Scaling Your Fractional Business with EOS

00;00;02;16 – 00;00;03;20
Speaker 1
Welcome, everyone.

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Speaker 1
to fractional operator I’m your host, Mike Nelson from hourglass SaaS, the operations platform built for fractional operators by fractional operators.

00;00;13;29 – 00;00;34;08
Speaker 1
And, you know, one of my favorite things, and I’m bringing this up because I think it’s one of our guests favorite things about hourglass is, the transparency that hourglass offers our clients. You know, our client portal allows not just simplified billing for us, but it also allows our clients to log in and be able to see what’s being done, who did it when it was done.

00;00;34;10 – 00;00;49;00
Speaker 1
And I just really have always love that transparency that we have with our clients that holds us accountable and, gives them a nice window into what we’re doing for them. So but that being said, welcome. Sabrina Hauser from capital CFO. Plus, how are you?

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Speaker 2
I’m good. Mike, how are you?

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Speaker 1
I am fantastic. I’m enjoying this sunny day, as we were talking about before we, went live here and, you know, looking forward to the pool later on. And, yeah, just work, work, work. Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 2
Suburban plan. What’s that with a little bit of play?

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Speaker 1
A little bit of play. Yes. I’m trying to, you know, summertime. I don’t know about you, but we’re like, we see this weird. I don’t want to call it a slowdown, but it’s like business becomes fits and starts because everybody’s vacationing and they’re less responsive. So like when things are quiet, I try to take advantage and till the next, busy moment.

00;01;28;22 – 00;01;31;09
Speaker 2
So yes, it’s the perfect way to describe it.

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Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, thank you, thank you. I didn’t even practice at Sabrina. So, Sabrina, I was really looking forward to this interview with you for a few reasons. One of the big ones, though, is that you’ve been in business for about ten years. Right. 2016 you launched and you’ve got.

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Speaker 2
2016.

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Speaker 1
Yeah. Right. So you’ve got a great business, solid business. And talking to you about how it started and what you’ve done over the years, I think is going to be so helpful to anyone listening. But before we get into that stuff, maybe just give us kind of a quick overview of capital CFO, CFO plus and kind of what you guys do.

00;02;15;03 – 00;02;45;12
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I think, the fact that you just made that mistake of like CFO versus CFO plus talks a lot about how the business has evolved over the last ten years. So, when I first started, it was just capital CFO. We offered outsourcing, bookkeeping and CFO services for our clients. And then immediately after I started, clients were asking me for more, services that were beyond just the CFO stuff that we did.

00;02;45;12 – 00;03;11;17
Speaker 2
So I want to say in, gosh, I think 2021, 2022 was when we rebranded to add the plus. So now we’re a full service outsource solution for our clients, and we offer finance, marketing and HR services. So all of the back end office work that businesses and nonprofits need.

00;03;11;19 – 00;03;33;25
Speaker 1
Yeah, I first of all, I love the pivots that businesses make as time goes on. Right. And I’ve always said one of my favorite things about entrepreneurs is you’re doing something a client says, hey, can you do this? And our answer is always like, well, yeah, I, I can say right here, you know.

00;03;33;27 – 00;04;00;22
Speaker 2
I think we absolutely can. So this is why I love talking to you, because this is what you do all the time. Like you, you’re constantly thinking in that forward. What can we do next? How can we help next? And that that sparked a lot of how we came to be. Yeah. And I think that’s why you and I work so well together.

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Speaker 1
Well, and we’re both like,

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Speaker 1
Serial optimists, maybe like we’re.

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Speaker 2
that talk. You think of a serial optimist. That’s great.

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Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, it’s you know, it’s one of those things that, like, I think you have to be in order to make the pivots that you and I have made over the year in business, where it’s like, because when someone asks you to do something that it’s. And I love this conversation to you, by the way, I’ll will dig into a little bit more.

00;04;25;11 – 00;04;40;15
Speaker 1
But I just love the fact that when someone asks an entrepreneur, like I said, like, can you do this? It takes a serial optimist to be like, yeah, I can do this, or I’ve never done this, but I can figure this out and make it worth the money. You’re going to pay me to do it, right?

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Speaker 2
Like, yeah, yeah, okay. That’s a really positive spin on how my brain works. So I’m going to go with that.

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Speaker 1
So but it also I in the conversation I really want to have with you is there’s people that I admire because they do one thing. They do that one thing and they do it amazingly well and love.

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Speaker 2
That as people.

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Speaker 1
Right. And then there’s people like you and I that like, we’re doing so many things inside of our business because we want to help everyone that we can. And but it’s also it’s it’s like tough to manage. And I always like almost envy those people. Like I had Jared Humberstone on from, 80 K techs recently. And he was talking about how a couple of years ago, he just completely simplified his business away from doing, like, what you and I do, which is all these things that we are trying to be for our clients to like, here’s what we do.

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Speaker 1
And I was like, wow, that sounds so amazing. I do think that it’s like better to folk I know, right? Do you think it’s better to try to focus on that simplification or running complex, busier businesses? I mean, or maybe.

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Speaker 2
It’s such a good question. Okay, so and I’m going to say that we, we actually did this with our business. So we used to offer a lot more different services. And then we did, iOS

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Speaker 2
and roses and was operating systems. But at the end where we went to an in-house

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Speaker 2
workshop and then we started self implementing that with, my leadership team.

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Speaker 2
And one of the things, that my VP of marketing said was we’re offering five solutions and five seems too many. Can we streamline to three? And at first I was like, no, no, I like the vibe. I feel like it’s what our clients need. And she said, to be honest, when we’re looking at the numbers like, I don’t think they’re using the other two, so can we, can we simplify this a little bit and, and streamline it a little bit?

00;07;04;05 – 00;07;29;17
Speaker 2
So we did do that. I don’t think there’s a one size fits all. And I don’t think you and I would fit really well. Like we do this one thing and we do it because I, I tried that right. Like when I started it was just, oh, I’m just going to focus on the CFO role. And then three seconds into it, I had somebody asked me if I can do fun development.

00;07;29;17 – 00;07;59;17
Speaker 2
I was like, I did that for 20 years. Of course I can help non-profits do that. Of course I can step in and help you do that. And I loved it. So I, I just don’t think, I think you have to stick to what you love. And I think you have to do that really well. So we if we’re doing three things, 20 things, starting multiple businesses like you do and then I think you just have to have the right people in place to help you do those things and, and do them really well.

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Speaker 2
So the people that do my finance, that is all they do, and they do that really well. And same thing with marketing, same thing with HR. It’s their sole focus. But as a company we offer more than just the one thing.

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Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. It’s I have like a love hate relationship with it. I’m not going to lie. You know, and I do it to myself to be fair.

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Speaker 2
Cause it’s their company, so stop it if you want to stop it. But you can’t.

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Speaker 1
But you can’t. You’re.

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Speaker 2
Your brain would never let you.

00;08;31;03 – 00;08;58;18
Speaker 1
My I know, and that’s the the wrestling match I constantly have. Right? Is like God. The idea of simplifying everything sounds so amazing. And at the same time, the idea of simplifying everything sounds so boring is that, I don’t know, I feel like it’s going to. This can turn into some sort of therapy session here. Sabrina, I need to lay down on the couch while we have this conversation.

00;08;58;20 – 00;09;21;15
Speaker 1
So so we’re having the right people in place. And you were talking about iOS, as well, which I love. EOS. We have our lab. We have it. Yeah, we have our level ten meeting every Friday. And honestly, probably most of the problems that we have in the business is because we’re ignoring some of the principles of EOS, and not doing it correctly.

00;09;21;15 – 00;09;32;09
Speaker 1
But, when you were implementing EOS on your own, what was it easily adopted by your team? Like, how did they know? You know, that change? No.

00;09;32;11 – 00;09;49;27
Speaker 2
So my leadership team was all for it. And the ones that weren’t aren’t here anymore, and you knew right away, and you knew why right away. And it really was the accountability that comes with the EOS that.

00;09;49;29 – 00;10;21;08
Speaker 2
You knew they weren’t doing what they were supposed to be doing. So to be held accountable to it was making them uncomfortable. Yeah. But the people that learned it right away realized how important it was. And, so I am described by somebody whose leadership style at rolling my eyes when I say this is I lead with my heart, you know, lead with like, group authority.

00;10;21;10 – 00;10;44;17
Speaker 2
I don’t lean into authority very well. EOS really helps me to do that because the numbers are the numbers. The scorecard is the scorecard, the To-Do list is the To-Do list. And if every week we’re talking about the same thing, everybody in that room should feel uncomfortable by saying, like, that’s still in process, right? I certainly feel uncomfortable.

00;10;44;20 – 00;11;11;11
Speaker 2
So, I, I think it’s really helpful for people like me that don’t lean into authority because it gives you a structure when the formula to follow. And I love a formula and I love the list. So somebody that again I’m rolling my eyes, leans in and leads with her heart. This makes it much easier to be like, okay, you’re not doing your job.

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Speaker 1
Kind of gives you the mechanism for it, right?

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Speaker 2
Yeah. And the formula.

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Speaker 1
And the formula. Yeah.

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Speaker 2
Yeah. Because what happens to people that lead with their heart is, the second it gets turned off, it gets turned like that, the poses off, and then it’s filled with resentment, like I’ve done blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You can’t even do global, you know, and then you start d’Italia in your mind. And so this just makes it clean and still allows me to, to lead with kindness.

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Speaker 1
Very nice. Yeah, I, I feel like I have a similar problem. I again you and I are a lot of like and in a lot of ways. So I like, I can feel what you’re saying because I’m always trying to focus on the human side of business and, and be understanding that people have to live and they have lives and there’s other things happening in their life, just like there’s other things happening in my life.

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Speaker 1
But at the end of the day, the job has to get done. And, you know, can be hard to be the meanie.

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Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. But this gives you the structure to be like, it’s been three weeks. That should have been done. And then after three weeks, you can say like, you got one more week, like, we can’t keep talking about it, you know? So it’s really been helpful for me. And I have to say now that the people that weren’t, didn’t want to be held accountable are gone.

00;12;42;20 – 00;13;07;04
Speaker 2
But the the team loves it because they’re like, we’re we’re all working now because they knew it. You know, like the people that were working were like, why am I being held accountable? And this person’s not so, it’s it’s helped all around and helps all around. I should be a spoke. I should be a spokesperson for hourglass and EOS.

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Speaker 2
I can’t say enough. Good things about it. It’s.

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Speaker 1
So let’s. As much as I’d love to bring you into a conversation about hourglass, let’s talk about, scaling and growing. So when, when you first launched, you’re coming from a nonprofit background and it was just you in the beginning.

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Speaker 2
It was just me. And I was still running my nonprofit. So I did this as, let’s see. And let’s dip my toe. And the nonprofit meant so much to me, I wasn’t ready to say, even though I knew I was done. I wasn’t ready to say out loud, I’m done. And I wasn’t ready to let anybody in the community know I’m done.

00;13;55;22 – 00;14;15;08
Speaker 2
So I did it kind of secretively, like I didn’t I didn’t market it. I didn’t like, talk to too many people about it. And how do you grow something when you’re doing it that way? Like, it just felt,

00;14;15;10 – 00;14;38;11
Speaker 2
Counterintuitive to what I was trying to do. So I think after two years and I broke in those two years, my husband said to me like, hey, you did need a side hustle. You already work 80, 90 hours a week. Like, what are you doing with this? Are you are you going to do it or are you going to stay?

00;14;38;13 – 00;14;58;24
Speaker 2
And I had a girlfriend sent me down to be like, this can’t go on. Like you’re breaking. Your body’s breaking. Your brain is breaking. So set a date like a shed or get off the pot date. And I gave myself one more year, and I was like, in one year, I, I need to be this thought.

00;14;58;27 – 00;15;21;19
Speaker 2
And then I backtracked from there. I was like, I want to give my organization six months. I do not recommend that, but I want to give my realization six months. So that means I need to be in this spot by June so that I can resign by the end of the year. And I said the goal and I hit it, so I yeah, I resigned and gave them six months.

00;15;21;21 – 00;15;48;24
Speaker 2
And that was like I mean, they raised me right. And the whole reason I’m able to do what I did was because of them. So then I just launched like 2020. I was like, okay, this is like now it’s there and, and I don’t have any other safety net. And then Covid hit. So you have to say, because I just said I’m Chicken Little, so it’s just me.

00;15;48;24 – 00;16;07;11
Speaker 2
I think I have two bookkeepers I’m kind of talking to another CFO about, like, will you come on and partner with me? And, so that’s how it was going to be structured. It was me, these two bookkeepers. I was going to be the CFO. They were just going to do the bookkeeping. And then immediately thereafter, people were asking me for additional services.

00;16;07;13 – 00;16;29;00
Speaker 2
And then I realized like, oh, I really have to run the company. I can’t be doing any of the work. So I really have to have a team. And then when Covid hit, you would think that somebody that’s Chicken Little would be like, oh my God, great. Like the sky is actually falling. I felt so validated.

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Speaker 2
I was like, I’m told you dummies.

00;16;33;12 – 00;17;04;00
Speaker 2
This guy wasn’t going to fall. The earth is going to end like the world through the stuff. So I felt so much latitude of life. So it did happen. But Covid, I think, might help fractional businesses a lot. I think other ASM. Right. Like I first of all, it taught people that my staff can be remote. I didn’t have to teach them that Covid taught them not and I didn’t have to sell them on that.

00;17;04;03 – 00;17;31;15
Speaker 2
Covid did it all. And then, as people were realize they like, oh, I, I, I need this or but I don’t need it full time. It really opened up a ton of doors for us. And people were losing their people. You know, either people were going away because they were realizing this isn’t what I want to do.

00;17;31;15 – 00;17;59;02
Speaker 2
Like, I think people really self-reflect at a lot and they’re like, this isn’t what I want to do. This isn’t where I want to live. So people were leaving, and that’s when clients started asking me for like more and more and more services. So it all just kind of worked out where we went from, you know, me into bookkeepers, and now we’re a staff of 40, and we have three different services that we offer.

00;17;59;02 – 00;18;23;14
Speaker 2
So it it wasn’t hard to scale. And because, you know, a lot of the work that we do and the majority of the work that we do is still financials, like I would say, our books are in order. So like you can figure out when it’s time, you know, like when, when can we hire can we hire, what’s the next position going to look like?

00;18;23;14 – 00;18;36;03
Speaker 2
What do we need? So it’s been, I don’t know, like way more than I could have dreamed or anticipated this would look like.

00;18;36;06 – 00;19;03;05
Speaker 1
It’s interesting that you say scaling is easy, because I feel like that is one of the heart is that has been my biggest struggle over the years is we end up too big, went up to small. You know, we’re we’re almost never in the Goldilocks zone for a client. Yeah, client load versus employee count and gas. And then, you know, I can’t speak to the financial side, and I.

00;19;03;06 – 00;19;25;27
Speaker 1
You probably feel this because you’ve been in marketing now for years. Marketing is something that is ever changing. Like I and I say it and kind of jokingly, but I feel like we have to reinvent our business every three months because, that’s how everything is changing so quickly, though scaling has been always been my number one, challenge.

00;19;25;27 – 00;19;41;20
Speaker 1
So I would love to hear and I’m sure everybody else would love to hear. Like for you. What? Like what makes scaling so easy? Like, what are the things that tell you, like, we need to hire someone. We need to hire this person. Because that’s a really tough answer for a lot of a lot of folks.

00;19;41;22 – 00;20;10;12
Speaker 2
I would think for me, and I hope I’m not giving this as advice, but I would rather have a staff member waiting for the work than a client waiting for a staff. So what we have actually started doing is, looking at our inquiries and potential clients that are coming on and potential work that’s coming on and projecting out based on that.

00;20;10;12 – 00;20;31;25
Speaker 2
So who can take it? Where are they? What do they have on their plate right now? What projects are wrapping up? And the majority of our clients from month to month, which makes it easier because then, you know, this person is locked in at these hours. It’s not a, this person is working on this project. And what’s the project is done.

00;20;31;25 – 00;20;50;05
Speaker 2
They’ll have more time. We have some of those. But the majority of our business is not that so? It makes it a little bit easier. So what we do is we know that somebody is going to need about three months to ramp up. In those three months, they’re going to have a client with that client. They’re going to do a ton of job shadowing with.

00;20;50;08 – 00;21;14;14
Speaker 2
So their manager is actually doing the majority of the work, and they’re just kind of watching how it gets done until they get their feet wet. So we start with the end of like, if all these people come on, who gets assigned what? And then we hire from there. So we know our marketing team is solid and there’s ours available there.

00;21;14;19 – 00;21;46;17
Speaker 2
Same thing with our HR team. There’s hours available. It’s really the accounting people of like when are we bringing somebody on? And I’m not going to say that it always works. So the other thing that we implemented was, we have a director for each of our services, but for accounting specifically, we have a manager. So if somebody does come on and we don’t have staff, it’s that manager’s responsibility to manage the client until a staff member is up running and trained.

00;21;46;19 – 00;22;08;13
Speaker 2
So we kind of have the safety net of a person. But I think for every business, and I certainly don’t want to make it seem like scaling, it’s easy. It’s not. But that’s how we do it. We we hire the staff before we need the staff, knowing that the work is going to come in. The work has always come.

00;22;08;13 – 00;22;29;21
Speaker 2
We’ve always been lucky in that sense of like, that person gets filled. So that’s kind of how we do it on an er end. And like I say, the other two services, our teams have availability. It’s really the accounting that gets bottled. Hello.

00;22;29;23 – 00;22;52;07
Speaker 1
Sure. I imagine the accounting side is a little stickier than, say, the, marketing side or me. I don’t really know much about the HR side of things, but yeah, I obviously I know marketing and, you know, there’s you can’t walk down the street without tripping into someone that’s, you know, a marketing business or marketing company, which sometimes is good.

00;22;52;10 – 00;22;56;27
Speaker 1
I’m all about competition, but sometimes it it drags things down a little bit.

00;22;56;27 – 00;22;59;24
Speaker 2
But, yeah, quite a bit.

00;22;59;27 – 00;23;01;14
Speaker 1
Fun.

00;23;01;16 – 00;23;25;11
Speaker 2
So what’s interesting is it’s the accounting that is the month to month, like the majority of our month to month comes from accounting. HR is really an as needed, you know, as like situations arise or a project comes out or, somebody needs somebody to be recruited or somebody needs somebody to be like, oh, or we haven’t done our handbook in a long time.

00;23;25;11 – 00;23;54;29
Speaker 2
Can you do that? We haven’t done a salary analysis in a long time. Can you do that? But it’s very rare that those clients are monthly. So those clients are really like projects as needed then of our sort of work. But the accounting is, you know, you have to touch that account for a single week in order to make sure that everything’s being done in time and accurately, and they need financials by a certain period of time.

00;23;54;29 – 00;24;16;09
Speaker 2
And, the reports need to be done in order for the reporting to be done. All the bookkeeping has to be done so that that’s why that service is so much harder to plan for. So I just they just need the staff waiting for the work versus the client waiting for the staff.

00;24;16;11 – 00;24;21;01
Speaker 1
As you’ve been growing this business.

00;24;21;03 – 00;24;40;07
Speaker 1
And scaling it. So for a lot of people scaling is a problem. Right. So for you it sounds like scaling has been not the main issue. What would you say where some of the bigger challenges that you saw as you’ve grown this business over the last ten years? Me you explain yourself. Sabrina.

00;24;40;09 – 00;25;10;18
Speaker 2
I think that my because of my background and everything that I did for the nonprofit that I ran, I, had to let go of a lot, and I had to trust the experts, and I was hiring. So I did marketing for my nonprofit really poorly, and I shouldn’t. That’s not what I should be doing. And I don’t know it.

00;25;10;21 – 00;25;40;14
Speaker 2
I know what I find to be esthetically pleasing, but I have a VP of marketing that it does that, and does it really well. And I’ve hired her, so I’ve got to let her take it right. Like I’ve just got to let her do it. Same thing with all the other services. Like I’ve dabbled in all of them doing what I did and doing what I did for, you know, the last ten years that I was doing it like I was the person.

00;25;40;16 – 00;26;07;09
Speaker 2
But that’s why I started this business, was because I shouldn’t have been doing all of those things. I needed experts to do it. So me just letting go and allowing my team to do what they do. Me realizing that you cannot always lead with kindness. Like at the end of the day, we are a business and I’m actually passing other people, if we’re not holding everybody accountable to the same standards.

00;26;07;12 – 00;26;39;03
Speaker 2
And, I find that really hard sometimes because I am constantly thinking of like, but they have this going on that they’ve had this going on for two years, like, this is our lives. So we either accept this person for this is what they’re bringing to us, but they still have to do the job right. Whereas I always go back to but, so it’s me, I, I really I had to let all of that go.

00;26;39;03 – 00;27;08;25
Speaker 2
And, I had to understand that this is not a nonprofit. This is not a I need everybody to feel good about our mission. But at the same time, like, I started this and I wanted to be a place that people want to come to work, you know, like, I don’t want people to have the scary Sundays, and I don’t want them to feel, oh, about the start of the workweek or having to come back from a vacation.

00;27;08;25 – 00;27;32;25
Speaker 2
Like I want them to enjoy it and like, wanted to create a business that did more than just make money. I want it to support communities. So there just has to be a right balance. Falco. Like my my team is right. Like it has to in order for us to be able to make impacts in the community and support communities and support nonprofits more.

00;27;33;00 – 00;28;01;13
Speaker 2
We had drug money coming in to pay our staff and then be able to support those things that I want to do, but in order for money to come in, we have to have standards and we have to hold everybody accountable to those standards. And it just has to be like, that’s it’s a non-negotiable. None then. So we had to adopt core values, which and we had to hire and fire by them.

00;28;01;15 – 00;28;19;27
Speaker 2
And I had to do that. You know, I had to support that. So it is NE a lot of the troubles, are all fires that I created and then had to put out. But I’m learning and I’m getting better at.

00;28;19;29 – 00;28;31;29
Speaker 1
It’s a process, I guess. I, I feel like I really like to, I, I like to make the same mistake like ten times before I really learn from that mistake. So I and off.

00;28;32;00 – 00;28;33;15
Speaker 2
And it’s my biggest problem.

00;28;33;17 – 00;28;54;17
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. That’s that’s what as you were talking that’s all I was thinking about. And it usually is because I’ve made, I won’t say a bad hire. I made the wrong hire and became and said I hold on to them way longer than I should. And, yeah.

00;28;54;19 – 00;28;57;18
Speaker 2
You do that. And then the other aspect of your life.

00;28;57;21 – 00;28;59;03
Speaker 1
Absolutely.

00;28;59;05 – 00;29;01;18
Speaker 2
Okay, so same here, you know.

00;29;01;19 – 00;29;17;16
Speaker 1
Oh, it’s as the way that you do one thing is the way you do everything. Right. So it’s like I yeah, I definitely that’s why I had to stop playing poker years ago because, holding on to a bad hand, you know, and chasing it. And that’s, that’s the story of my life, I guess. But,

00;29;17;18 – 00;29;25;19
Speaker 2
But I guess so. Yeah. And look at it. He ended up with the right people, like, personally in her life. Ready?

00;29;25;24 – 00;29;37;11
Speaker 1
Yes, yes. Yeah. Well, again, you know, I’m almost 50 years old, so finally, you know, in the last few years, I’ve, I’ve found really great people. And I’m holding on to them as tightly as I can, but.

00;29;37;11 – 00;29;44;03
Speaker 2
Like, like, leaning in, oh, mice and men, like. Yeah, I squash people. Did that.

00;29;44;09 – 00;29;45;19
Speaker 1
Yes, yes.

00;29;45;22 – 00;29;49;29
Speaker 2
Yeah, but I kill the bunny sometimes.

00;29;50;02 – 00;29;53;29
Speaker 1
There’s so many, so much stuff that we get, get into here, I just.

00;29;54;02 – 00;30;18;15
Speaker 1
I think one of the biggest things that I’m trying to help our listeners understand is like, what to do in the beginning to help yourself grow. Because like, and I’ve talked about this with other people on different shows, like to me there’s kind of two kinds of fractional. There’s the fractional that wants like the lifestyle business. They don’t want to work the 80 hour work weeks that you can’t work.

00;30;18;17 – 00;30;39;00
Speaker 1
They want to work the 20 hour work week, a handful of clients. They’re not looking to go grow. They’re not looking to scale. And then there’s the other side is people like you that you have 40 employees. You have, you know, three distinct business offerings, like you’ve grown and scaled that business, and you do a lot of great work in the community and for your clients.

00;30;39;02 – 00;31;01;18
Speaker 1
And so, like, what do you think is the biggest lesson that you’ve learned over those years? That for someone that’s looking to grow a business like yours, they want employees, they want to scale, they want a business that operates them day to day without them being involved in every single decision. Like what? What would you tell those folks?

00;31;01;20 – 00;31;29;27
Speaker 2
So, the two things when I first started, I really focused well on partnerships. So I would find people who were complementary to my business but didn’t do what I did, and I didn’t do what they did. So, for example, for me, it was, captains and CPAs. We don’t do taxes. We don’t do audits. They do. They do bookkeeping, but they don’t love it.

00;31;29;27 – 00;31;53;13
Speaker 2
And their clients don’t love it because it’s kind of expensive to have your accountant do that. So I went to them and said, you know, can we partner as a referral partner? It’s there’s clients that need you uncovered. I refer them to. So I established those relationships. That’s how I started. So those led me to more and more clients.

00;31;53;13 – 00;32;35;10
Speaker 2
And then once I started getting clients, the clients started referring me to other clients. So our biggest source is referrals. And then, once things started to snowball and the business started to have legs and take on some sort of form, the best thing that I did with the off. So once I had a team and staff and figuring out, who’s role is what the absolute best thing I did was figure out, right people, right seat level ten meetings, scorecards, accountabilities.

00;32;35;12 – 00;32;57;22
Speaker 2
But before all of that happened, EOS forces you to establish a mission, a vision, a goal like a ten year goal, a five year goal, a three year goal, and then a one year goal. And every single year you’re updating that. And then it forces you to focus on internal core values. What sets you apart from your competitors?

00;32;57;22 – 00;33;25;29
Speaker 2
What are you telling your, potential clients like? What is your company tagline? What is your elevator pitch? So it forces you to kind of think through who you want to be and who you want to be long term. So it makes you look at the really big picture, bring it down to granular, and then it forces you to establish goals and accountability for everybody.

00;33;26;02 – 00;33;58;26
Speaker 2
So it’s the best of both worlds of like really macro, really micro looking at the forest but also focusing in every plant and flower and leaf that you put into that forest. And then because all of that is established, your hiring and firing becomes so much easier. So all of our interviews are based on our core values. So all of the questions that were in last thing, once we know you can do the job and you have the skills like we’ll go through all that stuff, obviously.

00;33;58;26 – 00;34;29;20
Speaker 2
But once we know all of our behavioral interview questions or based on who we are as a company and how that person fits in, because let’s just take marketing like you, okay? You do social media. Great. But are you are you going to represent us the way we are putting ourselves out there into the community? Are you going to hold capital CFO to that standards?

00;34;29;22 – 00;34;55;17
Speaker 2
And are you going to keep up with that standard and our core values? So that’s, that’s what I’m saying, makes it so easy because it’s all kind of laid out already for you. And then everything comes from that. So our handbook comes from that, you know, like all of our communication comes from that. Our process starts come from that or a SOPs come from that, like all of it kind of gets figured out.

00;34;55;17 – 00;35;02;20
Speaker 2
And then it’s just so easy to get all of that information out to somebody.

00;35;02;23 – 00;35;26;27
Speaker 2
So those are the two things that I did that I’m really, I’m proud was the wrong word. But I’m, I’m really like, well, I, you know, on a mountain far of like, establish partnerships, establish work with partners, get to know people, get to know their businesses and what they’re doing and go into it with the how can I help them mindset.

00;35;27;01 – 00;35;31;24
Speaker 2
You know, you were you part of be an I.

00;35;31;26 – 00;35;35;08
Speaker 1
I was in DNI for years. I do Goldstar oh okay.

00;35;35;11 – 00;36;04;19
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I, I did b and I for years also I think, I think we met at like a B and I network anyway, there’s this the motto in back of givers gain like give to people and then it’ll be go into it with that. Like, how am I going to help this person succeed? And then that person in turn, you know, will trust you and and trust what you’re doing as well, because you have their best interests at heart to.

00;36;04;22 – 00;36;30;02
Speaker 1
and I mean, I agree fully, I think leading with goodwill is the best way to, you know, approach any relationship if you’re just, you know, approach like, I mean, we all run into those, people at networking events that they immediately start trying to sell you something the minute you start talking to them, they’re just trying to get something from you, and they’re not looking to help in any way.

00;36;30;04 – 00;36;33;08
Speaker 1
Yeah, I do like the givers gain.

00;36;33;10 – 00;36;55;11
Speaker 2
Yeah. And it’s a it’s a good motto to live by. And I think if you go out into the world and do that when you’re trying to establish partnerships, like you’re really trying to figure out, okay, what is your company do and how can I help support that? And then think through some of your clients to be like, oh, I bet you they could really utilize that, you know?

00;36;55;13 – 00;37;04;08
Speaker 1
Absolutely. But what do you do? Because, maybe I’m wrong, but you don’t necessarily have, like, a sales team, right?

00;37;04;10 – 00;37;06;19
Speaker 2
No, not. Yeah, but that’s our next hire.

00;37;06;19 – 00;37;27;06
Speaker 1
That’s your next hire. Okay. I was I was going to ask like, how do you handle the, the customer, you know, the customer service side, the sales, the the staying in touch. Obviously if you’ve got 40 employees, you have well above that with client base, like how do you maintain the relationships with your clients as you grow?

00;37;27;08 – 00;37;56;06
Speaker 2
That’s a great question too. So, like I said, that I no longer work in the business. I work on it, so I do. My sole focus is client satisfaction and satisfaction. So I just focus on the team and I focus on making sure our clients are happy. So I’m in all the intakes. So any potential client that comes to us, like I’m doing that intake hall, I’m getting to know them.

00;37;56;06 – 00;38;15;18
Speaker 2
I’m finding out what sort of services that they need, that they sign on with us. I pass them after the team, but then I do an onboarding check in. How did your onboarding with our team go? What sort of advice, you know, do you have for us of anything that we can improve? What else do you need from us?

00;38;15;20 – 00;38;37;25
Speaker 2
And then for the first year, I’m checking in monthly, every other month, quarterly. And then after that first year about quarterly, you know, they’re getting a message from me of, like, do you need a meeting? What do you need from us? You certainly don’t have to wait for me to contact you, but, so I’m doing all of that client management.

00;38;37;27 – 00;39;00;18
Speaker 2
And it’s been really helpful because we’ve also established, several surveys. So there’s an onboarding survey they can fill out if that’s easier for them. And then there’s a anniversary survey. So it’s been really easy for clients to get back to us on stuff. And they’re very honest. So it’s like, hey, Sabrina, things are going great.

00;39;00;20 – 00;39;17;20
Speaker 2
But here’s something that I need this week. Can you help me with it or, hasten burnout? I, I actually do need help right now. Like, I, you know, there was an onboarding call that they’re, like, not really sure what my next steps are. And I was like, that’s I’m not. You should have known that. You should’ve gotten an implementation plan.

00;39;17;20 – 00;39;35;17
Speaker 2
Like, you know what I mean? So, it’s very easy to then go back to my team and say like, hey, what happened here? And, so those are those are the two areas that I now focus on. So that’s all me kind of checking in and, keeping track of who were in touch with.

00;39;35;19 – 00;39;43;19
Speaker 1
guess it’s funny because I, I mean, they just wanted to start talking about hourglass. Sabrina. But I don’t know that that’s not like that was about do.

00;39;43;22 – 00;39;45;18
Speaker 2
It because I love it so much.

00;39;45;20 – 00;39;48;06
Speaker 1
I know I if you.

00;39;48;06 – 00;39;54;24
Speaker 2
If you asked me that, I was like, I’m keeping track of that and my CRM, my current CRM, until hourglass becomes obviously room.

00;39;54;26 – 00;40;16;11
Speaker 1
I know, I know, we’re very excited about that update. We actually just had a meeting with the dev team about it to talk about some of the functionality, but, and I don’t want to keep you on here all day, but, you know, outside of obviously you’re using hourglass, but what other software? We’re another kind of technology are you guys employing in in your company?

00;40;16;13 – 00;40;43;22
Speaker 2
So we do use our CRM. I use it, 13 million times a day. So, that includes, you know, all of our client management goes in there, all of our contracts go in there, all of our gifting goes in there. Any tasks that I need to do for either a client, potential client, all of my meetings are in there so that if you do not have a CRM, get a CRM immediately.

00;40;43;22 – 00;41;10;18
Speaker 2
And then as soon as hourglass has a CRM, transfer to our goals. And then we use Dropbox a lot for our clients so that there’s, an easy way for us to transfer information with our clients. Obviously for accounting, we use their accounting software so they don’t use ours. We use whatever they’re using. But I would say 95% of our clients are on QuickBooks.

00;41;10;21 – 00;41;37;02
Speaker 2
Certainly will be use for our company as well. And, and then we started doing some, our marketing team does some project stuff like, monday.com, I think they’re using to like, establish, projects that they’re working on together. Love it. So that’s it. We’re really we’re not like super, super high tech, just a couple different.

00;41;37;04 – 00;41;44;00
Speaker 2
Oh, and we’re big Google people. So everything is Google Sheets and you know, that sort of stuff.

00;41;44;00 – 00;41;49;19
Speaker 1
So I’m curious why do you use Dropbox instead of Google Drive?

00;41;49;21 – 00;41;56;08
Speaker 2
We use Google Drive internally, Dropbox for clients because a lot of our clients don’t have Google.

00;41;56;10 – 00;41;58;13
Speaker 2
But everybody can access Dropbox.

00;41;58;16 – 00;42;11;22
Speaker 1
I got it, I got it, yeah, that we use Google Drive for everything, and it is a bit of a, wall sometimes because they have to have a Gmail address in order to access it. And, you know, and I’ll be have.

00;42;11;22 – 00;42;13;01
Speaker 2
The way we don’t use that.

00;42;13;04 – 00;42;22;02
Speaker 1
Yeah. We have like I can’t tell you how many clients we’ve had to like create a Gmail address for. So yeah, that’s it. And yeah, yeah it’s frustrating.

00;42;22;02 – 00;42;24;14
Speaker 2
Yeah. So that’s why Dropbox.

00;42;24;16 – 00;42;31;26
Speaker 1
Okay. Last but not least, what’s the future look like for capital CFO plus?

00;42;31;28 – 00;42;37;27
Speaker 2
Oh my god. See this is when I get Chicken Little. Do you really want to know.

00;42;38;00 – 00;43;12;29
Speaker 2
So I think that, and you and I have talked a lot about this automation and AI, I think is really going to help our team expand. And you said something to me when we talked about this forever ago of, like, you want expansion, not elimination. So you don’t want to eliminate yourself from the field, but you want to be able to use tools so that your team can take on and additional work without feeling the burden of like, additional work.

00;43;12;29 – 00;43;34;12
Speaker 2
So are there things that we can make easier for the team? And that is kind of been our focus recently with, looking into the future. Like, what are the tools that we can use to make things easier for our team, less expensive for our clients so that they can do higher level work?

00;43;34;15 – 00;43;37;23
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. Automate to elevate what we keep saying around here.

00;43;37;23 – 00;43;38;17
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;43;38;20 – 00;43;44;24
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. It’s, the future is now, I guess as far as that goes.

00;43;44;24 – 00;43;50;12
Speaker 2
It’s, But if you talk to me six months ago, I was like, it’s all over, guys. Let’s just let’s call it.

00;43;50;15 – 00;43;51;14
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;43;51;16 – 00;43;56;06
Speaker 2
Let’s get out of the whole game. Let’s call it let’s all retire in our 40s. Let’s just.

00;43;56;08 – 00;43;58;23
Speaker 1
Throw that.

00;43;58;26 – 00;44;10;04
Speaker 1
So that’s funny. So you talk about retirement. I talk about quitting. I, I, I quit like once a week. I said, I’ve done all this stuff.

00;44;10;07 – 00;44;13;12
Speaker 2
But you are in control of the.

00;44;13;15 – 00;44;15;03
Speaker 1
What’s that? You guys will now get.

00;44;15;03 – 00;44;17;20
Speaker 2
To go do the firm. Just you and Penelope.

00;44;17;22 – 00;44;29;20
Speaker 1
You know, again, this goes back to the the the dream of simplification. I think about that all the time. Like, I would be just great if I just sold everything and I can just work the farm. I would be miserable if I did that. Sabrina.

00;44;29;23 – 00;44;39;01
Speaker 2
Do you know what you’d be doing? You’d be sitting there in the morning being like, we can start this. We thought that, like your brain would, would immediately start building business plans.

00;44;39;06 – 00;44;42;24
Speaker 1
Yes. I mean, I do that anyway. I like you do that.

00;44;42;24 – 00;44;45;03
Speaker 2
Right. Anyway.

00;44;45;05 – 00;44;50;11
Speaker 1
It’s just it’s so fun. Thanks so much for coming on the show.

00;44;50;13 – 00;44;53;27
Speaker 2
Only. God, thank you for having me. This is. It’s always fun to talk to you.

00;44;54;04 – 00;45;09;29
Speaker 1
Yeah, likewise. I enjoyed our conversations. And, you know, like I said, I think that you have a wealth of knowledge as far as starting and growing a business. You’ve done amazingly well, obviously. And, appreciate the relationship and appreciate you.

00;45;10;01 – 00;45;16;29
Speaker 2
Well, I’m always here. I hope I help somebody somewhere out there. I don’t know if I gave any words of wisdom, but.

00;45;17;02 – 00;45;18;12
Speaker 1
I think that you need.

00;45;18;14 – 00;45;19;07
Speaker 2
Okay.

00;45;19;09 – 00;45;24;29
Speaker 1
Every, if anything, that you gave people hope you can do you can do it. Do you can do it.

00;45;25;01 – 00;45;30;22
Speaker 2
Okay. You can do it. You can, you definitely can.

00;45;30;24 – 00;45;52;03
Speaker 1
And of course, you know, thanks, everybody for listening. Obviously, the fractional operator, this episode, all episodes are on hourglass, Nasscom. You can check those out. Also, we’ve got a weekly, newsletter that goes out, which I hate, the term newsletter. I get to come up with a better word for that. But really what it is, is it’s a curated list of content.

00;45;52;06 – 00;46;07;07
Speaker 1
Specifically for fractional is to help you grow, to help, you know, and to, you know, help us all do better. So check us out, sign up, subscribe. Like, you can find these podcasts also on Rumble, YouTube, Spotify and Apple. Thanks so much everybody. Appreciate it.