Is it possible for real estate investors to increase their profits with a fractional CFO? The answer is yes. Fractional CFOs can significantly reduce risk and increase profit margins for real estate investors in a number of ways. What is a fractional CFO? The CFO is the Chief Financial Officer and fractional means part-time. A Fractional CFO is a way to utilize the CFO’s skills at a fraction of the full CFO price tag.
In this episode, Toby Mathis, Esq. welcomes David Richter, Founder and Owner of SimpleCFO. David empowers business owners to make more profit and live life on their terms with the SimpleCFO Fractional CFO program. He is also the author of “Profit First for Real Estate Investing.” Toby and David discuss the benefits of incorporating a CFO into your real estate investing business. David has an interesting range of solutions that will help investors increase their business revenue, owner’s pay, cash reserves, and more!
Highlights/Topics:
- David’s background as an investor, and starting a fractional CFO
- What a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) does
- 3 reasons investors need these services
- The “hope and pray plan” and comparison system
- Making money is easy – what to do next is the hard part
- Profit first, allocating bank accounts for taxes, etc.
- Sales – Profit = Expenses with the Profit First system
- Getting clarity around how much you actually need to keep
- SimpleCFO’s structure and meeting schedule with clients
- At what point should you get in touch with SimpleCFO? Click the link below
Resources:
Download the FULL Ebook of Profit First For Real Estate Investing
Full Episode Transcript:
This is the Anderson Business Advisors Podcast. The show for real estate investors, stock traders and business owners. We help you keep more of what you earn and protect what you’ve built. Let’s get started.
Toby: Hey, guys. This is Toby Mathis with the Anderson Business Advisors Podcast. Today, I have David Richter. This is going to be a fun one because from my standpoint being a real estate attorney, I deal with folks that are looking for somebody like David so often and don’t even realize what their actual need is. We’re going to be talking about that today. First off, welcome, David.
David: Thanks for having me, Toby. It’s an honor to be here.
Toby: If you could just give us a one minute sketch of who you are, what you do, and I’ll explain why we’re talking.
David: My background is as a real estate investor, about 10 years ago, I got into the role of real estate investing through Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I had many different businesses that I was a part of, one of them, we grew from about 5 deals a month to about 25 deals a month. As much was coming in, we spent about 26 worth of deals out the door. That doesn’t work, so then we had to restructure that.
That was my introduction to, okay, it doesn’t matter how much you make, you got to actually focus on what you’re keeping as well. Through a series of events, I moved across the country, worked with another investor, helped him get his finances in order because now I had that skill from the previous businesses I was a part of, and then from there, just saw that this was an epidemic.
Lots of people were making it, and didn’t know where it’s going. I started a fractional CFO company, simple CFO, that helps a lot of real estate investors and now other business owners know what they’re making, spending, and keeping. I’m also the author of Profit First for Real Estate Investing.
Toby: Fantastic. You just hit a lot of information there, so let me start to break it down. I’m easy. I was looking at it and say, hey, there are three reasons people need something and they don’t realize it. In this particular case, basically a rental CFO. I see this over and over again, where clients call you up, they’re asking a million questions, and I can see that it’s going to be today’s questions, but they’re going to have next week’s and the following weeks. They’re asking the type of questions where I’m like, you really need a wingman on this.
In the case of tax, finances, and operating in a business-like manner, it really does come down to being a CFO, which is a Chief Financial Officer, somebody who’s responsible for these things. That’s where you come into play.
You got into this space, it sounds like because you saw a lot of the same things. What do you do for people? We should knock out and let’s see if we can’t do three, the three top reasons that real estate investors need somebody like you, your organization, and don’t realize it.
David: I’ll tackle the first question. What do we actually do? What we do is we help lay the foundation of finances 101. For a lot of the business owners that we come in and help, we help them make sure they have a good bookkeeping system and process in place.
If you’re not using Anderson, if you’re using someone else, or whatever, it’s like, okay, use the right person and have the right team members, but also the right system so you’re getting the P&L balance sheet cash flow statement on a monthly basis. Can we at least get that in place? Then we implement the Profit First system, which is a cash flow system telling every dollar where to go in your business. From there, we put all the data into a CFO dashboard. That’s how the CFO and the owner meet together as CFO and CEO to go over.
Where has our money gone? Where is it now? Where do we want it to go projecting? Like you said, Toby, a lot of the questions that they want to usually force a bookkeeper or CPA to answer, it’s like, well, no, they’re there to do a specific role. They can’t answer the million questions that you might have. It’s more of like, here’s the things that need to happen on the business side. That’s where we set up the dashboard to give people a very clear view of all the numbers that they’re going to need at their fingertips.
That’s the service that we provide, having that high level person as a part of their team. I can go into that deeper, but let me tackle the second question, the three reasons why someone would even need a CFO. I would say that one of the biggest reasons comes from, I think, one of the biggest mistakes that real estate investors and business owners make. (1) They just don’t know what they need from their business. That’s a number one big thing, they just don’t have a goal of what we should actually be taking home.
That’s where a lot of people get caught up. They built their whole business on a hope and pray plan. I hope I make enough, I pray there’s some leftover at the end of the day, and it’s just going around. Especially with a lot of the real estate investors that you and I know and that we work with, a lot of them jump from the W-2 world into real estate investing and thinking that’s going to be the ticket to get out of the rat race. They built themselves a bigger wheel inside of a bigger rat race.
That’s one of the first things we do. Why do you have this business? And what do you need? Another thing that people get caught up in is the comparison syndrome, especially if they’re on social media, especially if they listen to podcasts, they go to events, or I’m part of a mastermind like, they’re doing seven figures a month, seven figures a year, or whatever, like, I shouldn’t be doing that. And then they’re dissatisfied with their business.
Just like a guy who I talked to just a few weeks ago. He had his best year ever. He did $500,000 in gross profit and $300,000 net, but was sad because he was in this other mastermind, where a lot of people were doing seven figures, and he was like, oh, I should be there. I’m like, how old are you? He’s like, 25. I’m like, what did you do the year before? $100,000. Do you realize what you have right now and where you’re able to go over the next 10 years with a good solid foundation like that?
A lot of people don’t understand where they are and what they need from their business. I’m getting very clear on that. We have a whole framework of make, spend, keep. Making sure people know those basic numbers in their business. What are they making? Where are they spending it? Is it in the right places? And are they keeping enough of it from the business?
That’s one way we dig down deep and why you need a CFO to pull out, what do we need from our business? Are all of our decisions made to reflect that goal? You just said you wanted to do five more flips a month. Is that going to take you away from your family, which you told us at the beginning here was your big reason? Just making sure that the financial decisions match up with where they want to go. That’d be number one.
(2) I would say why you need a CFO is a lot of people just don’t know what to do with the cash once it hits their account. Toby, you probably see this out in the marketplace, too. There are so many people that are very good at telling how to get a deal in the door or how to make money in real estate or as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, but then once that deal closes, they get that check, and they post it on Facebook, that’s when it stops. That’s when the education stops.
That’s where we pick up. You have the money now, what do you do with it? Let’s talk about that? How are we going to spread out that $50,000 check that you just made from that flip or from the sale of whatever? That’s where we want to make sure you know where every dollar is going.
That’s why I even wrote Profit First for Real Estate Investing because even if you can’t work with a CFO, can you get at least the basic foundation of, where should every dollar go? It’s almost like a little CFO in your pocket to make sure that you know that here’s a good foundation.
Toby: Do you mean I can’t just spend it all, David?
David: Right, exactly. I was just literally on a call right before this podcast, where the guy was like, I’m addicted to spending the dollars that come in my bank account. I want them to come in and then I want them to go out as fast as possible. But thankfully, this guy too had some reserves.
I’m like, okay, you do spend it, but you also have built enough discipline where you actually have cash in the bank, too. Sometimes I have that conversation and they’re like, yes, I’m addicted to spending, and it’s all gone. They’re running the red line. If one deal goes sideways, look out. They have to borrow money just to stay in business.
Toby: What about the client that learns the hard way that just because they spent it, doesn’t mean that they don’t owe taxes on it?
David: Right? Yeah. Now we’re going to go a little deeper here because Profit First, one of the systems and part of that system is setting up, literally, bank accounts, just like the envelope method, if you’ve heard of that. One of the envelopes that you set up is an owner’s tax account. Making sure from each deal that closes, you have the money there for taxes so that way, you don’t have to worry at tax time like, hey, even though you might have spent every other dollar, if you have the tax account there, you can at least still not have to worry about, oh, shoot, we got to go on extension, I got to go on a payment plan, how long until I catch up the taxes?
That’s where a lot of people have that stress. Honestly, having just a game plan like that, it usually covers the CFO cost. It’s making sure that we have a game plan for the dollars. If I don’t have to worry about the taxes at tax time, okay, I’m good to go. That would be number two, having a system for the cash and being able to cash flow projects as well too. Where have I bank cash wise, where am I now, and where do I want to be?
How much do I want to go towards profit? How much do I want to go towards paying myself? How much do I want to put towards the taxes, to grow the business, and to invest in all the different things that people want from their business? That would be number two, knowing where every dollar is going and then to free up for whatever they really want they started their business for.
The third one, why work with someone? (3) The difference between reading the book and working with the person is accountability. You read the book and you say, wow, this is a great concept, this is a great thing, but then no one’s driving you to actually take the action and to say, hey, why didn’t you set up the accounts or, here, we’ve got to go over these numbers so you can make a decision that could ultimately bring you a lot more money in the door. It’s being able to have someone there that gets you in rhythms with your money, too.
A lot of people are afraid of the financial aspect of their business because they think that it’s going to be such a time waste, a time suck, or I don’t like it. That’s not my background, I’m the sales marketing person, I just like acquisitions, I like that type of stuff. But then they don’t realize what the financial aspect can unlock for them and if they have systems in place, how little they have to think about the money?
They think by thinking about it and talking about that they’re going to be consumed by it, and they don’t have to be. We have to get these systems in place so that way, on a regular basis, we teach people what we do and those clients that we work with on a weekly basis, transfer your money. If money comes in, making sure it’s going to the proper accounts and giving every dollar that name.
Let’s get in that rhythm every month. At least on a monthly basis, reviewing the money. Where did it go? Where is it now? Where are we going with it? What decisions do we need to make on a quarterly basis?
This is why I love Profit First too. We help people actually take profit out of their business and use it for why they started their business. We actually set up a profit account with people and say, this is your Y account. Tell me, why did you start your business? Oh, to spend more time with family. Then use it towards that.
One of the clients last year bought an RV with some of the profit money from his business and took a three-week road trip with his family. That literally bought what his idea of financial freedom was. On a quarterly basis, we’re trying to get people in the habit of not only building profit in their business, but then using it for what they wanted to, whether that’s family time or giving.
We’ve got a lot of people that set up a giving account and give to causes, things like that. I love stuff like that. It’s also, okay, do you want to pay down your portfolio and have less debt because that’s what you want for your life and your business? Use it towards that. Just helping people on a quarterly basis and get into that rhythm of actually taking the profit.
We help them build rhythms weekly, monthly, quarterly. Where’s the money going? Making sure they know what’s going on inside of their business. That’s that accountability piece, which you don’t get from a book or from just listening to a podcast. Those are the three major reasons for a lot of the people that are like, why hire a CFO or why have someone?
A lot of people, if you’re listening to this, CFO, what the heck is that? First of all, if you don’t know what CFO is, it’s chief financial officer. If you’re thinking like, oh, my gosh, I just hear about people like CFO on the news, usually they’re attached to some huge corporation. That’s why we’re talking about a part time CFO here.
Toby, you mentioned, you’re renting the CFO’s time. It’s nowhere near the $200,000 a year that a CFO might command at a job out in the marketplace or even north of that. It’s cost effective, but then also, we come to where you are. Because if you’re a business owner, and you’re doing 10 deals a year or 50 deals a year, it’s like, okay, you are not ready for a full time CFO, but you need someone there as you’re growing and scaling. That way, if you’re making $500,000 now, you’re not making the same mistakes, but with another zero at 5 million.
What are we doing now to make sure that we have the money, where it’s going, and where we want to head to? A lot of people ask, how big do I need to be to work with you? $200,000 in gross profit usually or doing 5 to 10 deals a year, if you’re starting there and growing, that’s where we start with people.
If you’re smaller than that, that’s great. Get the book, get Profit First. Like I said, get the CFO in your pocket. Get the Profit First for Real Estate Investing. If you’re outside of real estate, get Profit First by Mike Michalowicz.
Get something like that. That way, if you’re using Anderson and you’re using a service like that, then it’s like, okay, they’re helping me know where my money’s going, getting it all in order, what do I need to do with it to be the business owner, and to be as effective as possible with it to pay as little taxes as possible, but then also to make sure I know that I’m going the tax money at tax time.
There’s just a couple of things as well too. The three reasons why someone might need a CFO and then some of the things of a CFO. I never even heard of that. Why would I need to do this? There’s a couple of those. I’ve got lots of stories of people that have gone through the process, but those are just some of the main points.
Toby: I appreciate that. If I heard you correctly, because I’ve read Profit First, at least a good chunk of it, it’s one of those things where you start reading it, then you start implementing, start reading, and start implementing. Let me see if I’m going to be in the ballpark because profit first means actually cutting out your profit and putting it into a separate account. We do this. We’re a midsize company of about 500-plus employees.
We will know what our financial position is on a daily basis by figuring out what our bills are, what our estimated costs are, and how much we’re going to be paying out and profit and everything else. We assign that because it’s not going to tell it that that will not be the information that’s on your P&L.
David: Right, that’s the truth.
Toby: What you guys are doing is actually setting up separate bank accounts. You’re taking it a step further because we’ll have one operating account. We have multiple banks because banks do fail, so we never want to leave ourselves exposed and get some custodial accounts.
You sit there and you’re like, okay, this is where this money is going. It’s already allocated, it’s in there, but it’s already spent. It may be your tax, it may be your profit, it may be your credit card, it may be special projects, it may be your next deal, but you guys are setting up actual accounts and actually redirecting the money?
David: Exactly, because let’s just be honest. Most entrepreneurs, especially if they are in the beginning stages to probably mid stage, anywhere from $100,000 to a million, 2 million, 3, million, some of them might still be giving receipts to their CPA. I’ve seen that at the million dollar level even. It’s like, okay, if they’re not even going to get a bookkeeper or someone in place because they might be a daunting task, let’s be honest too, we don’t get trained on the financial side like we do the marketing and sales side. It’s boring out there for a lot of people or whatever.
The excuse is that a lot of people give, which I wholeheartedly agree with, a lot of them. It’s like, okay, they don’t have anything in place, well, then you’re going to manage the money that flows through your fingers. You’re going to have money flow through. You’re going to have the deals closed. You’re going to have the properties close. You’re going to have expenses go out the door and at least know where it’s going.
That’s why we set up that system instead of bank accounts because one of the big mistakes a lot of investors make is having one big bank account, where all the money goes in, all the money goes out, they have no system like a QuickBooks or a financial person on the team to tell them what all that money is, so then they’re flying by the seat of the pants, making every decision by one big bank balance or one small bank balance. If it’s big, yes, we can spend the money. If it’s small, oh, boy, I better close those deals, and then I could spend the money.
That’s how they’re making every financial decision. What we want to do is help them have clarity, that clarity that no matter what, if you have the books, or if you have whatever, at least we can know where the money’s going, and then we can add the books in, so that way you can feel like that business owner.
That was so great because you said that the P&L is way different than the money in your account. Cash is way different than a P&L statement. The P&L will help you know if you’re a healthy company. The cash will also help you know, do we have enough to do what we need to do and what the business wants to provide for us for the new initiatives or for the taxes that come up? It’s different types of questions that you need to ask yourself.
That’s why Profit First is the practical side. The mindset side is what we’ve heard a lot before in the past. It’s like Robert Kiyosaki saying, pay yourself first, or the richest man in Babylon, a lot of these books, a portion of all you have is yours to keep. We’ve been taught that lesson.
Profit First says, instead of sales minus expenses equals profit, meaning I make a sale, pay everyone else and their mom, and then hopefully I have some money at the end of the day. Profit First says the formula is sales minus profit equals expenses, meaning I make a sale, I take my profit off the table, and then the expenses are to grow the business, but I’m making sure I’m healthy first.
Toby: This is something you hit on because most entrepreneurs have shiny toy disease, which means that if they have the money, they’re going to go invest in it. They’re going to chase after another idea. Quite often, they’re spending down their account, and there’s nothing left at the end of the month or end of the year because they’ve taken what would have been profit and reinvested it into something else that seemed like a good idea, because they had the ability to do it. A lot of it is impulse buying.
It’s almost like an addiction. They’re going to try this, they’re going to try that, and they’re going to try the other. We’re all guilty of it. Anybody that’s been an entrepreneur knows what I’m talking about.
What a CFO is doing is sitting there with the mirror. The agreed upon metrics and saying, actually, the tax, we’re estimating, we’re putting aside 20% for tax. That money is already spent, the credit card is actually X. That money spent, we have these renewals coming up, these anticipated expenses, and that’s what we estimated that to be at. This is what you really have.
There might be $100,000 in the account, but it’s really $10,000 in the account that is spendable. But if you didn’t know that, you might just be inclined to go and say, well, I got $100,000, I’ll spend $30,000.
David: Right, exactly. Then you’ve shot yourself on the foot
Toby: I want to get something specific, David. The dashboard that you guys use. Is that agreed upon KPIs or key performance indicators? If you’ve never heard of that. Are these agreed upon metrics that you guys are using? Or is it something that is a standard that you guys use?
David: Specifically, we work with a lot of real estate investors, so a lot of it is built around that, but it’s a lot around the Profit First methodology. Making sure that when money comes in, where does it go? And around making sure we can analyze the P&L’s balance sheets and those types of things.
We’re also analyzing personnel. Is this person actually producing a return? What are those types of things? We do a cash flow projection of like, okay, what projects do you have under management right now? How much funding do you have? How much funding will you need in the next 30 days, 60 days, 90 days to complete all your projects? Making sure they’re funded.
It’s those types of things that we track on there. That way, they know not just the KPIs of like, here’s where we’ve made the money spent and kept it, the major KPIs on the financial side, and knowing what is our gross profit, what’s our margin, what’s all the different things that they need to know, but then also diving in more of the whole financial picture of, here’s where you can make the best decision with where the money needs to go for your business. It’s those types of things that we analyze inside that dashboard.
One of the things we go over first is just clarity. How much clarity do you have from the books that you’re getting? Do you know the cash that’s sitting in your account right now? Like you were just saying, if you got $100,000 there, do you know how much you can spend of it? That’s one of the first things we go through on that dashboard. How clear are things in your business right now?
Toby: You used a couple of metrics and you said, hey, if you’re doing $200,000 a year, gross, if you’re in real estate, that can be quick. Is that a net off of the sale? Or could you just be flipping a property a year and you still could use this?
David: I would say that’s more net off the sale. One of the first clients we even took on, we still work with him. That first year, after we started working with him, he did five deals because the year before, he went into his CPA’s office and she said, looking at your books, I’d never get into real estate, and then the kicker was, you lost $70,000 last year.
He was very typical of a lot of investors because that last year, tried scaling, did 80-hour, 90-hour, 100-hour weeks, went to three, four deals a month, wife started working in the business like going nuts. It was just absolutely painful. From there, the next year here, we said the first thing.
The first mistake that a lot of people make is the hope and pray plan. We sat down and said, what do you need to keep from your business? He figured out what he needed from his business, and he’s like, I only need to do five deals a year. What the heck? It was just eye-opening to him.
Toby: Five good deals.
David: Five good deals a year. Exactly. You could be starting out, but it’s just getting that clarity, and then that’s the starting point with a lot of people that we’re working with.
Toby: Getting into it before you make the mistake 10 times over. If he knew that he was losing money on a deal, which sometimes we hide from ourselves, we know and figure, well, I’m losing it, but if I did 10 of these, by economies of scale, somehow I’m not losing money. I’ll make it up in volume and it blows their foot off.
David: I like how Keith Cunningham puts it in his books. If you’ve ever read any of his books, a great business author. He says, if you scale cancer, the tumor grows. You’re just scaling it up, and it just gets bigger and bigger, and you’re like, oh, what the heck happened?
A lot of people think, now, I know one of the root problems is the mindset of income solves all problems. If I just closed that next deal or if I closed the biggest deal ever, I will be financially secure. That day never comes because that’s not the answer. The answer is you need income, but then you need a process to keep it as well, too, and to be sustainable, repeatable, and consistent.
Toby: All right. If somebody’s sitting out there listening and they realize, wait a second, we’re doing more than that, we’re making $500,000 a year, I feel this pressure, I never know what my tax bill is, even though I meet with my tax guys a couple times a year, you’re never going to get there with an outside accountant who’s doing your tax prep.
I talk to people all the time. They’re always saying, I just need someone to be my coach. I’m like, no, you need a CFO. You need someone who’s going to be the CFO of your family. Sometimes that’s the person. They have the skill sets and the discipline to do it, but no.
If you’re trying to wear too many hats, it just becomes really difficult. Here you go. This is the opportunity to hire somebody on a part time basis. It’s not an employee, they’re going to an organization. What is the name of your organization?
David: Simple CFO.
Toby: You go to Simple CFO. At minimum, how many hours a month are they committed for with the CFO?
David: We have two different plans. There’s a biweekly meeting structure or weekly meeting structure, 60-90 minutes. Those are usually the meeting types. The first three months, we’re probably going to be meeting on a weekly basis no matter what, just because we need to learn your business.
We tried to not take a lot of your time. That might be meeting with your bookkeepers, the CPAs, just making sure everything’s working in tandem. That’s as far as the hourly stuff.
Toby: We’re talking, once this gets going, 24 meetings. Is that about 24 meetings a year? Right around there?
David: Yes. Once it’s up and running, it could be 24 meetings a year, biweekly meetings.
Toby: Just let that sink in. It’s not massive, it’s just having accountability. I just used this. A good friend of mine is a negotiator. He always talks about how people go into negotiations without coaches. I think it’s Usain Bolt, the fastest guy in the world. He goes, he’s the fastest guy in the world, but does he say, no, I’m so good at this, I don’t need a coach. No, he has a coach.
CFO is your financial coach, who’s sitting there making you accountable, looking at it, and making you better. I’m just always shocked that I meet executives that don’t have one. They’ll go to their accountant once a year, dump a whole bunch of information on it, and hope that they can get some advice out of it.
Usually, if it’s me, I’m talking to people and I’m like, we could have done this, this, or this last year. They’re like, nobody told me, nobody told me. I’m like, well, okay, we need to be forward thinking. Then they want me to be that person and I’m like, that’s not my role. My role is to make sure I’m an asset protection guy and a tax guy, but you really do need a player on your team like a CFO.
If you’re that person who’s sitting out there, and you know you’re in that situation, what’s the methodology? How do they find you? How do they engage? How do you know if it’s appropriate for that individual to even engage and do a part time CFO?
David: That’s where I was saying, if you’re doing at least $200,000 in gross profit, at least I would say, five fix and flips, or wholesale deals a year and you’re scaling, you want to actually grow from there. You’re not just like, okay, I’m fine with this, I have a W-2 job, and I’m not going to scale from there. That would be the base of having a conversation, at least.
As far as reaching out to us, we actually have a link with Anderson. It’s simplecfo.com/anderson. There, I give you the full book, Profit First for Real Estate Investing. You can download that. I want you to have the basic outline so that way, you don’t have to be flying by the seat of your pants anymore.
It also has to keep the number form. That way, if you do work with us, you could come in and say, hey, I know what I need to keep from my business. That way, you can get a head start. Talk over that with your spouse or whatever. Make sure that you’re on the same page about what I need from the business.
From there, you could schedule a call. The next page from there, once you get that info and just download it, then you just can schedule a call with our team. It’s going to be no pressure because if we’re not the right solution, we have good people as well in our network to make sure that, hey, it might not be the right time, but if it is, we’ll go and talk about what we do and all that. That’s how you do it, simplecfo.com/anderson.
Toby: We’ll post that link to make it easy for people. Thank you for doing that. Thank you for giving them the book. I’m just going to preface this because I’m not going to ask you what it costs, because cost to me is never the issue. The value is always the issue. If somebody can put an extra $30,000 a year in my pocket and it costs me five or whatever it is, is it worth it? Yes. If it costs me 10, is it worth it? Yes.
I’m always looking at a multiple. It’s not what things cost, it’s worth the value because you could pay for somebody to cost you a ton of money. We’ve all done that and have that t-shirt too, anybody in real estate does. You know, you take the lowest bid on all your contractors, and you learn pretty quickly that it’s not always what you thought.
David: The lowest bid is the highest bid.
Toby: Yup, it ends up costing you the most sometimes. You just want to get it done right, and then you’re willing to pay for somebody to do it right. If somebody reaches out, they talk to you, you determine whether it’s appropriate, and then you just do a deep dive. You said you’re talking about weekly meetings there right in the beginning.
What does it look like over the years? Is this something where somebody’s scaling up their business, and then they need more time or whatever? Is that something where they still talk to you guys? Or are they on their own and they’re going to have to go find their own CFO?
David: There’s a couple different ways people have exited before. (1) they have actually scaled to be big enough for a full time CFO. We’ve graduated some people out of our program into like, hey, you need now a 40-hour week person sitting on your team because you’ve now reached this threshold of that. We’ve been talking with them, when is that threshold, how much money do you need to be making, and all that.
(2) Another reason as well too, it might be like, hey, you’re into it, and you’ve been like, I’ve gotten everything that I need, I’ve got now a person on my staff who’s more of a controller/they’ve taken over the dashboard. That’s fine as well too. I want to get you up and running and then making sure that you’re flying on your own. If you need us long term, great. If you don’t, I don’t lock anyone in for years at a time.
It’s just more of like, let’s get the information, let’s get it locked in here, and then, hey, whenever you need to be able to either graduate out of the system, or to a full time CFO, or if we’ve done everything that we can and you have someone on your team, that’s usually when we hand it off to them. There’s a couple of different options there. We’ve done that several times now, where people have gotten actually big enough to have their own full time person on staff.
Toby: Fantastic. We’re going to put the link, and hopefully people can reach out to you if they see they’re in that need. It’s like your own family, CFO. If you’re the investor, you got your full time job, and you got your investment job, making sure that you’re putting the money so your money works for you and not the other way around, which is exactly where we want to be. We want to let our assets give us the ability to enjoy life a little bit. It sounds like you help people do that.
Thank you, David, for joining us. Again, I’ll put your link in there. Hopefully, some folks that are in know that this is an appropriate need. We’ll reach out to you guys and get that in. If nothing else, if they just use the link, they’re still going to get your book, right?
David: Yup, they’re getting the full book.
Toby: There you go.
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