October 21, 2025 • 51 mins
🎧 The Small Business Safari – Episode Title
Profit Over Revenue: How 4 Corners CFO Turns Chaos into Clarity
Hook:
We dig into profit over revenue, how service businesses should structure their books, and why capacity-based budgeting beats guesses.
Summary:
Danielle Hendon, founder of 4 Corners CFO, shows how niching, clean reconciliations, and cash flow forecasts turn anxiety into action. From culture vs. process tension to bottom-up budgeting, Danielle reframes accounting from a headache into a strategic growth tool. Learn why people costs belong in COGS, how capacity-based metrics expose underutilization, and what separates a weak bookkeeper from a real CFO partner.
💡 GOLD NUGGETS (Key Moments)
• Culture vs. process tension reframed around scalable profit
• Revenue obsession challenged by profit-first thinking
• People costs placed in COGS for real gross margin
• Capacity-based revenue and utilization metrics
• Bottom-up budgeting tied to activities, not accounts
• Expense buckets as required, perks, and investments
• Pricing flat fees to capture efficiency gains
• Segregation of duties and clean reconciliations
• How to spot a weak bookkeeper fast
• Niching into law firms and selling with specifics
• Cash flow forecasting that includes taxes and timing
🔗 Guest Links
• Website: 4cornerscfo.com
• Special Page: 4cornerscfo.com/smallbusinesssafari
https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-hendon/
🌍 Follow The Small Business Safari
• Instagram | @smallbusinesssafaripodcast
• LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrislalomia/
• Website | https://chrislalomia.com
From the Zoo to Wild is a book for entrepreneurs passionate about home services, looking to move away from corporate jobs. Chris Lalomia, a former executive, shares his path, discoveries, and tools to succeed as a small business owner in home improvement retail. The book provides the mindset, habits, leadership style, and customer-oriented processes necessary to succeed as a small business owner in home services.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_05 (00:00):
I think we culture eats process for lunch every
day.
Got it.
But you gotta have goodprocesses if you want to scale.
But Danielle hit on it.
SPE (00:07):
SPEAKER_04
with good culture and badprocess than good process, bad
culture?
I'll let Danielle answer and seeif she's right, Danielle.
S (00:17):
SPEAKER_05
the sound booth.
SPEAKER_03
have the most amazing people andthe most amazing culture, and
you're only gonna you're gonnahit a cap.
SPEAKER_05 (00:33):
Did you just flip me off?
No, I said bring me back in.
I don't know what she said.
I took my headphones off.
So all right.
She agreed with you.
Ah, Danielle.
SP (00:41):
SPEAKER_03
like left and right, becausethat's not good either.
SPEAKER_05 (00:46):
No, actually, come on, you know I take a lot of
pride in that.
My body counts for it.
You're like Schwartz andbusiness.
You know, it's quick though.
Uh I have to say it's terminatorquick.
Like if you come in and youdon't make because I'm again,
we're in people's houses.
If you don't fit our culture uhand you can't follow our
process, you opt out or we optyou out pretty quickly.
You're the Navy SEALs of uhremodeling.
SPEAKER_02 (01:07):
I was gonna say, are you the John Wick?
SPEAKER_ (01:10):
SPEAKER_04
Don't don't feed his ego,Danielle.
Look at the look on your face.
I know.
You know what sucks?
It's the best thing anybody eversaid to four years of this
podcast.
SPE (01:20):
SPEAKER_05
I am taking that to my salesmeeting.
Boys, you're gonna have to weara wig.
John Wick.
Big wig.
Big wig.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I'm gonna wear a dark suit, putmy sunglasses on, and go,
anybody seen John Wick?
Did you sell something lastweek?
Looks like bullet in your head.
Bye-bye.
Oh, look at you.
SPEAKER_01 (01:39):
And I'm just gonna keep dancing around in the But
if we just said we're not doingthat.
SPEAK (01:42):
SPEAKER_05
No, no, no.
SPEAKE (01:47):
SPEAKER_04
SPEAKER_05
No.
Welcome to the Small BusinessSafari, where I help guide you
to avoid those traps, pitfalls,and dangers that lurk when
navigating the wild world ofsmall business ownership.
I'll share those gold nuggets ofinformation and invite guests to
help accelerate your extent tothat mountaintop of success.
It's a jungle out there, and Iwant to help you traverse
(02:08):
through the levels of owningyour own business that can get
you bogged down and distract youfrom hitting your own personal
and professional goals.
So strap in Adventure Team andlet's take a ride through the
safari that get you too.
(02:30):
Alan, that sound you hear in thebackground is no noise today.
Yeah.
But we're still remodeling thebasement.
Here we are, everybody.
SPEAKER_04 (02:39):
And you have guests coming.
S (02:40):
SPEAKER_05
And once again.
Once again, I'm gonna change thename of the trusted toolbox to
just give me three more dayscontracting.
SPEAKER_04 (02:47):
SPEAKER_04
Just give me three more days.
Manana contracting contracting.
SP (02:52):
SPEAKER_05
what did they say, the cobbler'suh son such as the shoemakers,
kids have no shoes, right?
So this is one where I said ummy project or customer project.
I'm like, go customer project,go, customer project.
And then they came back andsaid, okay, we do this for uh
this amount of money, and I'mlike, no, find another number.
I'm the boss.
(03:13):
L jefe.
We found the right number, andthey're starting, and we're
gonna finish.
But yes, well, of course they'regonna finish, but when?
Uh we're we're actually ontrack.
Uh, so we're recording this.
Define track.
Uh well is it's sort of a movingtarget.
Just give me three more days.
Name of my contracting company.
Uh Danielle, feel three free tosteal that one.
(03:35):
But before we get to Danielleand our guest today, we had a
special gift given.
Yeah.
Super cool.
Can't it's way way up there.
But we got our own smallbusiness safari podcast, bourbon
glasses, from Marika Ponton.
Isn't she the best?
She is uh she is rocking.
S (03:53):
SPEAKER_04
now.
SPEAKER_05 (03:55):
But uh so you can't uh you can't see it because
they're bourbon color.
Uh I guess I probably shouldhave told her we drink a lot of
bourbon.
SPEAK (04:01):
SPEAKER_04
the letters, and then the moreyou drink, then the letters
reveal themselves.
SPEAKER_05
She is super cool.
She was a great uh coach.
She is um profit.
Uh she's the profit coach.
Um, Marika Ponton.
She was a great guest, a lot offun.
Somebody I met years ago uh whenshe got into her own small
(04:22):
business leaving the big fourconsultancy, made the leap and
asked me if she thought Ithought it was a good idea, and
I told her exactly what Ithought.
SPEAKER_04 (04:30):
Which it's kind of funny that you say that.
I have a funny story.
Yeah.
Um, you know my tennis partner.
SPEA (04:36):
SPEAKER_05
SPEAKER_04 (04:38):
Yeah, he he's a he's a blunt instrument, and we were
on our way to our match lastnight.
Six love, six three, by the way.
And uh our podcast came up, andhe goes, Yeah, I've listened to
a couple of your episodes.
Do what?
It's not for me.
Oh, I love him.
That's right on brand with thisdude, man.
(04:59):
That is so right on brand.
No, if that's me, I just don'teven mention it.
Or I go, how's your podcastgoing?
Or, you know, tell me a funnystory about your podcast.
SPEAKER_05 (05:07):
No, it's not for me.
You know why?
Because this is for people whowant to excel in small business.
These are for people who want toride up the mountain, see what
success looks like, and notlanguish away in corporate
America hidden behind theircubicle.
SPEAKER_04 (05:18):
But I do like all my friends that that actually tell
the truth, say what they'rethinking.
SPE (05:23):
SPEAKER_05
one, suck it, buddy.
Uh, you stay in your littlecube, you get your little 401k,
you get your little health care.
Uh maybe you get a watch.
You know what?
You don't even get a watch.
You might not even get afive-year pin.
Uh yeah.
Take that.
So let's get on it.
Let's start racking it, man.
Let's go make it happen.
Let's go make some work happen.
Venture team.
Or not.
Because you know, it's not forme.
(05:45):
It's not for that.
It's so on brand for that dude.
That's so classic.
That's the title of this one.
Not for me.
Uh do you want to make money?
Not for me.
Hey, do you want to run your ownbusiness?
Not for me.
Do you want to take care of yourown world?
Not for me.
Do you want to make sure you gotgood books?
Not for me.
But today, we're gonna do it.
Yeah.
Let's get into it.
Daniel Hendon is here from FourCorner CFO to talk to us about
(06:08):
make sure you got good books.
If you want to get to the top, Igot a feeling you got to have
good books.
And like to take that analogy,you gotta have a good backpack.
You gotta have it with the rightstuff in it.
And if you can't take stock inwhat's in there, you probably
got some problems.
SPEAKER_03 (06:22):
If it's too heavy, you're probably not going very
far either.
SPEAKER_05 (06:25):
Oh, Sensei already.
She is good.
Wow.
Danielle, thanks for joining theshow.
So today we're gonna talk aboutwhat you do a little bit, but
let's let's just let's go rightinto this.
So, what is the stupidest thingwe'd all do as entrepreneurs
trying to scale our smallbusinesses?
SP (06:43):
SPEAKER_03
S (06:46):
SPEAKER_05
That's a little too heavy in thepack.
You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_04 (06:50):
I was hoping she was gonna say focus too much on
process rather than uh culture.
unknown (06:55):
unknown
Huh.
SPEAKER_04 (06:57):
I saw I saw you had a LinkedIn post that was kind of
like I talk a lot about that.
Because Chris and I kind of havea little differing opinion, but
of course he's wildly moresuccessful than me.
So maybe you should just be allanal, all process all the time.
Thank you.
No fun police.
What that's right.
And FP.
All right.
S (07:16):
SPEAKER_03
turnover ratio looks like.
SPEAKER_04 (07:21):
Well, it depends on who's doing the turnover.
SPEAKER_05 (07:24):
So as the world, as the trusted toolbox turns, we
are not in a question, Daniel.
I think we culture eats processfor lunch every day.
Got it.
But you gotta have goodprocesses if you want to scale.
But Danielle hit on it.
SPE (07:38):
SPEAKER_04
with good culture and badprocess than good process, bad
culture?
S (07:45):
SPEAKER_05
Daniel.
I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go inthe sound booth.
SPEAKER_03
have the most amazing people andthe most amazing culture, and
you're only gonna you're gonnahit a cap.
SPEAKER_05 (08:05):
Did you just flip me off?
No, I said bring me back in.
I don't know what she said.
I took my headphones off.
So all right.
She agreed with you.
Ah, Danielle.
SP (08:14):
SPEAKER_03
like left and right, becausethat's not good either.
SPEAKER_05 (08:19):
No, actually, come on, you know I take a lot of
pride in that.
My body count was really good.
You're like Schwartz andbusiness.
You know, it's quick though.
Uh I have to say it's terminatorquick.
Like if you come in and youdon't make because I'm again,
we're in people's houses.
If you don't fit our culture uhand you can't follow our
process, you opt out or we optyou out pretty quickly.
You're the Navy SEALs of uhremodeling.
SPEAKER_02 (08:39):
I was gonna say, are you the John Wick?
SPEAKER_ (08:42):
SPEAKER_04
Don't don't feed his ego,Daniel.
Look at the look on your face.
I know.
You know what sucks?
I just had my four years of thispodcast.
SPE (08:53):
SPEAKER_05
I am taking that to my salesmeeting.
Boys, you're gonna have to weara John Wick.
I have to wear the big wig.
Yeah, a big wig.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I'm gonna wear a dark suit, putmy sunglasses on, and go,
anybody seen John Wick?
Did you sell something lastweek?
Looks like bullet in your head.
Bye-bye.
Oh, look at you.
And I'm just gonna keep dancingaround in the floor.
SPEAKER_01 (09:13):
But what did we just say we're not doing that?
Oh, we're not shootingeverybody?
SPEAKER_05 (09:16):
No, no, you're fine.
SPEAKER_04 (09:20):
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, that's right.
Shoot again.
SPEAKER_05 (09:23):
SPEAKER_05
So Danielle.
SPEA (09:25):
SPEAKER_03
SPEAKER_05
Because uh, here's where I I'vetold people, you know, cash is
king, but you gotta have thosesales, right?
You gotta have that revenue, youwant to get to that bottom line.
Um, so when you say we're toofocused on revenue, what do you
see us doing?
SPEAKER_03 (09:40):
So you're absolutely right, cash is king.
Revenue is important, but if youare growing for the sake of
growth, more money, moreproblems.
If you're not actually growingyour profit and putting more
money back in your pocket, whatare you doing it for?
SPEAKER_05 (09:56):
You know, that's a great point.
More money, more problems.
We've talked to a number ofpeople on the podcast.
I was just talking with a guywho was on our podcast uh years
ago, um, because we've we'veremained fen friends, and I've
been asking him, as he was ableto niche his business down and
remodeling, he was actually ableto grow his profits.
So I said, as I'm going as I'mgoing through that, doing this
(10:17):
uh similar exercise at thetrusted toolbox, what I'm
worried about is that I reliedon that gross profit dollar
size, but when you really lookedat the net, the net wasn't being
fed by the right part of thebusiness.
It was the net was being fed bythe left part of the business,
as it was.
SPEAKE (10:33):
SPEAKER_04
I do.
Yeah.
I'll do it.
You know what?
I mean, there's the conventionalwisdom uh uh of if you're uh if
you're not growing, you'reshrinking.
Or if you're not growing, you'redying.
SPEAKER_03 (10:49):
So we're there is, but I also think, and I may go
against the grain here.
I think there are a lot ofbusinesses that are in this as
and they're legitimatebusinesses, and they're in it as
a lifestyle.
When you hit a certain point andyou're happy with it, you can
stay steady state and be happy.
(11:09):
You don't want to be goingbackwards.
You have to be paying attention,you have to be changing and
pivoting and maintaining thebusiness, but you don't
necessarily always have to keepgrowing revenue.
You have to keep growing yourpipeline, you have to keep
growing your connections, youhave to keep maintaining your
business and feeding it, whichto some might feel like growth.
(11:30):
But you can absolutely, we'vegot one of my favorite law firms
has been with us for gosh,almost five years now.
And she just when she first cameto me, she was like, I just
don't want to go backwards.
I want to make sure thatwhatever we do, I can maintain
what I have and I don't want togo backwards.
And she is perfectly happy doingso.
SPEAK (11:46):
SPEAKER_04
what practicing what you preachbecause you've niched super
tight into you know, CFO for lawfirms, which I'm like, I I've
never heard of such a thing.
And is that as a result of youwere a CFO for everybody and you
kind of found the sweet spot?
Talk about that.
S (12:06):
SPEAKER_03
you riches are in the niches andnobody wants to listen.
And I was one of them.
I was like, no, I can like whynot?
Professional service-basedbusiness.
And literally, I would have toldyou that this time last year.
I would have said professionalservice-based business.
But to the point you weretalking about earlier, I
realized 80% of our book was lawfirms.
(12:27):
And I could talk about the insand outs and all the different
things that come with law firmsand write those processes
efficiently with all kinds ofautomation because I know it
versus somebody coming to mewith a marketing agency.
And I'm like, I don't know whatsystems they're using, I don't
(12:49):
know what software they're in, Idon't know what the average rate
of pay is for their people.
It just completely changes yourability to find efficiencies in
your operations.
And so many law firms, so manybusinesses in general, if you
haven't looked at your numbersand you're still charging
hourly, are losing out ongetting all that sweat equity
(13:14):
you've put into those processesthrough efficiencies on flat
fees.
What I mean by that is if I knowexactly how to do a law firm and
now we can get it done in, Idon't know, three hours, that's
way underestimating.
But if we could get it done inthree hours instead of 10 when
we started, that seven hoursgain in profit is because we've
(13:35):
put in the sweat equity gettingthere.
It's not free.
SPEAKER_04 (13:40):
And my guess is it's a lot easier to sell your
services when you're focused onone thing and you've done it
over and over again.
So you've got your next prospectattorney.
How has your pitch changed inthe last 12 months?
SPEAKER (14:53):
SPEAKER_03
exactly they're going through.
I mean, we went from I'll tellyou my current pitch right now,
I realized is we've always soldcomfort and clarity because when
you don't know your numbers,you're in chaos, anxiety,
overwhelm.
But comfort and clarity are notpainful enough to make people
(15:16):
pull the trigger.
So we are actually in theprocess of building out a quiz
for law firms, but the new pitchitself is if you show me your
numbers, I can tell you exactlywhat you're leaving on the table
right now.
And then we can go work on it.
SPEAKER_04 (15:30):
That that would work with you.
That would by the way.
That's really powerful.
So I'm gonna start taking myclothes off.
SPEAKER_03 (15:36):
Sorry, Danielle, but like, wait, I don't know about
that.
I know.
Seriously I didn't know it wasthat kind of show.
SP (15:42):
SPEAKER_05
We are explicit.
We're going to a new, we'regoing to do a whole new genre.
That's right.
Yes.
All right.
We were true crime.
We were true crime.
Uh, we've been true crime acouple times.
Now I guess we're going to gointo the sex industry.
Okay.
Um, and this is not good sexy bythe career.
Now, really kind of niche.
All right.
That's one word.
(16:03):
I'll think of it a couple ofwords.
SPEAKER_03 (16:05):
Way to bring it full circle.
SPEAKER_05 (16:07):
All right, let's go back.
So you said you you changed yourpitch.
Uh uh, you changed uh that asyou made that switch to the
niches.
Again, I've heard the samething, Danielle.
Yeah when I first started 17years ago, I would do anything
to anybody at any time.
I really would.
And you you have to learn whereyour specialty is.
So you've learned it, but it'sstill hard to go, okay, I'm
(16:28):
gonna turn away that marketingagency on number one, and I'm
gonna turn away thatprofessional service firm on
number two.
How did you gain that disciplineto move to it?
SPEAKE (16:38):
SPEAKER_03
And everybody I've talked tothat says the riches are in the
niches doesn't necessarily turnaway the other stuff.
SPEAKER (16:47):
SPEAKER_04
I saw in your LinkedIn posts, Imean, if somebody comes to you
and they want to do businesswith you, I can't help myself.
SPEAKE (16:55):
SPEAKER_03
like, all right, let's go.
SPEAKER_04 (16:59):
But you're just not focusing on them as far as your
target market, your avatar.
SPEAKER_03 (17:03):
SPEAKER_03
I'm not focusing on them.
And I'm also not we're veryfocused on the law firm space in
the sense of who we network andspend time with from a referral
relationship and in ourmarketing efforts.
It streamlines the marketing,but it doesn't mean if I mean,
I'll tell you, one of ourclients that's still on my books
(17:25):
is uh a group of guys out ofCalifornia that sell merchandise
or they make the merchandise forbands that go on tour all over
the U.S.
Ex-Music Major in me is like,how do I say no?
SPEAKER_05 (17:37):
No, you can't say no to that.
So you you hit on the exactfallacy that I I love telling
everybody.
A lot of people give you thatlip service that niches bring
the riches, but in practice, ifyou got in their books and saw
what they were really doing,they didn't all the way niche
down.
SPEAKER_03 (17:51):
But I will tell you there are riches in the niches
from an efficiency perspective.
So, I mean, take your business,for example.
If you niched down to a specifictype of that construction area
that you love to do, and I ithas to be what you love.
I always tell people, my purplehair is my litmus test because
attorneys are two types, and ifthey get on the call and they
can handle the purple hair, wecan do business.
(18:12):
If they can't, then I gotreferral partners.
SPEAKER_05 (18:15):
But that might be a little difficult.
Call us purple in your head, myfriend.
You should go for the purplepurple tips.
You should go for the purplestash.
Maybe a purple purple purp thepurple van dyke, as it were.
SP (18:30):
SPEAKER_03
you were focusing in onespecific thing, those processes
are gonna kick butt and you'regonna be really freaking fast.
SPEAKER_04 (18:42):
This is this is the first time in four years,
though, that we've actually kindof uncovered this little secret,
which I think is great becausewe do talk about niches a lot.
And the fact is your niche isyour focus, but if you've got
low-hanging fruit coming to you,you don't turn it down.
SPEAKER_03 (18:59):
You don't as long as you've got space.
SPEAKER_04 (19:02):
SPEAKER_04
S (19:02):
SPEAKER_05
handle it, because I thinkyou're right.
Because once you have your modeldown and you know your own uh
efficiencies, is that when youstep out, it's not as efficient.
That means you've got to do alittle bit extra work, and
sometimes that's where we loseour profit margin, is when we
have to do a little extra work,kind of kicking out there and
getting around it.
SPEAKER_04
(19:24):
where you're from, or are you weare nationwide.
SP (19:28):
SPEAKER_03
We love Canada.
SPEAKER_04 (19:33):
She was a mixed and a duh.
SP (19:36):
SPEAKER_03
SPEAK (19:40):
SPEAKER_04
throat.
SPEAKER_ (19:44):
SPEAKER_05
S (19:45):
SPEAKER_03
we're we're pausing for themoment.
SPEAKER_0 (19:51):
SPEAKER_05
All right.
So let's go back to the uhlawyers and how you handle them.
So you say you can look at thesebooks.
So in our world, uh uh well, anyworld, right?
You have uh revenue and you havecost of goods sold, leaves you
with your gross profit, and thenyou have the overhead and
expenses.
Tell us what do you see are uhhow do people organize their
(20:13):
books to be able to see some ofthese trends and the some of the
things you do to help them?
SPEAKE (20:18):
SPEAKER_03
what I will call theservice-based business, meaning
your people make you money, yourpeople need to be in your cost
of goods sold.
And if they're not, you arelosing a huge part of the story.
And it's a big part of how wecalculate exactly how much
money's left on the table.
SPEAKER_04 (20:39):
Unpack that a little bit more.
Yeah, get it.
S (20:42):
SPEAKER_03
you do a lot of flat fee work asmost people with people do,
because that's where theefficiencies are, those people,
those five people, should beworking whatever their hours
are.
I'm gonna assume 30 to 40,though I will be honest, most of
my team is part-time and I loveit.
But let's assume they work 30hours a week that they are doing
(21:05):
client-related work, notdriving, not what I they're on
client-related work.
And on average, if you weregoing to bill them out hourly,
it should be$200 an hour.
You take those five people timesthat 30 hours a week and that
$200 an hour.
And if your revenue's not comingin there, you're missing
something.
SPEAKER_05 (21:26):
SPEAKER_05
You can't cover the other, yeah,you can't, you don't have the
right utilization.
So you also help develop metricsfor them to to kind of get their
own scorecards put together.
She's shaking her head.
This is a podcast.
Yes.
SP (21:37):
SPEAKER_03
I don't want to interrupt youall the time.
SPEAKER_05 (21:41):
No, I uh I go on the radio quite a bit, and our radio
guest host always does that.
This is radio, we can't see you.
SPEAKER_03 (21:50):
I am I am definitely a fan of ratios and utilization,
and operations means just asmuch as the numbers.
And for our law firms,especially, we usually try to
get access to those operationspractice management tools
because they help us tell thestory of your numbers.
And my goal is to always makethe numbers a story that makes
sense to the business owners.
(22:11):
And if it doesn't make sense toyou, and we're talking
accounting terminology or overyour head, you can't use it.
If it's not useful, it doesn'tmake a difference.
SP (22:20):
SPEAKER_05
guys, law firms have uh similarsoftware packages?
Or does you recogni you ohreally?
So what's the name of the onethat you see the most?
Cleo.
Cleo, got it.
Yep.
I had an aunt Cleo once.
That's all I got.
SPEAKER_04 (22:37):
That's all I could say.
Was she a good cook?
SP (22:39):
SPEAKER_05
SPE (22:40):
SPEAKER_03
SP (22:42):
SPEAKER_05
Yeah, a lot of a lot of my a lotof my I I I was in the kitchen
with them all.
So yes, they were all great.
What a gift you got growing up.
Cleo.
Yep.
That's amazing.
She was cool.
Yep, she let me in now.
She let me in the kitchen allthe time.
All right, so that back to Cleo,the financial system and look.
SPEA (22:58):
SPEAKER_04
Danielle.
What?
Huh?
What?
Where?
Okay.
S (23:03):
SPEAKER_03
SPEAK (23:04):
SPEAKER_04
So do you do you uh whatservices do you provide?
Are you are you doing fractionalCFO or you know?
SPE (23:12):
SPEAKER_03
That means different people,different things to different
people.
SPEAKER_04
So what does that mean to you?
What are the different things?
SPEAKER_03 (23:21):
I'm curious what it means to you.
S (23:23):
SPEAKER_04
SPEAKER_03 (23:25):
Well, I'll explain all the other pieces, but I want
to know what it means to younow.
SPEAKER_04 (23:29):
So there's there's a company that gets to a certain
size where they need more thanbookkeeping, they need a CFO,
and yet they don't think theycan afford one, so they can get
a fractional one, so they get apart-time CFO who then
ultimately pays for themselvesbecause they're so freaking
smart, and they then all of asudden they become the full-time
CFO.
SPEAKER_05 (23:46):
That's that's how I view it.
That's a good start.
Okay, Danielle, continue.
Thanks for the condescension.
SPEAKER_04 (23:52):
So you know, I'm not afraid to throw it out there.
SPEAKER (23:55):
SPEAKER_05
You know.
SPEAKER_03 (23:57):
Hey, you you hit the the cliff notes.
See, you got the cliff notes outof it.
A little deeper down.
Oh a little deeper down, you'regonna have you're gonna have
your startup CFOs, your funding,your private equity, the the
people that are gonna help youtalk to a bank, whether it's a
startup situation or a cashcrunch.
(24:18):
There are CFOs that are verywell versed in how to get you
more money.
And we are not one of those.
Then you have the CFOs that willcome in and I'll be honest,
they're gonna be like, oh, Ineed to look at your books and
let's figure out what theproblems are.
And they're gonna be veryproject-oriented in how to quote
unquote fix your business.
(24:41):
That's not what we are either.
We fall in a group of CFOs thatdo controller and operational
style CFO work.
So it's taking that next stepfrom your bookkeeping and
building out a budget,understanding your revenue
streams, understanding yourexpenses, focusing on the budget
(25:02):
to actuals because that's wherethe story starts to happen.
And that's where you can makecurrent changes in your business
that aren't hidden away inratios that then need further
explanation.
We can do those budget toactuals, then we take that and
we turn it into a cash flowforecast that looks like your
budget.
So it actually makes sense toyou, but it includes all the
(25:23):
timing and the loans and theprofit distributions and the
savings for taxes, becauseplease, by the love of God, save
for your taxes and don't leaveit until April.
S (25:33):
SPEAKER_05
Well, I don't want to tell onmyself, but uh April is just an
extension day for Chris.
SPEAKER_03 (25:41):
For very, for very many people it is.
S (25:43):
SPEAKER_05
Give me three days instruction.
Give me three more days, UncleSam.
SPEAKER_03 (25:50):
That's that's never what he doesn't listen very
well.
SPEAKER_05 (25:53):
Not a good listener, not a good listener, Uncle Sam.
Thank you.
Um, you know, I love door numberthree that you talked about, and
uh I I like the way youexplained it because um wasn't
it a great setup question?
It was a great setup question,and it was great.
Your high-level just hey, fillin the buckets about what you
should be asking.
So that's gonna be the nextquestion.
When somebody looks, becauseI've had I actually part of a
(26:15):
mastermind CEO group, a lot ofthese guys know this, and you'll
hear that.
Hey, I'm looking for abookkeeper, I'm looking for a
fractional CFO, but they don'tnobody really know what they're
asking for.
So, what questions should we beasking you, or what should we
ask people before we ask forpeople to help?
SPEAKER_03 (26:31):
If you want to look at the future, you want to talk
to a CFO.
If you want to look at the past,you're gonna be talking about if
you want to organize your booksand look into the past, that's
usually gonna be a tax personand a bookkeeper.
Really good tax people are gonnaget into strategy and look into
the future with you, but they'renot gonna get into business
strategy, they're gonna get intotax strategy.
(26:53):
I will say one of the bestpieces of advice I got when I
started my business, becauselike everybody, I put like
everything in the kitchen sinkwe could do up there and had a
business coach tell me theydon't know what they want, you
need to tell them what theyneed.
So I no longer wait for peopleto be like, this is what I need,
because they know exactly whatyou need, and we use our
(27:13):
six-part framework.
I don't care who you are, whatyou do, how you do it, it fits.
SPEAKER_04 (27:19):
SPEAKER_04
She's like accounting Yoda forlawyers.
I know.
Okay, but we take other people.
You missed that part.
You do wish you were a lawyer.
You're kind of jealous.
I can't.
Hey, can you talk a little bitabout budgeting?
I've been through so many budgetprocesses, and it's just it just
feels like a wild ass guess.
I mean, you're just, you know,okay.
SP (27:37):
SPEAKER_03
SPE (27:39):
SPEAKER_04
We're gonna go for 15%, youknow, and then you backfill it
and blah, blah, blah, and you,you know, committee it, and then
and then somebody just decideswhat it's gonna be.
And hey, there's your budget,you gotta hit it.
SP (27:52):
SPEAKER_03
That is the easy way out ofbudgeting, I will be honest.
And my team probably hates methat we don't take the easy way
out sometimes, but a lot of asyou grow and scale, a lot of
budgets will start to becomevery trend based.
It's how much are we doing on aregular monthly basis?
And let's grow by 10%.
(28:14):
You lose the story in that withour clients, and I'll be honest,
we're working with anything fromhalf a million to 15 million.
We do what I call bottom-upbudgeting.
We don't budget by account, webudget by activity within that
account so that then I can lookat your books and compare
exactly between your budget andyour actual actuals and know
(28:36):
what the difference is and why.
And then we get to start to tellthe story.
Because the goal of a budgetisn't to hit the budget.
And when you start doing thesetrends and these 10%, it becomes
this.
I just need to hit the budget.
And that's why people backfilland move things around.
The goal of a budget isn't tohit the budget, it's to
understand why you don't hit thebudget.
So you can either repeat thegood things or fix the not so
(29:00):
good things.
When you don't hit your budget,you get to either make a change
to your budget, which meanswe're changing our expectations,
or you get to make a change inyour business and get back on
budget.
SPEAKER_05 (29:12):
All right, back to budgeting.
Neverly.
I don't want to go back to myown.
SPEAKER_04 (29:16):
No, no, I because I it's so frustrating to me
because that you sit there andyou go through all the
gyrations, and ultimately the CFthe CEO just kind of knows what
number they got to report to theinvestors or whatever.
Yeah.
So let's just frickin' give methat number, and then we gotta
figure out how to get there.
But you've you've got we gobackwards.
(29:36):
A more granular way that Ihonestly have never been a part
of.
So I would kind of hope that youcan unpack it for our listeners
who are thinking about how do Iplan for next year?
SPEAKER_03 (29:47):
SPEAKER_03
So we talked about revenue froma capacity basis.
That is quite literally how webudget.
If we're not hitting capacity, Iwant to know it right away and
we're gonna talk about it.
So we budget by your people forrevenue.
SPEAKER_06 (30:00):
SPEAKER_06
S (30:01):
SPEAKER_03
of those.
And before we even budget, whenwe're going through our
onboarding process, we putthings in one of three
categories.
You have what I like to callyour required costs.
I don't know a business thatruns without cell phone and
internet at a minimum.
Like you gotta have something.
Then you have what I like tocall the personal perks, the
(30:24):
things your tax CPA or EA hasrecommended you run through the
business.
My favorite example, my kids areon payroll.
They don't add an ounce of valueto the business, but they do add
value to my tax deductions.
So they're there and it'sdefensible.
SP (30:41):
SPEAKER_04
SPEAKER_03 (30:44):
But then everything else, and it's not required.
S (30:47):
SPEAKER_05
in son and daughter and wife.
Uh yes contracting.
SPE (30:53):
SPEAKER_03
sidetracking, but the fun partabout kids is they don't have to
file taxes if you.
Stay under a certain amount.
SPEAKER_05 (31:01):
SPEAKER_05
SPEAKER_04 (31:02):
Except for it should be uh daughter and wife and
lollamy and son.
And lolami and son.
Probably the name of yourentity.
Right.
SPEAKER_05 (31:13):
SPEAKER_05
So no, they're all they're allpart of the holding company.
So let's get back to it.
So kids.
SP (31:17):
SPEAKER_03
SPEAKER_05 (31:18):
Run the kids through the business.
Yes.
Run them like a wash.
SPEAKE (31:21):
SPEAKER_03
Under eighteen.
SPEAKER_05 (31:23):
SPEAKER_05
SPEAKE (31:24):
SPEAKER_03
That's the little problem.
They gotta report a little bitmore of it when it's not.
But if you do have kids that areunder 18, it's quite literally
tax-free.
SPEAKER_ (31:34):
SPEAKER_05
And yes, I did it.
There's a nugget.
It is.
It is a great nugget, guys.
Are you drinking bourbon too,Daniel?
She is.
SPEAKER_0 (31:42):
SPEAKER_03
I wish I was, but I have to godrive and pick up kids in a
little bit.
SPEAKER_05 (31:47):
SPEAKER_05
Oh, so do we have kids under 18?
I do.
SPEAKER_03 (31:50):
So mine are both on my on my business.
SPEA (31:52):
SPEAKER_05
Come on.
When you pick them up, come on,my little minion tax deductions.
Get the car.
I have been never so happy tosee you.
I just got up a podcast.
You know what?
How much saving me now?
You know, you guys keep costing,costing.
SPE (32:07):
SPEAKER_04
It's this much.
It's this much.
SPEAKER_03 (32:10):
Oh, they cost more than they save, I promise.
S (32:14):
SPEAKER_05
Uh, that's Alan, and me who havegot two, and I can't seem to get
two of them off the uh payroll.
SP (32:20):
SPEAKER_03
fast.
SPEAKER_05 (32:23):
Man, that's a that's a loud sport.
That you know what?
And it's time consuming.
Yeah.
Oh my god.
Hey, we're going to the swimmeet.
Where are we going?
Oh, we're going to the swimmingpool.
Two hours away.
It's so yeah.
And you go there, you're like,hey, this ain't no swimming
pool.
Where's the palm trees?
Oh, no, no, no.
We're in an auditorium.
I do blah blah.
Yeah, I'm like, okay, for howlong?
Um, well, I'm not sure.
(32:43):
Eight hours.
I'm in heat one, six.
Yeah.
I'm in 29 and 512.
You're like, do what?
Your kid has like three minutesof swimming in eight hours.
SPEAKER_04 (32:54):
SPEAKER_04
SPEAKER_05 (32:55):
Yeah, they uh they grew up.
SPEAKER_03 (32:56):
And they might even miss it.
unknown (32:58):
unknown
SPE (32:59):
SPEAKER_03
SPEAKER_05 (33:02):
Yeah, because you're up there in the stands, go,
where are they?
Where's that?
You know, I'm kind of glad mykids don't swim.
Well, I mine did and thenstopped.
Uh, thank God.
Uh and then but we got intotennis and yeah, that same
thing.
At least they they played alittle bit more, but you're
still there all day.
All right.
Well, God bless you for doingthat.
And don't let them forget, uhit's just a little bit
(33:23):
different.
Um, but you cost me a lot ofmoney.
All right.
SPEAKER_03 (33:26):
So let's talk about it.
Okay, so we got personal perks.
Yep.
We've got our required.
Everything else that is in yourexpense side of your PL is an
investment in your business.
And we go line by line to theextent we can.
I'm not looking up every singlerestaurant, but line by line,
and we say, Hey, what is thisgiving you in time, money, or
(33:46):
both?
And if it's not, why are wespending it?
SPE (33:51):
SPEAKER_05
Oh, yeah.
So you work with the ones thatdo a lot of advertising, yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (33:57):
Some of them, yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (33:58):
SPEAKER_05
SP (33:59):
SPEAKER_03
immediate time money.
Then it becomes, I want to knowwho's how are you managing it?
What are the metrics?
How do we know it's working?
SPE (34:07):
SPEAKER_05
the world of with the AI comingin.
Um, you know, I just had a greatanalogy.
I'm gonna share this toeverybody.
AI good because you set it up.
You just said it was great.
It is.
It wasn't mine, it's not mine.
It's not mine.
It's somebody else's.
Watch this.
Better be great.
AI is not new.
We've had disruptors before whenit comes to working with people
(34:28):
in business and advertising.
Go back, television, when itfirst came out, there were three
stations.
They had 70 million viewers, not70%, not that 70 million viewers
that were captive watching justthree channels.
So you had advertising there.
And uh then the uh so we talkedabout how this is not a new
thing, it's just something youhave to get used to, and you
(34:50):
have to understand TV wasn'tgoing away, and neither is this.
All right, so I thought that wasa great nugget.
I think that was an amazing lookon your face.
I'm gonna put that out.
I'm gonna put that in the shownotes.
SPEA (35:01):
SPEAKER_04
uh AI, and I actually went evenfurther back to a disruptor,
which was back in the old days,artists were portraiture.
It's like they did landscapes,they did you know people's
faces, and then and thenphotography came along.
Yeah.
So then there's no need forportraiture.
(35:23):
And that's what sprung Cubismand all the different kinds of
art that were what we callmodern art, because there was no
point in making realisticrenditions of the image that you
were looking at.
SPEAKER_05
I'm gonna give you that one.
That is good, but still TV'sbetter.
All right.
Uh not for me.
Not for me.
All right, all right.
Back to Danielle.
What else?
(35:44):
Big bird.
SPEAKER_03 (35:45):
Okay, so we talked about how to budget for your
revenue, how to calculate it.
Now you take those expenses andyou want to figure out how often
they hit.
The ones that you don't get ridof, you're gonna figure out how
often they hit.
And the purpose of a bottom-upbudget, unless you have a tool
you're gonna want to do this inExcel, is you need to go through
and figure out what is that cellphone monthly?
What it like, what are out ofall those expenses that we've
(36:06):
decided we're keeping, when dothey hit?
How often do they hit?
How much do they hit?
And which account do they rollup to?
SPEAKER_05 (36:13):
How often are they like half off?
Like when they but when theywhen you start saying, let's
look at your expenses, you'relike, uh, my cell phone's like a
hundred bucks a month.
Okay, let's go look.
Um, actually, you pay for allfour, so that's four hundred
dollars a month.
Oh, yeah, right.
Okay, write that down.
Um, my internet, um, I think I'mon the uh lowest plan.
Let's just put 80.
SPEAKER_03 (36:30):
Um anything you put on your credit card, I guarantee
you're half off.
SPEAKE (36:36):
SPEAKER_04
It just runs and goes.
Is if you were working withChris, you would be going
through the the Braves tickets,the Falcons tickets, the trips
to Vegas, uh Kiwa.
SPEAKER_03 (36:48):
Some of that might hit personal perks versus uh
investments, but you know.
SP (36:53):
SPEAKER_04
business.
Was it worth it?
What's the ROI on it?
S (36:59):
SPEAKER_05
business.
His lifestyle was just very,very large.
And I have a lifestyle businesstoo.
I just I don't have to hear youequate yourself to Bill Gates.
Well, you know, actually justhit me because everybody says,
Chris, you have a lifestylebusiness.
I'm like, I do not.
I mean, I got a process-basedbusiness that's working in two
different cities.
(37:19):
I'm like, don't give me thiscrap that I'm gonna lay.
SPEAKER_03 (37:21):
But it supports your lifestyle, and I wish people
would quit thinking lifestylebusiness was a bad thing.
SPEAKER_05 (37:25):
It well, uh you're right, I was, and that's why I'm
going, you know what?
She is so on your side today.
I'm so digging this too.
You know what?
You know what she's thinkingright now, Alan?
Not for me.
Okay.
I love that.
That's good.
All right, let's go back toDaniel.
She's trying to give us morenuggets and we're running out of
time.
So yeah.
(37:46):
So you get engaged, you keepmoving, you're right, you're
running through this, do yougive them the budget, they start
rolling.
How long do these guys stay withyou?
Is one of the biggest questionsI've got.
So I get I on board with you asa law firm.
How long will they usually stay?
SPEAKER_0 (37:57):
SPEAKER_03
So it takes us about six monthsto go through that process.
I know.
SPEAKER_04 (38:02):
But it becomes you were trying to see if her
turnover was as bad as yours.
Oh, I knew it wasn't.
I mean, I knew it was a layup.
SPEAKER_03 (38:10):
I'm not gonna lie, I I just told you we we lost the
client in Canada.
Exchange rates got too high.
But most likely it's it'susually it's indefinitely.
It's um it becomes a little bitof a therapy session sometimes.
I open most of our clientmeetings with uh what's giving
you heartburn right now, becausehalf of our clients don't even
look at their reports.
They just know that we've lookedat their reports, and then we're
(38:32):
gonna talk through whatever'sgiving them heartburn and figure
out the answers.
Guilty.
SPEAKER_05 (38:37):
No, but once I got my books back straight, and I do
I now I don't I don't have afractional CFO.
I have the bookkeeper looking inthe past.
We close up our books.
Um, but you're right.
I actually the meeting has gone.
I mean, we're done in 25 minuteswith that part.
SPEAKER_04 (38:51):
Well, and that's the sign of the fact that you
completely trust that person andyou've got a good person in
place.
Now you still have to check onthem to make sure that
Danielle's not embezzling orwhatever.
She, I mean, she's got a swimteam to support.
I know.
SPEAKER_ (39:04):
SPEAKER_05
S (39:06):
SPEAKER_03
But that is also why theex-auditor and me will never do
bookkeeping or taxes.
I think you need multiplies onyour books every every month.
SP (39:14):
SPEAKER_05
Expand on that one real quick.
SPEAKER_03 (39:16):
So, segregation of duties is what we technically
call it.
It means you want more than oneset of people looking at
everything.
You want more than one set ofpeople touching everything.
The bookkeeper's job is tocategorize it.
I can't tell you how many timeswe come in and one of our first
recommendations is to changebookkeepers.
Wow.
SPEAKER_05 (39:36):
SPEAKER_05
I could say, well, actually,having been through a nightmare
of uh having the wrongbookkeeper, I I completely
understand.
Um I think right now I'm in thegroove where I am debating uh
the whole fractional CFO, whichis why part of the reason uh
we're on.
So Danielle could have a littletherapy session with Chris.
SPEAKER_04 (39:52):
By the way, Daniel, the purpose of this podcast.
SPEAKER_03 (39:55):
Hey, we take other, you missed that part.
SPEAKER_04 (39:57):
Is for Chris to get free advice.
That's right.
SPE (40:00):
SPEAKER_05
SPEAKER_04 (40:01):
So let's get access to incredible people.
Let's go super granular becauseyou think about who our
listeners are.
Yeah.
And there's somebody drivingdown the road going, Well, how
do I know if I have a goodbookkeeper?
SPEAKER_05 (40:12):
Oh, that's a great question.
Oh, that is great.
SPEAKER_03 (40:15):
I'll tell you how I know when you have a book, a
good bookkeeper or not.
Well, two ways.
Because I'll also tell you wehave a client that we onboarded
recently, and as soon as theyfound out we were involved,
because one of the first thingswe ask is for an intro to your
bookkeeper, they started sendingall these corrections over and
things that needed to be, andthat was like, ha ha, they know
someone else is looking.
(40:36):
Gotcha.
So that's one way.
You could fake it and say youhired a CFO and see if you start
getting a bunch of emails.
The other way, though, is if youare willing to get into your own
QuickBooks or Zero or whateveraccounting platform you're on,
you want to look at your balancesheet.
And inside your balance sheet,you should have something called
(40:57):
reconciliations.
And they should be getting doneevery single month and not just
done, but inside, and I'm gonnatalk bank reconciliations and
date myself a little bit here.
A bank reconciliation is kind oflike tying out your checkbook
back in the day.
So when you open that bankreconciliation, the goal isn't
that your books and your bankhave the same number because
(41:17):
they shouldn't actually, most ofthe time.
There's gonna be timingdifferences, there's gonna be a
check that got written andhasn't been cashed yet.
There's gonna be things inthere.
Those reconciling items, thoseuncleared items, should all be
fairly recent.
If you've got stuff back to2020, your bookkeeper hasn't
been keeping clean books.
SP (41:38):
SPEAKER_05
granular question.
You want to know, and most of usare probably on QuickBooks,
let's face it, becauseQuickBooks is kind of like kind
of like Google.
Everybody seems to have that oneif you're ubiquitous.
Yeah.
So just go, and all you have todo is go to reports,
reconciliation, and see when itwas last done and how far back
(41:59):
some of those outstanding itemsare.
And when you see six monthsworth of unreconciled items,
yeah, you got a problem.
Oh yeah.
Is that what happened?
Yeah, that's what happened.
Yeah, I had no idea.
That's a great question.
Uh, and that's a great answer.
SPEAKER_04 (42:13):
And that is I just got three great questions out of
that one.
SPEAKER_05 (42:16):
Uh so yeah, not for me.
Three three zero.
I I would say uh still youropening line, but not for me.
That's your that's your 100%.
Oh, just because I know thisguy.
I mean, we can go to the tape.
SPEAKER_03 (42:28):
I'm gonna be kind of offended if that ends up being
the title of this.
I'm just saying.
SPEAKER (42:31):
SPEAKER_05
No, there's no way.
No, no, let's let's.
Well, how about this?
Hey, you want a bad CFO?
Not for me.
Listen to this episode.
Way to spin it.
I'll give you almost the back.
SPEAKER_04 (42:40):
But yeah, we can go to the tape.
You said great question likethree times.
SPEAKER_05 (42:44):
SPEAKER_05
All right, Danielle, how caneverybody get a hold of you?
Because you have to.
And if you aren't a lawyer,she'll still talk to you.
And I think it's worth theconversation.
And if you know somebody's alawyer, you better send them.
And how about this?
If you're using that lawyer,definitely send her to Danielle.
Oh god, that's a good idea.
S (43:01):
SPEAKER_03
SPEAKER_05 (43:02):
SPEAKER_05
So you're using a lawyer, sendit to them.
Send, send, send, send thelawyer.
Hey, look, man, I want to makesure you're charging me right.
I don't want you to beovercharged me, and I want to
make sure your books are good.
You need to talk to this chick.
So talk to Danielle with thepurple hair and get ready for it
because she's gonna bring theheat.
All right, Danielle, how can weget a hold of you?
SPEAKER_03 (43:20):
Website's the best way.
The number four, not the word,fourcornerscfo.com.
And then you can find me onLinkedIn under my name.
And we are going to have a pageset up just for you guys that I
need to double check what it is.
SPEAK (43:35):
SPEAKER_04
Say the website again.
SPEAKER_03 (43:38):
So my website is the number fourcorners CFO.com.
You'll find all kinds ofinformation there.
But just for this podcast andfor you guys to drop into the
show notes, we are gonna havefourcornerscfo.com slash small
business safari.
That'll have some freebies,that'll have some ways to get in
touch, all the fun things.
(44:00):
And I am going to tell her toput not for me somewhere in
really big letters.
SPEAKER_0 (44:05):
SPEAKER_05
Hey, you went and get a hey, uh,do you want to make money not
for me?
Don't call me.
Huh?
You want to make money?
You call me.
That's it.
SPEAKER_03 (44:13):
I love if money is not for you, don't worry about
it.
SPEAKER (44:16):
SPEAKER_05
Not for me.
I love that.
We're gonna spin that.
We're gonna spin that on thetitle.
I think that actually gets moretruth.
Because let's face it.
I mean, I mean, uh we just madethis a very sexy topic.
I mean, we actually got we gotwe went to the colour.
You know what?
SPEAKER_04 (44:29):
I didn't even have to take my clothes off today.
Thank God.
I know I know I quite I turnedthe fan on at night.
That's why I walked away.
It's quite cool now.
SPEAKER_ (44:35):
SPEAKER_05
All right, I'll get you back inthe meat locker.
All right, can we get to thefinal four questions?
Let's get there.
We've got to get there.
Danielle, what is a book you'drecommend to the adventure team,
our small business safarilisteners?
SPEAKER_03 (44:48):
If you are not ready to look into a CFO, but you do
feel like there's somethinggoing on in the numbers and you
want to be more profit-oriented.
I'm a huge fan of Profit Firstby Mike McAllowitz.
Uh, really, really, really goodbook just to get you mentally
oriented and looking at yourbank account and setting things
up in a way that puts you firstbecause so many business owners
(45:09):
put everybody and everythingelse first.
SPE (45:11):
SPEAKER_04
recommended a book we've had infour years.
SPEAKER_05
Uh, and have read the book uhand haven't adopted one thing of
it.
SPEAK (45:21):
SPEAKER_03
SP (45:23):
SPEAKER_05
guys, two companies that haveactually um have implemented the
profit first.
There's a lot of checkingaccounts you gotta reconcile.
And my bookkeeper does charge meby account, so I said, Well,
we're just gonna do all in one.
S (45:35):
SPEAKER_03
because we just take all of thatand we do it in a cash flow
forecast instead.
SPE (45:41):
SPEAKER_04
Don't worry.
Chris, you always think you'resmarter than everybody, but once
in a while I do get you gottagive it to them.
I do.
SPEAKER_05 (45:50):
I I actually put on my head.
I think I got concussed.
Um, because we're full ofthere's no doubt you got
concussed.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, there's no doubt.
I mean, it's so funny back inthe day.
I was like, stars, brightlights, handshaking.
That was just next play.
All right, let's keep going.
All right, next question.
Whoa boy.
And speaking of concussion, Ijust lost my next question.
(46:12):
But I have what's the favoritefeature of your home?
SP (46:17):
SPEAKER_03
from the whole other side of thehouse.
My kids have theirs set, likeall the rooms and everything
else are over there, and myoffice gets to stay nice and
quiet.
SPEAKER_ (46:30):
SPEAKER_05
I think actually we I think wehaven't done the heat map on uh
the questions of the of the uhfavorite home.
I would say for a lot of peopleit's been their office.
Isn't that wild?
I think so.
Yeah.
I mean, some some of them havethe view.
SPEAKER_04 (46:45):
Yeah, a lot of time there, you may as well make it
awesome, right?
Yeah, I love that.
How close are you to the uhgolf?
SPEAKER_03 (46:53):
Oh, I could probably ride a bike.
SPEAKER_05 (46:57):
That's pretty sweet.
All right, so proximity is alsobig.
All right.
One of the things we haven'ttalked a lot about, but because
you gotta have good books, butAl and I are kind of customer
service freaks.
We're kind of crazy about it.
What's a customer service petpeeve of yours when you are the
customer and you're out thereand looking for service?
SPEAKER_03 (47:15):
So I'm gonna spin it a little bit in a way that fits
with what I do in business.
My pet peeve is when people arecompletely inauthentic.
The I the millions of LinkedInsand everything else that people
get that are just not authentic.
(47:37):
Like there people reach out andthey're like, Hey, can you do my
taxes?
And I'm like, I don't do I don'thelp people with taxes.
I don't need to I don't needhelp helping people with taxes.
It's not even my business.
SPEAKER_05 (47:48):
No, I was thinking the other way around on
LinkedIn.
I was thinking douchefactor onLinkedIn.
Hey, I can take your website tothe next level.
I don't know who you are.
And have you looked at mywebsite?
No, clearly not.
Hey, um, you you want yourpodcast to get more listeners?
Um, have you found out how manylisteners we have?
I mean, so um you all do.
Well, but people will intro itpeople I've had on it.
SPEAKER_03 (48:09):
They will intro it in a way that they're like they
might be a customer.
They're like, hey, can you do mytaxes?
I help other people do blah blahblah blah.
Other tax firms do.
I'm like, no, I don't even touchtaxes, but you didn't look.
SPEAKER_05 (48:20):
Oh, so in Houston, do you see bless my uh bless
your heart?
Can you see it on there or no?
SPEAKER_03 (48:25):
We do say bless your heart.
SPEAK (48:27):
SPEAKER_05
Yeah, that's Southeast.
Oh, Bless Your Heart for thatstupid LinkedIn message you just
sent me.
You have to, I have to agree tothat's becoming really noisy.
All right.
So, you ready?
S (48:38):
SPEAKER_04
She was she was not thinkingcorrectly.
This is I was not.
No, I mean everything else shesaid has been flawless.
SPEAKER_05 (48:47):
I don't want to hear about those contractors screwing
up because I'm only just give methree more days contracting.
SP (48:52):
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (48:56):
Oh, and I'm gonna go finance on this one.
So I'm like a total Excel nerd.
My personal budget sits in Exceland I keep up with it fairly
frequently.
But um when you get a formulawrong, it can make things really
bad.
And I had a formula wrong andcompletely like I think we were
(49:19):
three or four grand off on likemy tax calculation for like
where because I also keep upwith what do we think taxes are
gonna be with the business.
And I was like, now we gotta gofind four grand for that
payment.
SPEAKER_05 (49:32):
I didn't know, but we and we bleeped it.
No, that's awesome.
You know what?
That is a great TI line.
Oh great answer.
Because I have I have that sameproblem.
You're like, Can you imagine howbad she would feel?
I know that you mean you mean itdoesn't matter.
SP (49:47):
SPEAKER_03
I'm the worst at my books andtaxes.
SPEAKER_05 (49:50):
Oh great confession.
Daniel has the best.
Daniel Handon has done it, she'skept it authentic, she's kept it
real.
She is the one that you need totalk about when it talks about
fractional CFO.
If you didn't learn somethingtoday, man, that's on you guys.
You just got another greatlesson on how we can all run our
businesses better.
Keep it up, keep watching.
Hey, if you didn't stay on thisuh this that long, this long,
(50:12):
this long, whatever.
What are you talking to them ifthey weren't there?
Hey, if you're not here, get on.
If you're still here, what areyou doing here?
No, go out there and make money,make it happen.
YouTube, go out there and checkus out because these things are
online.
You can see the mess that is,the plastic behind me.
But once again, this podcast, ifyou didn't get something out of
you, maybe it ain't for you.
No, no, yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (50:32):
SPEAKER_04
SPEAKER (50:33):
SPEAKER_05
Not for me.
Let's go.
It is for you.
SPEAKER_04 (50:36):
Dumbass that I get anything out of this one.
Because this was awesome.
Yeah, you just she brought theheat.
So many gold nuggets.
Right.
Epic.
SPEAKER_05 (50:43):
SPEAKER_05
Hey, Alan, yeah.
Let's go swimming.
We got to get out of here.
Danielle ended.
Thank you so much.
Enjoyed it.
Cheers, everybody.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of the Small Business
Safari.
Remember, your positive attitudewill help you achieve that
higher altitude you're lookingfor in the wild world of small
business ownership.
And until next time, make it agreat day.
I think we culture eats process for lunch every
day.
Got it.
But you gotta have goodprocesses if you want to scale.
But Danielle hit on it.
SPE (00:07):
SPEAKER_04
with good culture and badprocess than good process, bad
culture?
I'll let Danielle answer and seeif she's right, Danielle.
S (00:17):
SPEAKER_05
the sound booth.
SPEAKER_03
have the most amazing people andthe most amazing culture, and
you're only gonna you're gonnahit a cap.
SPEAKER_05 (00:33):
Did you just flip me off?
No, I said bring me back in.
I don't know what she said.
I took my headphones off.
So all right.
She agreed with you.
Ah, Danielle.
SP (00:41):
SPEAKER_03
like left and right, becausethat's not good either.
SPEAKER_05 (00:46):
No, actually, come on, you know I take a lot of
pride in that.
My body counts for it.
You're like Schwartz andbusiness.
You know, it's quick though.
Uh I have to say it's terminatorquick.
Like if you come in and youdon't make because I'm again,
we're in people's houses.
If you don't fit our culture uhand you can't follow our
process, you opt out or we optyou out pretty quickly.
You're the Navy SEALs of uhremodeling.
SPEAKER_02 (01:07):
I was gonna say, are you the John Wick?
SPEAKER_ (01:10):
SPEAKER_04
Don't don't feed his ego,Danielle.
Look at the look on your face.
I know.
You know what sucks?
It's the best thing anybody eversaid to four years of this
podcast.
SPE (01:20):
SPEAKER_05
I am taking that to my salesmeeting.
Boys, you're gonna have to weara wig.
John Wick.
Big wig.
Big wig.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I'm gonna wear a dark suit, putmy sunglasses on, and go,
anybody seen John Wick?
Did you sell something lastweek?
Looks like bullet in your head.
Bye-bye.
Oh, look at you.
SPEAKER_01 (01:39):
And I'm just gonna keep dancing around in the But
if we just said we're not doingthat.
SPEAK (01:42):
SPEAKER_05
No, no, no.
SPEAKE (01:47):
SPEAKER_04
SPEAKER_05
No.
Welcome to the Small BusinessSafari, where I help guide you
to avoid those traps, pitfalls,and dangers that lurk when
navigating the wild world ofsmall business ownership.
I'll share those gold nuggets ofinformation and invite guests to
help accelerate your extent tothat mountaintop of success.
It's a jungle out there, and Iwant to help you traverse
(02:08):
through the levels of owningyour own business that can get
you bogged down and distract youfrom hitting your own personal
and professional goals.
So strap in Adventure Team andlet's take a ride through the
safari that get you too.
(02:30):
Alan, that sound you hear in thebackground is no noise today.
Yeah.
But we're still remodeling thebasement.
Here we are, everybody.
SPEAKER_04 (02:39):
And you have guests coming.
S (02:40):
SPEAKER_05
And once again.
Once again, I'm gonna change thename of the trusted toolbox to
just give me three more dayscontracting.
SPEAKER_04 (02:47):
SPEAKER_04
Just give me three more days.
Manana contracting contracting.
SP (02:52):
SPEAKER_05
what did they say, the cobbler'suh son such as the shoemakers,
kids have no shoes, right?
So this is one where I said ummy project or customer project.
I'm like, go customer project,go, customer project.
And then they came back andsaid, okay, we do this for uh
this amount of money, and I'mlike, no, find another number.
I'm the boss.
(03:13):
L jefe.
We found the right number, andthey're starting, and we're
gonna finish.
But yes, well, of course they'regonna finish, but when?
Uh we're we're actually ontrack.
Uh, so we're recording this.
Define track.
Uh well is it's sort of a movingtarget.
Just give me three more days.
Name of my contracting company.
Uh Danielle, feel three free tosteal that one.
(03:35):
But before we get to Danielleand our guest today, we had a
special gift given.
Yeah.
Super cool.
Can't it's way way up there.
But we got our own smallbusiness safari podcast, bourbon
glasses, from Marika Ponton.
Isn't she the best?
She is uh she is rocking.
S (03:53):
SPEAKER_04
now.
SPEAKER_05 (03:55):
But uh so you can't uh you can't see it because
they're bourbon color.
Uh I guess I probably shouldhave told her we drink a lot of
bourbon.
SPEAK (04:01):
SPEAKER_04
the letters, and then the moreyou drink, then the letters
reveal themselves.
SPEAKER_05
She is super cool.
She was a great uh coach.
She is um profit.
Uh she's the profit coach.
Um, Marika Ponton.
She was a great guest, a lot offun.
Somebody I met years ago uh whenshe got into her own small
(04:22):
business leaving the big fourconsultancy, made the leap and
asked me if she thought Ithought it was a good idea, and
I told her exactly what Ithought.
SPEAKER_04 (04:30):
Which it's kind of funny that you say that.
I have a funny story.
Yeah.
Um, you know my tennis partner.
SPEA (04:36):
SPEAKER_05
SPEAKER_04 (04:38):
Yeah, he he's a he's a blunt instrument, and we were
on our way to our match lastnight.
Six love, six three, by the way.
And uh our podcast came up, andhe goes, Yeah, I've listened to
a couple of your episodes.
Do what?
It's not for me.
Oh, I love him.
That's right on brand with thisdude, man.
(04:59):
That is so right on brand.
No, if that's me, I just don'teven mention it.
Or I go, how's your podcastgoing?
Or, you know, tell me a funnystory about your podcast.
SPEAKER_05 (05:07):
No, it's not for me.
You know why?
Because this is for people whowant to excel in small business.
These are for people who want toride up the mountain, see what
success looks like, and notlanguish away in corporate
America hidden behind theircubicle.
SPEAKER_04 (05:18):
But I do like all my friends that that actually tell
the truth, say what they'rethinking.
SPE (05:23):
SPEAKER_05
one, suck it, buddy.
Uh, you stay in your littlecube, you get your little 401k,
you get your little health care.
Uh maybe you get a watch.
You know what?
You don't even get a watch.
You might not even get afive-year pin.
Uh yeah.
Take that.
So let's get on it.
Let's start racking it, man.
Let's go make it happen.
Let's go make some work happen.
Venture team.
Or not.
Because you know, it's not forme.
(05:45):
It's not for that.
It's so on brand for that dude.
That's so classic.
That's the title of this one.
Not for me.
Uh do you want to make money?
Not for me.
Hey, do you want to run your ownbusiness?
Not for me.
Do you want to take care of yourown world?
Not for me.
Do you want to make sure you gotgood books?
Not for me.
But today, we're gonna do it.
Yeah.
Let's get into it.
Daniel Hendon is here from FourCorner CFO to talk to us about
(06:08):
make sure you got good books.
If you want to get to the top, Igot a feeling you got to have
good books.
And like to take that analogy,you gotta have a good backpack.
You gotta have it with the rightstuff in it.
And if you can't take stock inwhat's in there, you probably
got some problems.
SPEAKER_03 (06:22):
If it's too heavy, you're probably not going very
far either.
SPEAKER_05 (06:25):
Oh, Sensei already.
She is good.
Wow.
Danielle, thanks for joining theshow.
So today we're gonna talk aboutwhat you do a little bit, but
let's let's just let's go rightinto this.
So, what is the stupidest thingwe'd all do as entrepreneurs
trying to scale our smallbusinesses?
SP (06:43):
SPEAKER_03
S (06:46):
SPEAKER_05
That's a little too heavy in thepack.
You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_04 (06:50):
I was hoping she was gonna say focus too much on
process rather than uh culture.
unknown (06:55):
unknown
Huh.
SPEAKER_04 (06:57):
I saw I saw you had a LinkedIn post that was kind of
like I talk a lot about that.
Because Chris and I kind of havea little differing opinion, but
of course he's wildly moresuccessful than me.
So maybe you should just be allanal, all process all the time.
Thank you.
No fun police.
What that's right.
And FP.
All right.
S (07:16):
SPEAKER_03
turnover ratio looks like.
SPEAKER_04 (07:21):
Well, it depends on who's doing the turnover.
SPEAKER_05 (07:24):
So as the world, as the trusted toolbox turns, we
are not in a question, Daniel.
I think we culture eats processfor lunch every day.
Got it.
But you gotta have goodprocesses if you want to scale.
But Danielle hit on it.
SPE (07:38):
SPEAKER_04
with good culture and badprocess than good process, bad
culture?
S (07:45):
SPEAKER_05
Daniel.
I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go inthe sound booth.
SPEAKER_03
have the most amazing people andthe most amazing culture, and
you're only gonna you're gonnahit a cap.
SPEAKER_05 (08:05):
Did you just flip me off?
No, I said bring me back in.
I don't know what she said.
I took my headphones off.
So all right.
She agreed with you.
Ah, Danielle.
SP (08:14):
SPEAKER_03
like left and right, becausethat's not good either.
SPEAKER_05 (08:19):
No, actually, come on, you know I take a lot of
pride in that.
My body count was really good.
You're like Schwartz andbusiness.
You know, it's quick though.
Uh I have to say it's terminatorquick.
Like if you come in and youdon't make because I'm again,
we're in people's houses.
If you don't fit our culture uhand you can't follow our
process, you opt out or we optyou out pretty quickly.
You're the Navy SEALs of uhremodeling.
SPEAKER_02 (08:39):
I was gonna say, are you the John Wick?
SPEAKER_ (08:42):
SPEAKER_04
Don't don't feed his ego,Daniel.
Look at the look on your face.
I know.
You know what sucks?
I just had my four years of thispodcast.
SPE (08:53):
SPEAKER_05
I am taking that to my salesmeeting.
Boys, you're gonna have to weara John Wick.
I have to wear the big wig.
Yeah, a big wig.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I'm gonna wear a dark suit, putmy sunglasses on, and go,
anybody seen John Wick?
Did you sell something lastweek?
Looks like bullet in your head.
Bye-bye.
Oh, look at you.
And I'm just gonna keep dancingaround in the floor.
SPEAKER_01 (09:13):
But what did we just say we're not doing that?
Oh, we're not shootingeverybody?
SPEAKER_05 (09:16):
No, no, you're fine.
SPEAKER_04 (09:20):
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, that's right.
Shoot again.
SPEAKER_05 (09:23):
SPEAKER_05
So Danielle.
SPEA (09:25):
SPEAKER_03
SPEAKER_05
Because uh, here's where I I'vetold people, you know, cash is
king, but you gotta have thosesales, right?
You gotta have that revenue, youwant to get to that bottom line.
Um, so when you say we're toofocused on revenue, what do you
see us doing?
SPEAKER_03 (09:40):
So you're absolutely right, cash is king.
Revenue is important, but if youare growing for the sake of
growth, more money, moreproblems.
If you're not actually growingyour profit and putting more
money back in your pocket, whatare you doing it for?
SPEAKER_05 (09:56):
You know, that's a great point.
More money, more problems.
We've talked to a number ofpeople on the podcast.
I was just talking with a guywho was on our podcast uh years
ago, um, because we've we'veremained fen friends, and I've
been asking him, as he was ableto niche his business down and
remodeling, he was actually ableto grow his profits.
So I said, as I'm going as I'mgoing through that, doing this
(10:17):
uh similar exercise at thetrusted toolbox, what I'm
worried about is that I reliedon that gross profit dollar
size, but when you really lookedat the net, the net wasn't being
fed by the right part of thebusiness.
It was the net was being fed bythe left part of the business,
as it was.
SPEAKE (10:33):
SPEAKER_04
I do.
Yeah.
I'll do it.
You know what?
I mean, there's the conventionalwisdom uh uh of if you're uh if
you're not growing, you'reshrinking.
Or if you're not growing, you'redying.
SPEAKER_03 (10:49):
So we're there is, but I also think, and I may go
against the grain here.
I think there are a lot ofbusinesses that are in this as
and they're legitimatebusinesses, and they're in it as
a lifestyle.
When you hit a certain point andyou're happy with it, you can
stay steady state and be happy.
(11:09):
You don't want to be goingbackwards.
You have to be paying attention,you have to be changing and
pivoting and maintaining thebusiness, but you don't
necessarily always have to keepgrowing revenue.
You have to keep growing yourpipeline, you have to keep
growing your connections, youhave to keep maintaining your
business and feeding it, whichto some might feel like growth.
(11:30):
But you can absolutely, we'vegot one of my favorite law firms
has been with us for gosh,almost five years now.
And she just when she first cameto me, she was like, I just
don't want to go backwards.
I want to make sure thatwhatever we do, I can maintain
what I have and I don't want togo backwards.
And she is perfectly happy doingso.
SPEAK (11:46):
SPEAKER_04
what practicing what you preachbecause you've niched super
tight into you know, CFO for lawfirms, which I'm like, I I've
never heard of such a thing.
And is that as a result of youwere a CFO for everybody and you
kind of found the sweet spot?
Talk about that.
S (12:06):
SPEAKER_03
you riches are in the niches andnobody wants to listen.
And I was one of them.
I was like, no, I can like whynot?
Professional service-basedbusiness.
And literally, I would have toldyou that this time last year.
I would have said professionalservice-based business.
But to the point you weretalking about earlier, I
realized 80% of our book was lawfirms.
(12:27):
And I could talk about the insand outs and all the different
things that come with law firmsand write those processes
efficiently with all kinds ofautomation because I know it
versus somebody coming to mewith a marketing agency.
And I'm like, I don't know whatsystems they're using, I don't
(12:49):
know what software they're in, Idon't know what the average rate
of pay is for their people.
It just completely changes yourability to find efficiencies in
your operations.
And so many law firms, so manybusinesses in general, if you
haven't looked at your numbersand you're still charging
hourly, are losing out ongetting all that sweat equity
(13:14):
you've put into those processesthrough efficiencies on flat
fees.
What I mean by that is if I knowexactly how to do a law firm and
now we can get it done in, Idon't know, three hours, that's
way underestimating.
But if we could get it done inthree hours instead of 10 when
we started, that seven hoursgain in profit is because we've
(13:35):
put in the sweat equity gettingthere.
It's not free.
SPEAKER_04 (13:40):
And my guess is it's a lot easier to sell your
services when you're focused onone thing and you've done it
over and over again.
So you've got your next prospectattorney.
How has your pitch changed inthe last 12 months?
SPEAKER (14:53):
SPEAKER_03
exactly they're going through.
I mean, we went from I'll tellyou my current pitch right now,
I realized is we've always soldcomfort and clarity because when
you don't know your numbers,you're in chaos, anxiety,
overwhelm.
But comfort and clarity are notpainful enough to make people
(15:16):
pull the trigger.
So we are actually in theprocess of building out a quiz
for law firms, but the new pitchitself is if you show me your
numbers, I can tell you exactlywhat you're leaving on the table
right now.
And then we can go work on it.
SPEAKER_04 (15:30):
That that would work with you.
That would by the way.
That's really powerful.
So I'm gonna start taking myclothes off.
SPEAKER_03 (15:36):
Sorry, Danielle, but like, wait, I don't know about
that.
I know.
Seriously I didn't know it wasthat kind of show.
SP (15:42):
SPEAKER_05
We are explicit.
We're going to a new, we'regoing to do a whole new genre.
That's right.
Yes.
All right.
We were true crime.
We were true crime.
Uh, we've been true crime acouple times.
Now I guess we're going to gointo the sex industry.
Okay.
Um, and this is not good sexy bythe career.
Now, really kind of niche.
All right.
That's one word.
(16:03):
I'll think of it a couple ofwords.
SPEAKER_03 (16:05):
Way to bring it full circle.
SPEAKER_05 (16:07):
All right, let's go back.
So you said you you changed yourpitch.
Uh uh, you changed uh that asyou made that switch to the
niches.
Again, I've heard the samething, Danielle.
Yeah when I first started 17years ago, I would do anything
to anybody at any time.
I really would.
And you you have to learn whereyour specialty is.
So you've learned it, but it'sstill hard to go, okay, I'm
(16:28):
gonna turn away that marketingagency on number one, and I'm
gonna turn away thatprofessional service firm on
number two.
How did you gain that disciplineto move to it?
SPEAKE (16:38):
SPEAKER_03
And everybody I've talked tothat says the riches are in the
niches doesn't necessarily turnaway the other stuff.
SPEAKER (16:47):
SPEAKER_04
I saw in your LinkedIn posts, Imean, if somebody comes to you
and they want to do businesswith you, I can't help myself.
SPEAKE (16:55):
SPEAKER_03
like, all right, let's go.
SPEAKER_04 (16:59):
But you're just not focusing on them as far as your
target market, your avatar.
SPEAKER_03 (17:03):
SPEAKER_03
I'm not focusing on them.
And I'm also not we're veryfocused on the law firm space in
the sense of who we network andspend time with from a referral
relationship and in ourmarketing efforts.
It streamlines the marketing,but it doesn't mean if I mean,
I'll tell you, one of ourclients that's still on my books
(17:25):
is uh a group of guys out ofCalifornia that sell merchandise
or they make the merchandise forbands that go on tour all over
the U.S.
Ex-Music Major in me is like,how do I say no?
SPEAKER_05 (17:37):
No, you can't say no to that.
So you you hit on the exactfallacy that I I love telling
everybody.
A lot of people give you thatlip service that niches bring
the riches, but in practice, ifyou got in their books and saw
what they were really doing,they didn't all the way niche
down.
SPEAKER_03 (17:51):
But I will tell you there are riches in the niches
from an efficiency perspective.
So, I mean, take your business,for example.
If you niched down to a specifictype of that construction area
that you love to do, and I ithas to be what you love.
I always tell people, my purplehair is my litmus test because
attorneys are two types, and ifthey get on the call and they
can handle the purple hair, wecan do business.
(18:12):
If they can't, then I gotreferral partners.
SPEAKER_05 (18:15):
But that might be a little difficult.
Call us purple in your head, myfriend.
You should go for the purplepurple tips.
You should go for the purplestash.
Maybe a purple purple purp thepurple van dyke, as it were.
SP (18:30):
SPEAKER_03
you were focusing in onespecific thing, those processes
are gonna kick butt and you'regonna be really freaking fast.
SPEAKER_04 (18:42):
This is this is the first time in four years,
though, that we've actually kindof uncovered this little secret,
which I think is great becausewe do talk about niches a lot.
And the fact is your niche isyour focus, but if you've got
low-hanging fruit coming to you,you don't turn it down.
SPEAKER_03 (18:59):
You don't as long as you've got space.
SPEAKER_04 (19:02):
SPEAKER_04
S (19:02):
SPEAKER_05
handle it, because I thinkyou're right.
Because once you have your modeldown and you know your own uh
efficiencies, is that when youstep out, it's not as efficient.
That means you've got to do alittle bit extra work, and
sometimes that's where we loseour profit margin, is when we
have to do a little extra work,kind of kicking out there and
getting around it.
SPEAKER_04
(19:24):
where you're from, or are you weare nationwide.
SP (19:28):
SPEAKER_03
We love Canada.
SPEAKER_04 (19:33):
She was a mixed and a duh.
SP (19:36):
SPEAKER_03
SPEAK (19:40):
SPEAKER_04
throat.
SPEAKER_ (19:44):
SPEAKER_05
S (19:45):
SPEAKER_03
we're we're pausing for themoment.
SPEAKER_0 (19:51):
SPEAKER_05
All right.
So let's go back to the uhlawyers and how you handle them.
So you say you can look at thesebooks.
So in our world, uh uh well, anyworld, right?
You have uh revenue and you havecost of goods sold, leaves you
with your gross profit, and thenyou have the overhead and
expenses.
Tell us what do you see are uhhow do people organize their
(20:13):
books to be able to see some ofthese trends and the some of the
things you do to help them?
SPEAKE (20:18):
SPEAKER_03
what I will call theservice-based business, meaning
your people make you money, yourpeople need to be in your cost
of goods sold.
And if they're not, you arelosing a huge part of the story.
And it's a big part of how wecalculate exactly how much
money's left on the table.
SPEAKER_04 (20:39):
Unpack that a little bit more.
Yeah, get it.
S (20:42):
SPEAKER_03
you do a lot of flat fee work asmost people with people do,
because that's where theefficiencies are, those people,
those five people, should beworking whatever their hours
are.
I'm gonna assume 30 to 40,though I will be honest, most of
my team is part-time and I loveit.
But let's assume they work 30hours a week that they are doing
(21:05):
client-related work, notdriving, not what I they're on
client-related work.
And on average, if you weregoing to bill them out hourly,
it should be$200 an hour.
You take those five people timesthat 30 hours a week and that
$200 an hour.
And if your revenue's not comingin there, you're missing
something.
SPEAKER_05 (21:26):
SPEAKER_05
You can't cover the other, yeah,you can't, you don't have the
right utilization.
So you also help develop metricsfor them to to kind of get their
own scorecards put together.
She's shaking her head.
This is a podcast.
Yes.
SP (21:37):
SPEAKER_03
I don't want to interrupt youall the time.
SPEAKER_05 (21:41):
No, I uh I go on the radio quite a bit, and our radio
guest host always does that.
This is radio, we can't see you.
SPEAKER_03 (21:50):
I am I am definitely a fan of ratios and utilization,
and operations means just asmuch as the numbers.
And for our law firms,especially, we usually try to
get access to those operationspractice management tools
because they help us tell thestory of your numbers.
And my goal is to always makethe numbers a story that makes
sense to the business owners.
(22:11):
And if it doesn't make sense toyou, and we're talking
accounting terminology or overyour head, you can't use it.
If it's not useful, it doesn'tmake a difference.
SP (22:20):
SPEAKER_05
guys, law firms have uh similarsoftware packages?
Or does you recogni you ohreally?
So what's the name of the onethat you see the most?
Cleo.
Cleo, got it.
Yep.
I had an aunt Cleo once.
That's all I got.
SPEAKER_04 (22:37):
That's all I could say.
Was she a good cook?
SP (22:39):
SPEAKER_05
SPE (22:40):
SPEAKER_03
SP (22:42):
SPEAKER_05
Yeah, a lot of a lot of my a lotof my I I I was in the kitchen
with them all.
So yes, they were all great.
What a gift you got growing up.
Cleo.
Yep.
That's amazing.
She was cool.
Yep, she let me in now.
She let me in the kitchen allthe time.
All right, so that back to Cleo,the financial system and look.
SPEA (22:58):
SPEAKER_04
Danielle.
What?
Huh?
What?
Where?
Okay.
S (23:03):
SPEAKER_03
SPEAK (23:04):
SPEAKER_04
So do you do you uh whatservices do you provide?
Are you are you doing fractionalCFO or you know?
SPE (23:12):
SPEAKER_03
That means different people,different things to different
people.
SPEAKER_04
So what does that mean to you?
What are the different things?
SPEAKER_03 (23:21):
I'm curious what it means to you.
S (23:23):
SPEAKER_04
SPEAKER_03 (23:25):
Well, I'll explain all the other pieces, but I want
to know what it means to younow.
SPEAKER_04 (23:29):
So there's there's a company that gets to a certain
size where they need more thanbookkeeping, they need a CFO,
and yet they don't think theycan afford one, so they can get
a fractional one, so they get apart-time CFO who then
ultimately pays for themselvesbecause they're so freaking
smart, and they then all of asudden they become the full-time
CFO.
SPEAKER_05 (23:46):
That's that's how I view it.
That's a good start.
Okay, Danielle, continue.
Thanks for the condescension.
SPEAKER_04 (23:52):
So you know, I'm not afraid to throw it out there.
SPEAKER (23:55):
SPEAKER_05
You know.
SPEAKER_03 (23:57):
Hey, you you hit the the cliff notes.
See, you got the cliff notes outof it.
A little deeper down.
Oh a little deeper down, you'regonna have you're gonna have
your startup CFOs, your funding,your private equity, the the
people that are gonna help youtalk to a bank, whether it's a
startup situation or a cashcrunch.
(24:18):
There are CFOs that are verywell versed in how to get you
more money.
And we are not one of those.
Then you have the CFOs that willcome in and I'll be honest,
they're gonna be like, oh, Ineed to look at your books and
let's figure out what theproblems are.
And they're gonna be veryproject-oriented in how to quote
unquote fix your business.
(24:41):
That's not what we are either.
We fall in a group of CFOs thatdo controller and operational
style CFO work.
So it's taking that next stepfrom your bookkeeping and
building out a budget,understanding your revenue
streams, understanding yourexpenses, focusing on the budget
(25:02):
to actuals because that's wherethe story starts to happen.
And that's where you can makecurrent changes in your business
that aren't hidden away inratios that then need further
explanation.
We can do those budget toactuals, then we take that and
we turn it into a cash flowforecast that looks like your
budget.
So it actually makes sense toyou, but it includes all the
(25:23):
timing and the loans and theprofit distributions and the
savings for taxes, becauseplease, by the love of God, save
for your taxes and don't leaveit until April.
S (25:33):
SPEAKER_05
Well, I don't want to tell onmyself, but uh April is just an
extension day for Chris.
SPEAKER_03 (25:41):
For very, for very many people it is.
S (25:43):
SPEAKER_05
Give me three days instruction.
Give me three more days, UncleSam.
SPEAKER_03 (25:50):
That's that's never what he doesn't listen very
well.
SPEAKER_05 (25:53):
Not a good listener, not a good listener, Uncle Sam.
Thank you.
Um, you know, I love door numberthree that you talked about, and
uh I I like the way youexplained it because um wasn't
it a great setup question?
It was a great setup question,and it was great.
Your high-level just hey, fillin the buckets about what you
should be asking.
So that's gonna be the nextquestion.
When somebody looks, becauseI've had I actually part of a
(26:15):
mastermind CEO group, a lot ofthese guys know this, and you'll
hear that.
Hey, I'm looking for abookkeeper, I'm looking for a
fractional CFO, but they don'tnobody really know what they're
asking for.
So, what questions should we beasking you, or what should we
ask people before we ask forpeople to help?
SPEAKER_03 (26:31):
If you want to look at the future, you want to talk
to a CFO.
If you want to look at the past,you're gonna be talking about if
you want to organize your booksand look into the past, that's
usually gonna be a tax personand a bookkeeper.
Really good tax people are gonnaget into strategy and look into
the future with you, but they'renot gonna get into business
strategy, they're gonna get intotax strategy.
(26:53):
I will say one of the bestpieces of advice I got when I
started my business, becauselike everybody, I put like
everything in the kitchen sinkwe could do up there and had a
business coach tell me theydon't know what they want, you
need to tell them what theyneed.
So I no longer wait for peopleto be like, this is what I need,
because they know exactly whatyou need, and we use our
(27:13):
six-part framework.
I don't care who you are, whatyou do, how you do it, it fits.
SPEAKER_04 (27:19):
SPEAKER_04
She's like accounting Yoda forlawyers.
I know.
Okay, but we take other people.
You missed that part.
You do wish you were a lawyer.
You're kind of jealous.
I can't.
Hey, can you talk a little bitabout budgeting?
I've been through so many budgetprocesses, and it's just it just
feels like a wild ass guess.
I mean, you're just, you know,okay.
SP (27:37):
SPEAKER_03
SPE (27:39):
SPEAKER_04
We're gonna go for 15%, youknow, and then you backfill it
and blah, blah, blah, and you,you know, committee it, and then
and then somebody just decideswhat it's gonna be.
And hey, there's your budget,you gotta hit it.
SP (27:52):
SPEAKER_03
That is the easy way out ofbudgeting, I will be honest.
And my team probably hates methat we don't take the easy way
out sometimes, but a lot of asyou grow and scale, a lot of
budgets will start to becomevery trend based.
It's how much are we doing on aregular monthly basis?
And let's grow by 10%.
(28:14):
You lose the story in that withour clients, and I'll be honest,
we're working with anything fromhalf a million to 15 million.
We do what I call bottom-upbudgeting.
We don't budget by account, webudget by activity within that
account so that then I can lookat your books and compare
exactly between your budget andyour actual actuals and know
(28:36):
what the difference is and why.
And then we get to start to tellthe story.
Because the goal of a budgetisn't to hit the budget.
And when you start doing thesetrends and these 10%, it becomes
this.
I just need to hit the budget.
And that's why people backfilland move things around.
The goal of a budget isn't tohit the budget, it's to
understand why you don't hit thebudget.
So you can either repeat thegood things or fix the not so
(29:00):
good things.
When you don't hit your budget,you get to either make a change
to your budget, which meanswe're changing our expectations,
or you get to make a change inyour business and get back on
budget.
SPEAKER_05 (29:12):
All right, back to budgeting.
Neverly.
I don't want to go back to myown.
SPEAKER_04 (29:16):
No, no, I because I it's so frustrating to me
because that you sit there andyou go through all the
gyrations, and ultimately the CFthe CEO just kind of knows what
number they got to report to theinvestors or whatever.
Yeah.
So let's just frickin' give methat number, and then we gotta
figure out how to get there.
But you've you've got we gobackwards.
(29:36):
A more granular way that Ihonestly have never been a part
of.
So I would kind of hope that youcan unpack it for our listeners
who are thinking about how do Iplan for next year?
SPEAKER_03 (29:47):
SPEAKER_03
So we talked about revenue froma capacity basis.
That is quite literally how webudget.
If we're not hitting capacity, Iwant to know it right away and
we're gonna talk about it.
So we budget by your people forrevenue.
SPEAKER_06 (30:00):
SPEAKER_06
S (30:01):
SPEAKER_03
of those.
And before we even budget, whenwe're going through our
onboarding process, we putthings in one of three
categories.
You have what I like to callyour required costs.
I don't know a business thatruns without cell phone and
internet at a minimum.
Like you gotta have something.
Then you have what I like tocall the personal perks, the
(30:24):
things your tax CPA or EA hasrecommended you run through the
business.
My favorite example, my kids areon payroll.
They don't add an ounce of valueto the business, but they do add
value to my tax deductions.
So they're there and it'sdefensible.
SP (30:41):
SPEAKER_04
SPEAKER_03 (30:44):
But then everything else, and it's not required.
S (30:47):
SPEAKER_05
in son and daughter and wife.
Uh yes contracting.
SPE (30:53):
SPEAKER_03
sidetracking, but the fun partabout kids is they don't have to
file taxes if you.
Stay under a certain amount.
SPEAKER_05 (31:01):
SPEAKER_05
SPEAKER_04 (31:02):
Except for it should be uh daughter and wife and
lollamy and son.
And lolami and son.
Probably the name of yourentity.
Right.
SPEAKER_05 (31:13):
SPEAKER_05
So no, they're all they're allpart of the holding company.
So let's get back to it.
So kids.
SP (31:17):
SPEAKER_03
SPEAKER_05 (31:18):
Run the kids through the business.
Yes.
Run them like a wash.
SPEAKE (31:21):
SPEAKER_03
Under eighteen.
SPEAKER_05 (31:23):
SPEAKER_05
SPEAKE (31:24):
SPEAKER_03
That's the little problem.
They gotta report a little bitmore of it when it's not.
But if you do have kids that areunder 18, it's quite literally
tax-free.
SPEAKER_ (31:34):
SPEAKER_05
And yes, I did it.
There's a nugget.
It is.
It is a great nugget, guys.
Are you drinking bourbon too,Daniel?
She is.
SPEAKER_0 (31:42):
SPEAKER_03
I wish I was, but I have to godrive and pick up kids in a
little bit.
SPEAKER_05 (31:47):
SPEAKER_05
Oh, so do we have kids under 18?
I do.
SPEAKER_03 (31:50):
So mine are both on my on my business.
SPEA (31:52):
SPEAKER_05
Come on.
When you pick them up, come on,my little minion tax deductions.
Get the car.
I have been never so happy tosee you.
I just got up a podcast.
You know what?
How much saving me now?
You know, you guys keep costing,costing.
SPE (32:07):
SPEAKER_04
It's this much.
It's this much.
SPEAKER_03 (32:10):
Oh, they cost more than they save, I promise.
S (32:14):
SPEAKER_05
Uh, that's Alan, and me who havegot two, and I can't seem to get
two of them off the uh payroll.
SP (32:20):
SPEAKER_03
fast.
SPEAKER_05 (32:23):
Man, that's a that's a loud sport.
That you know what?
And it's time consuming.
Yeah.
Oh my god.
Hey, we're going to the swimmeet.
Where are we going?
Oh, we're going to the swimmingpool.
Two hours away.
It's so yeah.
And you go there, you're like,hey, this ain't no swimming
pool.
Where's the palm trees?
Oh, no, no, no.
We're in an auditorium.
I do blah blah.
Yeah, I'm like, okay, for howlong?
Um, well, I'm not sure.
(32:43):
Eight hours.
I'm in heat one, six.
Yeah.
I'm in 29 and 512.
You're like, do what?
Your kid has like three minutesof swimming in eight hours.
SPEAKER_04 (32:54):
SPEAKER_04
SPEAKER_05 (32:55):
Yeah, they uh they grew up.
SPEAKER_03 (32:56):
And they might even miss it.
unknown (32:58):
unknown
SPE (32:59):
SPEAKER_03
SPEAKER_05 (33:02):
Yeah, because you're up there in the stands, go,
where are they?
Where's that?
You know, I'm kind of glad mykids don't swim.
Well, I mine did and thenstopped.
Uh, thank God.
Uh and then but we got intotennis and yeah, that same
thing.
At least they they played alittle bit more, but you're
still there all day.
All right.
Well, God bless you for doingthat.
And don't let them forget, uhit's just a little bit
(33:23):
different.
Um, but you cost me a lot ofmoney.
All right.
SPEAKER_03 (33:26):
So let's talk about it.
Okay, so we got personal perks.
Yep.
We've got our required.
Everything else that is in yourexpense side of your PL is an
investment in your business.
And we go line by line to theextent we can.
I'm not looking up every singlerestaurant, but line by line,
and we say, Hey, what is thisgiving you in time, money, or
(33:46):
both?
And if it's not, why are wespending it?
SPE (33:51):
SPEAKER_05
Oh, yeah.
So you work with the ones thatdo a lot of advertising, yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (33:57):
Some of them, yeah.
SPEAKER_05 (33:58):
SPEAKER_05
SP (33:59):
SPEAKER_03
immediate time money.
Then it becomes, I want to knowwho's how are you managing it?
What are the metrics?
How do we know it's working?
SPE (34:07):
SPEAKER_05
the world of with the AI comingin.
Um, you know, I just had a greatanalogy.
I'm gonna share this toeverybody.
AI good because you set it up.
You just said it was great.
It is.
It wasn't mine, it's not mine.
It's not mine.
It's somebody else's.
Watch this.
Better be great.
AI is not new.
We've had disruptors before whenit comes to working with people
(34:28):
in business and advertising.
Go back, television, when itfirst came out, there were three
stations.
They had 70 million viewers, not70%, not that 70 million viewers
that were captive watching justthree channels.
So you had advertising there.
And uh then the uh so we talkedabout how this is not a new
thing, it's just something youhave to get used to, and you
(34:50):
have to understand TV wasn'tgoing away, and neither is this.
All right, so I thought that wasa great nugget.
I think that was an amazing lookon your face.
I'm gonna put that out.
I'm gonna put that in the shownotes.
SPEA (35:01):
SPEAKER_04
uh AI, and I actually went evenfurther back to a disruptor,
which was back in the old days,artists were portraiture.
It's like they did landscapes,they did you know people's
faces, and then and thenphotography came along.
Yeah.
So then there's no need forportraiture.
(35:23):
And that's what sprung Cubismand all the different kinds of
art that were what we callmodern art, because there was no
point in making realisticrenditions of the image that you
were looking at.
SPEAKER_05
I'm gonna give you that one.
That is good, but still TV'sbetter.
All right.
Uh not for me.
Not for me.
All right, all right.
Back to Danielle.
What else?
(35:44):
Big bird.
SPEAKER_03 (35:45):
Okay, so we talked about how to budget for your
revenue, how to calculate it.
Now you take those expenses andyou want to figure out how often
they hit.
The ones that you don't get ridof, you're gonna figure out how
often they hit.
And the purpose of a bottom-upbudget, unless you have a tool
you're gonna want to do this inExcel, is you need to go through
and figure out what is that cellphone monthly?
What it like, what are out ofall those expenses that we've
(36:06):
decided we're keeping, when dothey hit?
How often do they hit?
How much do they hit?
And which account do they rollup to?
SPEAKER_05 (36:13):
How often are they like half off?
Like when they but when theywhen you start saying, let's
look at your expenses, you'relike, uh, my cell phone's like a
hundred bucks a month.
Okay, let's go look.
Um, actually, you pay for allfour, so that's four hundred
dollars a month.
Oh, yeah, right.
Okay, write that down.
Um, my internet, um, I think I'mon the uh lowest plan.
Let's just put 80.
SPEAKER_03 (36:30):
Um anything you put on your credit card, I guarantee
you're half off.
SPEAKE (36:36):
SPEAKER_04
It just runs and goes.
Is if you were working withChris, you would be going
through the the Braves tickets,the Falcons tickets, the trips
to Vegas, uh Kiwa.
SPEAKER_03 (36:48):
Some of that might hit personal perks versus uh
investments, but you know.
SP (36:53):
SPEAKER_04
business.
Was it worth it?
What's the ROI on it?
S (36:59):
SPEAKER_05
business.
His lifestyle was just very,very large.
And I have a lifestyle businesstoo.
I just I don't have to hear youequate yourself to Bill Gates.
Well, you know, actually justhit me because everybody says,
Chris, you have a lifestylebusiness.
I'm like, I do not.
I mean, I got a process-basedbusiness that's working in two
different cities.
(37:19):
I'm like, don't give me thiscrap that I'm gonna lay.
SPEAKER_03 (37:21):
But it supports your lifestyle, and I wish people
would quit thinking lifestylebusiness was a bad thing.
SPEAKER_05 (37:25):
It well, uh you're right, I was, and that's why I'm
going, you know what?
She is so on your side today.
I'm so digging this too.
You know what?
You know what she's thinkingright now, Alan?
Not for me.
Okay.
I love that.
That's good.
All right, let's go back toDaniel.
She's trying to give us morenuggets and we're running out of
time.
So yeah.
(37:46):
So you get engaged, you keepmoving, you're right, you're
running through this, do yougive them the budget, they start
rolling.
How long do these guys stay withyou?
Is one of the biggest questionsI've got.
So I get I on board with you asa law firm.
How long will they usually stay?
SPEAKER_0 (37:57):
SPEAKER_03
So it takes us about six monthsto go through that process.
I know.
SPEAKER_04 (38:02):
But it becomes you were trying to see if her
turnover was as bad as yours.
Oh, I knew it wasn't.
I mean, I knew it was a layup.
SPEAKER_03 (38:10):
I'm not gonna lie, I I just told you we we lost the
client in Canada.
Exchange rates got too high.
But most likely it's it'susually it's indefinitely.
It's um it becomes a little bitof a therapy session sometimes.
I open most of our clientmeetings with uh what's giving
you heartburn right now, becausehalf of our clients don't even
look at their reports.
They just know that we've lookedat their reports, and then we're
(38:32):
gonna talk through whatever'sgiving them heartburn and figure
out the answers.
Guilty.
SPEAKER_05 (38:37):
No, but once I got my books back straight, and I do
I now I don't I don't have afractional CFO.
I have the bookkeeper looking inthe past.
We close up our books.
Um, but you're right.
I actually the meeting has gone.
I mean, we're done in 25 minuteswith that part.
SPEAKER_04 (38:51):
Well, and that's the sign of the fact that you
completely trust that person andyou've got a good person in
place.
Now you still have to check onthem to make sure that
Danielle's not embezzling orwhatever.
She, I mean, she's got a swimteam to support.
I know.
SPEAKER_ (39:04):
SPEAKER_05
S (39:06):
SPEAKER_03
But that is also why theex-auditor and me will never do
bookkeeping or taxes.
I think you need multiplies onyour books every every month.
SP (39:14):
SPEAKER_05
Expand on that one real quick.
SPEAKER_03 (39:16):
So, segregation of duties is what we technically
call it.
It means you want more than oneset of people looking at
everything.
You want more than one set ofpeople touching everything.
The bookkeeper's job is tocategorize it.
I can't tell you how many timeswe come in and one of our first
recommendations is to changebookkeepers.
Wow.
SPEAKER_05 (39:36):
SPEAKER_05
I could say, well, actually,having been through a nightmare
of uh having the wrongbookkeeper, I I completely
understand.
Um I think right now I'm in thegroove where I am debating uh
the whole fractional CFO, whichis why part of the reason uh
we're on.
So Danielle could have a littletherapy session with Chris.
SPEAKER_04 (39:52):
By the way, Daniel, the purpose of this podcast.
SPEAKER_03 (39:55):
Hey, we take other, you missed that part.
SPEAKER_04 (39:57):
Is for Chris to get free advice.
That's right.
SPE (40:00):
SPEAKER_05
SPEAKER_04 (40:01):
So let's get access to incredible people.
Let's go super granular becauseyou think about who our
listeners are.
Yeah.
And there's somebody drivingdown the road going, Well, how
do I know if I have a goodbookkeeper?
SPEAKER_05 (40:12):
Oh, that's a great question.
Oh, that is great.
SPEAKER_03 (40:15):
I'll tell you how I know when you have a book, a
good bookkeeper or not.
Well, two ways.
Because I'll also tell you wehave a client that we onboarded
recently, and as soon as theyfound out we were involved,
because one of the first thingswe ask is for an intro to your
bookkeeper, they started sendingall these corrections over and
things that needed to be, andthat was like, ha ha, they know
someone else is looking.
(40:36):
Gotcha.
So that's one way.
You could fake it and say youhired a CFO and see if you start
getting a bunch of emails.
The other way, though, is if youare willing to get into your own
QuickBooks or Zero or whateveraccounting platform you're on,
you want to look at your balancesheet.
And inside your balance sheet,you should have something called
(40:57):
reconciliations.
And they should be getting doneevery single month and not just
done, but inside, and I'm gonnatalk bank reconciliations and
date myself a little bit here.
A bank reconciliation is kind oflike tying out your checkbook
back in the day.
So when you open that bankreconciliation, the goal isn't
that your books and your bankhave the same number because
(41:17):
they shouldn't actually, most ofthe time.
There's gonna be timingdifferences, there's gonna be a
check that got written andhasn't been cashed yet.
There's gonna be things inthere.
Those reconciling items, thoseuncleared items, should all be
fairly recent.
If you've got stuff back to2020, your bookkeeper hasn't
been keeping clean books.
SP (41:38):
SPEAKER_05
granular question.
You want to know, and most of usare probably on QuickBooks,
let's face it, becauseQuickBooks is kind of like kind
of like Google.
Everybody seems to have that oneif you're ubiquitous.
Yeah.
So just go, and all you have todo is go to reports,
reconciliation, and see when itwas last done and how far back
(41:59):
some of those outstanding itemsare.
And when you see six monthsworth of unreconciled items,
yeah, you got a problem.
Oh yeah.
Is that what happened?
Yeah, that's what happened.
Yeah, I had no idea.
That's a great question.
Uh, and that's a great answer.
SPEAKER_04 (42:13):
And that is I just got three great questions out of
that one.
SPEAKER_05 (42:16):
Uh so yeah, not for me.
Three three zero.
I I would say uh still youropening line, but not for me.
That's your that's your 100%.
Oh, just because I know thisguy.
I mean, we can go to the tape.
SPEAKER_03 (42:28):
I'm gonna be kind of offended if that ends up being
the title of this.
I'm just saying.
SPEAKER (42:31):
SPEAKER_05
No, there's no way.
No, no, let's let's.
Well, how about this?
Hey, you want a bad CFO?
Not for me.
Listen to this episode.
Way to spin it.
I'll give you almost the back.
SPEAKER_04 (42:40):
But yeah, we can go to the tape.
You said great question likethree times.
SPEAKER_05 (42:44):
SPEAKER_05
All right, Danielle, how caneverybody get a hold of you?
Because you have to.
And if you aren't a lawyer,she'll still talk to you.
And I think it's worth theconversation.
And if you know somebody's alawyer, you better send them.
And how about this?
If you're using that lawyer,definitely send her to Danielle.
Oh god, that's a good idea.
S (43:01):
SPEAKER_03
SPEAKER_05 (43:02):
SPEAKER_05
So you're using a lawyer, sendit to them.
Send, send, send, send thelawyer.
Hey, look, man, I want to makesure you're charging me right.
I don't want you to beovercharged me, and I want to
make sure your books are good.
You need to talk to this chick.
So talk to Danielle with thepurple hair and get ready for it
because she's gonna bring theheat.
All right, Danielle, how can weget a hold of you?
SPEAKER_03 (43:20):
Website's the best way.
The number four, not the word,fourcornerscfo.com.
And then you can find me onLinkedIn under my name.
And we are going to have a pageset up just for you guys that I
need to double check what it is.
SPEAK (43:35):
SPEAKER_04
Say the website again.
SPEAKER_03 (43:38):
So my website is the number fourcorners CFO.com.
You'll find all kinds ofinformation there.
But just for this podcast andfor you guys to drop into the
show notes, we are gonna havefourcornerscfo.com slash small
business safari.
That'll have some freebies,that'll have some ways to get in
touch, all the fun things.
(44:00):
And I am going to tell her toput not for me somewhere in
really big letters.
SPEAKER_0 (44:05):
SPEAKER_05
Hey, you went and get a hey, uh,do you want to make money not
for me?
Don't call me.
Huh?
You want to make money?
You call me.
That's it.
SPEAKER_03 (44:13):
I love if money is not for you, don't worry about
it.
SPEAKER (44:16):
SPEAKER_05
Not for me.
I love that.
We're gonna spin that.
We're gonna spin that on thetitle.
I think that actually gets moretruth.
Because let's face it.
I mean, I mean, uh we just madethis a very sexy topic.
I mean, we actually got we gotwe went to the colour.
You know what?
SPEAKER_04 (44:29):
I didn't even have to take my clothes off today.
Thank God.
I know I know I quite I turnedthe fan on at night.
That's why I walked away.
It's quite cool now.
SPEAKER_ (44:35):
SPEAKER_05
All right, I'll get you back inthe meat locker.
All right, can we get to thefinal four questions?
Let's get there.
We've got to get there.
Danielle, what is a book you'drecommend to the adventure team,
our small business safarilisteners?
SPEAKER_03 (44:48):
If you are not ready to look into a CFO, but you do
feel like there's somethinggoing on in the numbers and you
want to be more profit-oriented.
I'm a huge fan of Profit Firstby Mike McAllowitz.
Uh, really, really, really goodbook just to get you mentally
oriented and looking at yourbank account and setting things
up in a way that puts you firstbecause so many business owners
(45:09):
put everybody and everythingelse first.
SPE (45:11):
SPEAKER_04
recommended a book we've had infour years.
SPEAKER_05
Uh, and have read the book uhand haven't adopted one thing of
it.
SPEAK (45:21):
SPEAKER_03
SP (45:23):
SPEAKER_05
guys, two companies that haveactually um have implemented the
profit first.
There's a lot of checkingaccounts you gotta reconcile.
And my bookkeeper does charge meby account, so I said, Well,
we're just gonna do all in one.
S (45:35):
SPEAKER_03
because we just take all of thatand we do it in a cash flow
forecast instead.
SPE (45:41):
SPEAKER_04
Don't worry.
Chris, you always think you'resmarter than everybody, but once
in a while I do get you gottagive it to them.
I do.
SPEAKER_05 (45:50):
I I actually put on my head.
I think I got concussed.
Um, because we're full ofthere's no doubt you got
concussed.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, there's no doubt.
I mean, it's so funny back inthe day.
I was like, stars, brightlights, handshaking.
That was just next play.
All right, let's keep going.
All right, next question.
Whoa boy.
And speaking of concussion, Ijust lost my next question.
(46:12):
But I have what's the favoritefeature of your home?
SP (46:17):
SPEAKER_03
from the whole other side of thehouse.
My kids have theirs set, likeall the rooms and everything
else are over there, and myoffice gets to stay nice and
quiet.
SPEAKER_ (46:30):
SPEAKER_05
I think actually we I think wehaven't done the heat map on uh
the questions of the of the uhfavorite home.
I would say for a lot of peopleit's been their office.
Isn't that wild?
I think so.
Yeah.
I mean, some some of them havethe view.
SPEAKER_04 (46:45):
Yeah, a lot of time there, you may as well make it
awesome, right?
Yeah, I love that.
How close are you to the uhgolf?
SPEAKER_03 (46:53):
Oh, I could probably ride a bike.
SPEAKER_05 (46:57):
That's pretty sweet.
All right, so proximity is alsobig.
All right.
One of the things we haven'ttalked a lot about, but because
you gotta have good books, butAl and I are kind of customer
service freaks.
We're kind of crazy about it.
What's a customer service petpeeve of yours when you are the
customer and you're out thereand looking for service?
SPEAKER_03 (47:15):
So I'm gonna spin it a little bit in a way that fits
with what I do in business.
My pet peeve is when people arecompletely inauthentic.
The I the millions of LinkedInsand everything else that people
get that are just not authentic.
(47:37):
Like there people reach out andthey're like, Hey, can you do my
taxes?
And I'm like, I don't do I don'thelp people with taxes.
I don't need to I don't needhelp helping people with taxes.
It's not even my business.
SPEAKER_05 (47:48):
No, I was thinking the other way around on
LinkedIn.
I was thinking douchefactor onLinkedIn.
Hey, I can take your website tothe next level.
I don't know who you are.
And have you looked at mywebsite?
No, clearly not.
Hey, um, you you want yourpodcast to get more listeners?
Um, have you found out how manylisteners we have?
I mean, so um you all do.
Well, but people will intro itpeople I've had on it.
SPEAKER_03 (48:09):
They will intro it in a way that they're like they
might be a customer.
They're like, hey, can you do mytaxes?
I help other people do blah blahblah blah.
Other tax firms do.
I'm like, no, I don't even touchtaxes, but you didn't look.
SPEAKER_05 (48:20):
Oh, so in Houston, do you see bless my uh bless
your heart?
Can you see it on there or no?
SPEAKER_03 (48:25):
We do say bless your heart.
SPEAK (48:27):
SPEAKER_05
Yeah, that's Southeast.
Oh, Bless Your Heart for thatstupid LinkedIn message you just
sent me.
You have to, I have to agree tothat's becoming really noisy.
All right.
So, you ready?
S (48:38):
SPEAKER_04
She was she was not thinkingcorrectly.
This is I was not.
No, I mean everything else shesaid has been flawless.
SPEAKER_05 (48:47):
I don't want to hear about those contractors screwing
up because I'm only just give methree more days contracting.
SP (48:52):
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (48:56):
Oh, and I'm gonna go finance on this one.
So I'm like a total Excel nerd.
My personal budget sits in Exceland I keep up with it fairly
frequently.
But um when you get a formulawrong, it can make things really
bad.
And I had a formula wrong andcompletely like I think we were
(49:19):
three or four grand off on likemy tax calculation for like
where because I also keep upwith what do we think taxes are
gonna be with the business.
And I was like, now we gotta gofind four grand for that
payment.
SPEAKER_05 (49:32):
I didn't know, but we and we bleeped it.
No, that's awesome.
You know what?
That is a great TI line.
Oh great answer.
Because I have I have that sameproblem.
You're like, Can you imagine howbad she would feel?
I know that you mean you mean itdoesn't matter.
SP (49:47):
SPEAKER_03
I'm the worst at my books andtaxes.
SPEAKER_05 (49:50):
Oh great confession.
Daniel has the best.
Daniel Handon has done it, she'skept it authentic, she's kept it
real.
She is the one that you need totalk about when it talks about
fractional CFO.
If you didn't learn somethingtoday, man, that's on you guys.
You just got another greatlesson on how we can all run our
businesses better.
Keep it up, keep watching.
Hey, if you didn't stay on thisuh this that long, this long,
(50:12):
this long, whatever.
What are you talking to them ifthey weren't there?
Hey, if you're not here, get on.
If you're still here, what areyou doing here?
No, go out there and make money,make it happen.
YouTube, go out there and checkus out because these things are
online.
You can see the mess that is,the plastic behind me.
But once again, this podcast, ifyou didn't get something out of
you, maybe it ain't for you.
No, no, yeah.
SPEAKER_04 (50:32):
SPEAKER_04
SPEAKER (50:33):
SPEAKER_05
Not for me.
Let's go.
It is for you.
SPEAKER_04 (50:36):
Dumbass that I get anything out of this one.
Because this was awesome.
Yeah, you just she brought theheat.
So many gold nuggets.
Right.
Epic.
SPEAKER_05 (50:43):
SPEAKER_05
Hey, Alan, yeah.
Let's go swimming.
We got to get out of here.
Danielle ended.
Thank you so much.
Enjoyed it.
Cheers, everybody.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of the Small Business
Safari.
Remember, your positive attitudewill help you achieve that
higher altitude you're lookingfor in the wild world of small
business ownership.
And until next time, make it agreat day.
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