Hey my friend! 😎
Welcome to The 5 Minute Fractional CFO.
Here's 1 actionable tip to help you start, scale, or optimize your fractional CFO firm.
This edition will take you about 3 minutes to read.
Enjoy!
In this week's edition, I'm going to tell you how to start offering fractional CFO services.
Fractional CFO services (aka advisory or virtual CFO services) have been an absolute game changer for my business and my personal life.
I went from working my tail off and barely taking home any money - to netting a multiple 6 figure owner's comp while working Monday through Friday from around 8:30am to about 5:30pm.
✅ No nights.
✅ No weekends.
✅ No holidays.
✅ No "season"
I want this life for you - if that's a life that you want.
Unfortunately, most people in our industry never get to this point.
The biggest reason is because they never START.
And they have a ton of reasons for not starting...
➡ They need a better website
➡ They need new branding or a new logo
➡ They need to hire (pick a position) first
➡ They're afraid of either success or failure (both are VERY real)
Today, I'm going to walk you through exactly how to get started offering advisory services.
Here are the 3 simple steps to get started:
Step 1: Determine what services you want to offer but KEEP IT SIMPLE.
Getting an idea for which services you want to offer is critically important as the first step. But even more important is just keeping it simple.
At first, I tried to offer an entire menu of services.
I quickly realized a few things:
➡Clients didn't know what most of it meant
➡I didn't have processes in place to do them well
➡Pricing (see below) was a hot mess
I simplified it down to:
✅ Financial reviews
✅ Cash flow forecasting
✅ Budgets + projections
✅ Goal setting
Each of these things were well within my competency and they were easy to explain to potential clients.
This made communicating the value to clients much easier which meant sales calls went MUCH smoother!
Step 2: Determine your pricing.
The vast majority of CFOs that I coach spend way too much time trying to craft the perfect pricing packages.
The truth is, you have no idea what you'll be able to charge until you go out into the world and see what people are willing to pay.
Pick a price that seems good to you and just go with it. If no one is applying to work with you or if you aren't able to close enough deals, consider lowering the prices (note: this would be the last thing I do; a lack of closed sales is more likely a function of how you handle sales calls than your pricing - more on that in a future edition!).
Step 3: Tell the world that you're now offering CFO services!
Start with your best existing clients or with your closest connections on social media.
Odds are, most will say no. Some will say maybe. A couple might say yes.
But that's how empires are built. One bold baby step at a time!
JUST START.
These are really the ONLY 3 steps you need to follow to get in the game.
There is nothing more important than just starting.
Notice that these steps don't include:
❌ Websites
❌ Hiring
❌ Logos
❌ Copy
Worry about those things AFTER you get your first few sales and AFTER you've served your first couple of clients for a few months.
You'll have much better insights as to how to do those (much less necessary) things once you have some miles behind you.
If you've been thinking about offering CFO or advisory services...
Today, I want to encourage you to simply start with these 3 steps.
That's all for this Friday. 3 simple steps to get started with CFO services.
If you got value out of The 5 Minute Fractional CFO, please consider sharing it with a friend or colleague that might also benefit from it!
If there's a topic you'd like me to cover in an upcoming edition, please let us know! Just email [email protected] and we'll see what we can do.
Your coach,
Michael King
Whenever you are ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:
1. The Inner Circle - every month my team and I go live and share the most impactful lessons we've learned in our journey to start, scale, and optimize our own CFO firm (including live Q&A). Plus you'll get access to our private community of nearly 150 fractional CFOs.
2. The CFO Academy - This is a 7 week deep dive into the exact playbooks that I use to run my firm, KFE Solutions.
3. If you'd like more amazing (and free!) content about starting, scaling, or optimizing your Fractional CFO firm check out:
→ The CFO Report on YouTube (if you love video)
→ The CFO Report on Apple Podcast (if you prefer audio)
