of NEXT FinancialGroup, Inc.
Hello and welcome to a another exciting
episode of Bridge the Gap wherewe're balancing life through
health, wealth, business andrelationships.
Alright, hello and welcome tothe show. My name is Colton
Cockerell. And with me, asalways, I have my lovely co
host, Miss Trisha Stetzel.
Trisha Stetzel (00:26):
Hey guys not have good Colton. How are you
doing today?
Colton Cockerell (00:30):
Good. It's a beautiful day.
Trisha Stetzel (00:33):
It is a beautiful day. Listen, I am so
excited about being here today.
So that is the first show of oursecond month in the fifth
season. And this month, we'regoing to be focused on financial
wellness. And today we're goingto discuss the importance of a
chief financial officer. I knowsome of you are gonna blow your
minds today, right? But whobetter to talk about all things
(00:55):
CFO and Danielle Hendon, ownerof four corners CFO. Danielle,
welcome to the show.
Danielle Hendon (01:02):
Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to
be here today.
Colton Cockerell (01:05):
Yes, and before we dive in, we do have to
give a shout out to our sponsorfor today's show. And that is
Sharer McKinley Group, LLC. Sowe're gonna jump right on in. So
Danielle, we do not mess around,we just come out just swinging.
Okay, so get ready, it's gonnabe great. So first question for
you. And I'm sure this is aquestion you get asked all the
(01:26):
time. But what are key metricsthat people should look for? Or
that CFO is necessarily whatthey look for whenever they're
evaluating a company.
Danielle Hendon (01:36):
So as a business owner, I'm going to
tell everyone, the first metricyou need to look at is profit,
otherwise known to some as netincome, there's a little bit of
a difference between the two.
But your profit is what you'reputting in your pocket. And
that's the number that mattersthe most.
Colton Cockerell (01:51):
I think I would probably have to agree
with that.
Danielle Hendon (01:55):
Other than that, with kind of my background
in audit and stuff, I would tellyou that the balance sheet is a
really important area a lot ofpeople don't look at a lot of
business owners and accountantseven are focused on your income
statement and what revenue andexpenses are doing. But your
income statements usually onlyas good as your balance sheet is
accurate. And making sure thatthose balance sheet numbers
(02:18):
actually tie out to real data isimportant. So you're making
decisions on reliableinformation?
Colton Cockerell (02:24):
No, I used to think the balance sheet was kind
of like, oh, it's it's a coolform to have income statement.
Yeah. But yeah, I can understandhow the balance sheet is very
important. Can you kind of gointo more detail, what makes the
balance sheet so important, andagain, the accuracy of it
depending or how it how itaffects, there we go, your
income statement.
Danielle Hendon (02:44):
So your easiest reference, most of us, I'm going
to date myself here, if you'veever balanced a checkbook, you
know, kind of what a bankreconciliation is going to be
like, and making sure whenyou're looking at your bank
statement that everything thatcame through, actually got
recorded. That's where thatbalance sheet check comes in is,
(03:05):
hey, I got $1,000 in cash, itwent into my bank account, oh,
man, I didn't make an entry, itshould have gone to my income
statement. And that's really theeasiest way to explain to
somebody what a balance sheetreconciliations going to do.
Colton Cockerell (03:18):
And I can see how that plays into the income
statement. Trisha, I just haveto what that made me think of
when I got married, it was kindof a a adjustment with my wife
because every time mynotification, my credit card,
get swiped comes in, I have tolog it into my phone. And so
whenever she got the credit cardto and I got all of her charges,
I said, Hey, just wanted to youknow, I saw that there was a
purchase, say like, you know,just just so I can track. I
(03:40):
mean, I don't care, but just soI can track it. And she got
she's she's used to it now, butshe was like caught off guard,
like why do I have to reporteverything to you? It was it was
pretty funny, but sorry. I'llpush it. Next question.
Trisha Stetzel (03:53):
My gosh, Colton.
Come on. What a way to start themarriage. What away? Oh,
I know. So I've got two geekynumber lovers on the phone or on
the podcast today. I love youboth very much. But as you both
know, we have a lot of businessowners that listen to our show,
(04:15):
right? So yes, balance sheetsand numbers and p&l statements
and all of those things.
Danielle, how do you I know youcome from a corporate
background, but you now own asmall business as a CFO, how do
we tie all of this together?
Danielle Hendon (04:31):
So I like to give people homework, which
Trisha I'm sure you're reallyfamiliar with giving people
homework. Um, the easiest thingthat I would tell business
owners to do that kind of tiesthis together is to set up a
bank account that is for yourbusiness profits, and put 1%
just 1% of whatever revenueyou're bringing in over into
(04:54):
that account. And I promiseyou'll figure out how to pay the
rest of the bills.
Colton Cockerell (05:00):
That's a that's a good word.
Trisha Stetzel (05:02):
Yeah, like that.
Colton Cockerell (05:04):
You can toy just
Trisha Stetzel (05:05):
so simple. Yes.
Well, and the one thing, the onething, not the one thing, but
one of the things that I loveabout what Danielle does is
she's bringing big corporateexperience to small businesses.
And I think that is superimportant because most of us
business owners, minus you,Colton and Danielle, don't love
numbers, right? It is just oneof those things. We're not good
at it, we get into somethingelse. Because we don't
(05:27):
necessarily know how, right andhaving access to somebody like
you, Danielle, I think is reallyimportant. So as I look at i
Yes, I love profit, I want toput that 1% into my bank
account. I think that's amazing.
But as I'm looking across mybusiness, are there particular
areas, Danielle, that you wouldsuggest we cut costs.
Danielle Hendon (05:50):
Cost cutting is tricky. You want to look at the
costs that are valuable to you.
And that's going to be differentfor everybody. It's a good
expense, if it's adding value toyour business. Being a woman in
business, sometimes our expensescan be a little frivolous and
fun. And you really have to takea step back and look at is that
really helping me make moremoney? With the caveat that I'm
(06:14):
never going to be the personthat says, hey, you need to go
fire this person to cut costs,there is a balance, right? And
you don't want to be sostringent on your cost that
you're impacting the ability foryour business to grow and your
livelihood.
Colton Cockerell (06:30):
That's yeah, that's I'm glad you clarified
that. That's probably probably.
So let me ask you this, becauseI think this is a very important
question. And some peopleprobably don't even understand
that the you know thedifference, or really, you know,
how scale works. But what is thedifference between growth and
scale?
Danielle Hendon (06:49):
I would come back to a word I said a lot
today profits, your growth isgoing to be incorporated with
share price. But for smallbusiness owners, that's the
profit. That's your net income.
Scaling can happen in a varietyof ways. But if you're scaling a
business to, I don't know,100,000 in revenue, but you're
also spending 95,000 In expenseto do it. You're not really
(07:12):
growing your business in a waythat's helping you.
Colton Cockerell (07:17):
That's yeah, and that's I think that's really
important. You hear all the timescalability, scalability, but
again, cost conscious whileyou're scaling. Absolutely.
Trisha Stetzel (07:27):
So Danielle, if I decide that I want to bring
CFO into my business as a smallbusiness owner? What qualities
should I be looking for? Whatquestions should I ask?
Danielle Hendon (07:39):
You would you want to find somebody that is
detail oriented? And in mypersonal opinion, you want
someone that's passionate aboutthose numbers, like you said,
most business owners don't wantto get into the details of
numbers. And you want someonethat really loves it. And I'll
tell you being one myself, it'sit's a puzzle, it's putting
together that puzzle and you getthat final piece in place.
(08:00):
That's the person you want thatfeels that way about your
numbers, and is going to helpyou not just understand the
puzzle, but put it all together.
Colton Cockerell (08:09):
Oh, no, that that makes plenty of sense. And
when does it make sense? Becausewe have a lot of small
businesses who are probablylistening in they're like, You
know what I you know, I want tosee what you're saying. And I
need to do that. I just can'treally afford that. So when does
it make sense to bring on a CFO?
Danielle Hendon (08:24):
There's actually a variety of options, I
will tell you there are CFOs outthere that work in group
membership program, ways thatyou can kind of DIY yourself
through some of this CFO work ifyou're interested in getting in
the numbers. Otherwise, I wouldsay start with a really great
bookkeeper, every business canbenefit from a really great
bookkeeper. And then when youstart getting close to those six
(08:45):
figures in revenue, that's whereI would start looking into a
CFO.
Colton Cockerell (08:49):
That's actually very, I mean that
that's a great roadmap there um,I've never thought about doing
the bookkeeper and becauseagain, balance sheet right. So
the talent talent tight, tyingthat back interest. I can't talk
today. I've been talking toomuch, I can't think straight.
Now. That's great. So thenbookkeeper. When you get to six
figures, that's whenever youstart to actually look at a CFO
and come in, and probably youcan immediately help you with
(09:09):
scale and growth just based onkey indicators and metrics. I
love that.
Trisha Stetzel (09:15):
So Danielle, can you define thought, Oh, I'm
sorry. Can you define thedifference between what you do
what my CPA does and what mybookkeeper does?
Danielle Hendon (09:25):
Short and sweet version, a bookkeeper is going
to take the information you givethem and organize it in a way
that you can look at infinancial statements. The
information they give back toyou is only as good as what you
give to them. Your CPA isusually tax oriented. They do a
lot of strategizing. A virtualCFO or a fractional CFO is going
(09:47):
to step in and there's a littleoverlap. We do a little
organizing, we do some balancesheet wrecks that are similar to
bookkeepers. And we can give youa little bit of tax strategy
normally based on ourbackground, but we don't get
into the details. The CFO isabout gonna come in and help you
really understand what thenumbers from the bookkeeper and
the compliance from the taxside? How do you understand what
(10:07):
those numbers mean? And wherethey're going and what they do?
The why is what drives yourbusiness forward.
Colton Cockerell (10:14):
And so what what, I guess really, I'm trying
to think how I word this, soforgive me, but how does the CFO
help with the overall growth?
Again, I know we've discussedalready, but like, bringing
somebody on, you know, whetherit's, you know, a virtual or,
you know, you actually have aphysical person, you're paying
them a salary. I guess, how didhow does that help with my
growth?
Danielle Hendon (10:36):
So, you know, as a business owner, where you
want your business to go, I betI could ask anybody, and they
can tell me what their goalsare. A CFO is going to help you
quantify those goals in a budgetformat. And then the magic
happens, once you have thatbudget, and you have all of your
numbers in place. You look atthe budget, and you say, where
did we want to be this month?
Where did we actually come in atthis month? What's the
(10:58):
difference? And why is itdifferent? A CFO, a good CFO is
going to help you understand howto repeat the good events, and
how to pivot from theshortfalls.
Colton Cockerell (11:12):
Trisha like how I mean, everything seems
like kind of overlaps. Like ifyou're a business owner, you
have a business coach, CFO kindof overlaps and your CPA CFO
kind of overlaps. bookkeeper,CFO kind of overlaps, like CFOs
running everything. It soundslike they have a little piece of
all that. That's reallyinteresting.
Trisha Stetzel (11:31):
You didn't include the financial advisor?
Colton Cockerell (11:33):
That is true.
Well, I mean, CFO, ChiefFinancial Officer, I
Trisha Stetzel (11:39):
just assume that you need a fiduciary on board,
right? Like pull them all in.
Danielle, one of the things thatI've heard you talk about is
these business owners out therethat aren't paying themselves
enough or don't pay themselvesat all. I know, that's an area
that you specifically focus on.
And I think CFOs in general,right are helping business
(12:02):
owners in that space, can yougive your take on all those
business owners out there thatare yet to pay themselves or
aren't paying themselves fairly?
Danielle Hendon (12:11):
There are so many business owners that I've
talked to, you know, three tofive years away from their
corporate job and still can'treach that corporate salary,
salary. And that that justreally breaks my heart,
honestly, because you put youryou pour your passion into your
business, everyone I've talkedto you, whatever you're doing,
you're doing it because you loveit. And it's so easy to give it
(12:32):
all of your time, your energy,and your money, and you forget
to give yourself what you'reworth. So that's where the 1% in
a bank account for your profitis, it's such an easy step to
take. And you put that bankaccount out of sight out of
mind, that's your money, itdoesn't get mixed in with all
the business money. I also am afirm believer of setting up the
(12:54):
appropriate formations and scorpse and things like that when
you reach a certain incomelevel, and put yourself on
payroll. You deserve to take apayroll. If you're in business
for yourself, if you're runninga business and you started a
business, you're a creativethinker, you know how to get
outside the box, you know how tosolve problems. And if you
prioritize yourself in yourbusiness, you will solve the
(13:17):
problem of keeping the businessgoing. If you don't, it kind of
becomes burnout.
Colton Cockerell (13:24):
Yeah, no. And that's that's a lot of a lot of
good stuff. And again, we'regonna have we have, we have
attorneys already booked up totalk specifically about, you
know, formation and things likethat. So again, she's hitting
like all these just littlenuances like different
professions. I love it. BecauseI mean, it just goes to show how
a CFO has been, I mean, a goodas you say to a good CFO
understands how all thesedifferent components work, at
(13:45):
least on a surface level to makeit all work together, which is
very interesting. Now, let meask you this. And again, you
could probably read restate ananswer, but I'm just curious
what is for all the smallbusinesses out there? What is
the if you can give them anyadvice, what would be the golden
nugget that you could give asmall business owner,
Danielle Hendon (14:06):
I'd go back to the 1% set up a bank account
that is separate from youroperating account. I would even
challenge you to put it in acompletely different bank and
move 1% of your revenue overthere and just leave, let it be
there and be your profit andyour reward to yourself for
running a great business.
Colton Cockerell (14:25):
That That 1% is that's interesting. I've
never heard that before. Butthat is Trisha, you guys would
have to wrap up here in asecond. You got any more
questions?
Trisha Stetzel (14:34):
What if I'm afraid to even go there? Like
why in the world would I need achief financial officer? You're
gonna come in and look at all mystuff and be judgey Right? Like,
what how, how do you go aboutallowing that getting in the
right mindset to allow thatperson to come in and actually
help you as a small businessowner?
Danielle Hendon (14:54):
So my first thing to small business owners
that are worried about airingthe dirty laundry is That,
consider me your your laundrymat. I love the dirty laundry,
the messier the better, the morethe problem solving the puzzle
piecing and, and a good CFO isgoing to be the same way we want
to get into those numbers anddig in and clean them up and
(15:16):
figure out how to bring valueback to your business in a way
that you can see.
Colton Cockerell (15:22):
The Dirty Laundry Well, I'm not a big fan
of laundry, but I try to fold itevery once in a while.
Danielle Hendon (15:29):
Not to be confused with monitoring, money
laundering. We're not gettinginto
Trisha Stetzel (15:32):
that. Okay, not to me.
Colton Cockerell (15:35):
But yeah, it's great. Compliance isn't gonna
improve this now. Thanks a lot.
He word money now. Well, hey,thank you so much for coming out
today. We appreciate having youand just really teaching our
audience and really me andTricia more about the importance
of the CFO I think that'sprobably overlooked a lot. So
everyone, I just want to remindyou that go to our Facebook page
go to we're hosting the podcast,all of her information is gonna
(15:58):
be in the show notes. You wantto contact her reach out, have
questions, she doesn't bite it,I promise. But that will do it
for this week's podcast. Tune innext week for another exciting
episode of Bridge the Gap willbe focusing on financial
independence for the month ofMarch and we'll be talking to
Mr. Hoard who we're going to getall into cryptocurrency, so it's
going to be a blast. So thanksso much for tuning in. We'll see
(16:20):
you next week.
Thanks again for tuning intothis week's podcast. Don't
forget to subscribe and sharethis podcast with the most
important people in your life.
Colton Cockerell with SharerMcKinley Group, LLC is located
at 820 South Friendswood DriveSuite 207 Friendswood, Texas
77546 phone number to281-992-5698. Securities and
investment advisory servicesoffered through NEXT Financial
Group, Inc. member FINRA/SIPCSharer McKinley Group is not an
(16:41):
affiliate of NEXT FinancialGroup, Inc.
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