Scaling With People
Tired of spinning your startup wheels but never gaining traction? Buckle up, founders and CEOs, because this podcast is your rocket fuel to profitability! Every week, we ignite explosive conversations with bold-faced founders, brainy experts, and even a few out-of-this-world vendors. Get ready to crack the code on growth, master employee engagement, and blast through your scaling goals. We’re talking real-world strategies, actionable tips, and perspectives that’ll make your business do a cosmic dance. So, strap in and prepare for lift-off!
Scaling With People
Profit, Clarity, and the Courage to Sell with Natalia Zacharin
Growth gets loud when sales spike and calendars fill, but profit whispers through the numbers. We sat down with CFO and founder Natalia Zacharin to unpack the simple, durable moves that turn frantic effort into financial clarity. We start with the non‑negotiables: founders must sell until the offer is proven, resilience is built on reframing “I can’t” into “I can’t yet,” and your circle should normalize both bigger wins and smarter failures. These habits unlock options—and optionality is what keeps your business alive in rough waters.
From there, we dig into the silent killers that drain profit. Pricing takes center stage: an 80% close rate on cold leads means you’re too cheap, and “I’m too busy to hire” is usually a price problem. We map clean thresholds for service businesses—around 30% payroll-to-revenue—and share a pragmatic rule of thumb for when full-time hiring makes sense. We also run a live playbook for slashing waste: quarterly subscription audits, ownership for every tool, and redirecting those “just $20” leaks into high-ROI bets or cash reserves.
Metrics make the picture honest. We break down the handful you should watch monthly: marketing spend near 10–12% tied to booked calls and closes, payroll efficiency around 30%, and a clear markup strategy on contractors and COGS. We separate cash from profit, show how to build a six‑month runway one deposit at a time, and talk debt discipline so interest doesn’t eat your margins. With clean books closed by week two, simple dashboards, and forward-looking forecasts, you can see six months ahead and course‑correct before it hurts.
If you’re at the stage where decisions compound quickly—pricing, hiring, ads, runway—this conversation gives you the frameworks to move with confidence. Subscribe for more bold, unfiltered strategies each week, share this with a founder who needs a profit reset, and tell us: which metric will you track first?
Welcome to Dealing with People, your weekly playbook for turning chaos into compounding growth. Each week we go under the hood with BattleTest experts in all areas of business, from marketing to sales, operating and financing people, as product and leadership to unpack the plays, numbers, and systems that turn chaos into compounding growth. Learn straight from founders and experts who've done it and continue to do it successfully. There's zero fluff, just moves that you can steal immediately. This podcast is brought to you by Guide to HR. Human expertise, AI-powered impact. Welcome everyone to today's Skilling with People podcast. I'm Gwynavore Query, your host and founder to Guide to HR. So, founders, if your profits are vanishing faster than your patients during tax season, oh my gosh, I don't want to even think about tax season. This is a podcast for you. On today's Skilling with People, we're joined by none other than Natalia Zacharin, founder of Zachary Consulting, which is an elite accounting firm that's rewriting the rules of financial clarity. Natalie is on a mission to help business owners stop flying blind and start building resilience, profitable enterprises with confidence. Today we're going to be digging into the top three financial habits that fuel long-term success. Expose the silent killers that bring your profits. Oh my gosh, I hate those. And revealing the most watched metrics that actually move the needle. So that's really important. Because if you don't know your numbers, you don't know your business. And that's what Natella is here to just make sure you do correctly. So strap in. This is a cash course in financial mastery, and it starts now. Welcome, Natalia. I'm super excited to have you on this. I'm ready to dive in and geek out numbers. But before we do, I'd love for you to introduce yourself to our audience today.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Thank you for having me, Guinevere. I'm really excited to be here. I love geeking out on numbers. And um, if some people feel a little triggered sometimes and don't know what to expect, don't worry. We're gonna help you become number geeks as well. So um my uh business started in um uh really technically my first client uh that I uh that I got was in January 2019. I was still working full-time at the time for another corporation, kind of saw the writing on the wall that I wasn't gonna be able to light the world on fire. I didn't really have opportunities there, single mom, um, not making any money, on uh really could, you know, barely couldn't make ends meet. So um my now fiancé, who was my boyfriend at the time, said, Why don't you start your own business? And that's kind of where it started. And it started with just thinking, oh, I'm just gonna do this on the side for a little bit of extra cash. I can do some bookkeeping, you know, at night and weekends and whatever. And it morphed in a very short period of time uh into a multi-seven-figure business with 12 employees five years later. That's amazing. It really shows you that there's such a high need for your talent and your skills and your knowledge. It is, but I think that part of it also was because I got um really good at doing sales and really listened to what people were telling me, and I kept changing what we were doing and uh not changing it like every single time and not necessarily tweaking it every time, but taking that information and finding what were those main pain points that everybody kept telling me over and over again on the sales calls uh and really changing those things uh so we are very different from the rest of the industry because of that.
SPEAKER_00:I love that. Okay, so we teased up to our audience. We're gonna talk about three financial habits that can fuel long-term success. Let's talk about the first one. What is this first habit that we as founders should be doing?
SPEAKER_01:So I really believe in sales. Sorry, founders. Um, I I now have a sales uh team, but I did all my own sales uh for the past five years. I just hired someone at the end of last year. Um, really getting good at sales is extremely important. I'm sorry if you hate it. I'm sorry if you don't like it. But as a founder, that's something that you should be really good at. It is you are the only one that has skin in the game, and you are going to be able to sell your product and or service better than anybody else. Um, that's also a way to know that once you get good at it, that you know who to hire because you know if they're good and you can help train them because salespeople are very good at selling themselves. They're not necessarily good at selling your stuff. So you have to get really good at sales. And my recommendation is to not hire someone to be your salesperson until you're crossing over$750,000 in gross revenue annually. Um, that is usually when you should start thinking about it. So um getting good at sales is key because that is what gives you the most options and moves the needle the furthest.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that makes sense. And you're right, I do cringe when you say that. I'm like, oh, she's so right. I gotta get better at myself. But uh, and I think we probably have some listeners that are in the same oh man, really? Yeah, we're not even talking numbers and we're already cringing on this call.
SPEAKER_01:Um, but sales is super important, and um uh I would say that one way that I make it a little easier is to think you have to reframe. And actually, point number two of uh this second habit that's super important is I see the most successful people being able to reframe. So you can reframe your sales fear or discomfort by saying, Um, I know that I can help these people or bring them joy or whatever it is that you're trying to sell to them, and they just don't know that you're out there yet. Like you have to find them, and they have to find you, more likely, you have to find them, and uh, and then they'll be happy that you that that you found each other. So if you have something of value, there's no reason why you should be cringing, you should be excited to see how many people you can uh to you know let them know about what what you're selling. Um, but resilience and reframing is really important because business ownership, as most of you already know, uh is just a bunch of roller coaster rides down, up and down, up and down.
SPEAKER_00:More like down and up sometimes, right?
SPEAKER_01:And you have to be able to say, Oh, I can't do this, this is tough, and saying, I don't know how to do this yet, and I need to learn it. It's a skill, I just need to figure it out. Um, there's a lot of reframing. Trust me, I've sat at my desk and cried, and then you dry your tears and pick it back up again.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that is so true. And I love that when you say yet, you don't know that yet. And that's so true. Like if most founders are in entrepreneurial, they're going out wanting to resolve something for someone other someone else. So there are other people out there doing the same thing for you as a founder, right? So learning from them, bringing them in, and uh continuing to grow, I think is a key in order to grow your business. You have to grow yourself. Yes, yes. Oh, here comes Lucy. Oh, and for those not lit not uh watching our video, we have a uh cameo by Lucy the cat who's decided to join us. And there she is.
SPEAKER_01:Sorry about that. I can't control the cats anymore. They're uncontrollable.
SPEAKER_00:All good, all good. I love it. Okay, so that was the second one.
SPEAKER_01:What's the third one? The third one, gosh, there's so many, but I think the third one is surround yourself with people and learning. Um, so learning, podcasts, books, uh, coaches, but it's really surrounding yourself with people and knowledge that really normalizes failure and normalizes success. Because if you're just counting on your friends and they're not founders, they're not trying to build something, they're not gonna get you. So when you're really struggling with something, people start thinking, oh, why are you so obsessed with this? Well, yeah, it's my business. I am why don't you just go back to corporate and have a secure job?
SPEAKER_00:I hear that all the time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Why don't you just go back and get a job? Um, so they don't understand the struggle and the challenges, they think you're complaining, and then people also don't understand your successes um and they think you're boasting. And so finding people around your circle that really support you is going to be important. And then normalizing bigger numbers, bigger failures, bigger success. So when I started and I got to a quarter million dollars, 250,000 in revenue, I was like, woohoo! Like I'm done. I made it. And then I realized I really wasn't making it and I was working uh really, really hard. And I thought to myself, and only because I was surrounded by very, very successful people who were in the multi-millions, I thought, you know what, it's actually not that much harder to keep going. I just have to figure it out. And so um it that only happened because I had people around me that were already there and were like, hey, hey girl, you can do it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, exactly. And they've been there and done that, can help you tease out like where you should step or where you should not step and fall down that hole, right? Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So let's let's uh shift gears and talk about profits and exposing some of those silent killers that can drain our profits. Uh and I'm I I have I'm I'm internally already cringing because I think you're gonna list things I know are already draining my profits that I need to go deal with. But for those listening, what are some of those things that we should be paying attention to or go and figure out how to like get out of our business?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So the first thing we're gonna uh talk about is the top line of the profit and loss statement, the income statement, and that's pricing. There are a couple of things in pricing. So, first of all, are you pricing well and with the value that you are bringing? Uh, is your pricing for your service or a product correct? Do you have the right mix of products and services? Are you taking a look at that? Um, like are you just lumping everything in? And maybe you have something that you shouldn't even be selling at all because it's a, you know, it doesn't make sense to. So pricing is really important. One way you know if your pricing is correct is looking at your profit. If your profit's low, look at pricing first. Maybe you just don't have enough business. Here comes lead generation and sales again, or maybe you're spending more money, and we'll talk about those other profit drains. So pricing is the first one. And we all start out with oh, sorry, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, I was saying, and I I also have heard, you know, pricing. If you have too much work for you, you're probably underpricing yourself. If you don't have enough work for you, you might be overpricing yourself.
SPEAKER_01:If you have too much, too much work, or if everybody's saying yes, so you're like, uh, you know, everybody you talk to sign up, signs up with you, um, your price is too way too low, like about 50% or less. Um, so if it's a cold call, it's like 20% will say yes. Um, if 80% are saying yes, your pricing's too low. That's for sure. If you can't afford your contractors or your payroll if you have other people working for you, or your bottom line is not significant, your pricing's too low. If you're saying I'm so overworked, I have way too much work, and I can't afford to hire anyone, your pricing's too low.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So there are a lot of indicators with that. Um, a lot of us will price too low when we first start out, and that's that's okay because you're figuring things out and you're still not really sure about your value and of yourself. Uh, I realized, I think it was my second year in business, I was having way too much work and I couldn't hire someone. I looked at it and I was like, oh shoot, I can't afford to hire anybody. Um, so I doubled my pricing. Uh, and then I'll give you um the next one we're gonna talk about is payroll. But with pricing and revenue, I'll uh I'll let you know that you shouldn't really entertain hiring a full-time employee until you're at least uh about 200 to 250,000 in gross revenue per person. So you're the first person. So if you're not clearing half a million, you're not ready to hire someone.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. That is a great tip, right? And I can I can just hear some founders going, oh, but I'll be okay with only taking 100,000, not 250, 2250. No, no, but you still like, you know, yes, the whole point of probably what you're doing is you want to build and help and be make this business successful, but you also got to take some money from that too.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and you can't think of it of just like this is what I get to keep 100,000. No, uh, because the government's gonna take their share.
unknown:That's true.
SPEAKER_01:Darn the government. Yeah, that bottom line is not yours. The taxes are gonna be taken out. What about reinvesting back into the business? Um, you need that also. What about reinvesting in your retirement? In your retirement savings. Um, and then uh, you know, savings, retirement, uh, investment for your future, reinvesting into the business to keep making it better and growing it. Uh, and then there's also what if you have a couple bad months? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You do need a little, you need to be a squirrel and save away your your uh uh nuts for server.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. So that pricing has to be pretty high. Um, if uh the next thing we're gonna talk about is payroll. When uh we we mentioned like when it's time to start hiring people. So depending on your industry, because it could be a little bit different, and depending on um uh, you know, if you're a service-based business or product-based business, um, I would say that your payroll, you should look at the the ratio of payroll to revenue. This includes you. Now, if you're a sole proprietor still and you're not taking payroll because you're just an LLC or sole proprietor and you're just taking owner draws, that doesn't count. That's a cash flow concern, though. Um, but once you start hiring people, you want to look at your payroll to revenue ratio and and see what that looks like. And for service-based businesses, like if you're an agency, um, if you're doing uh some kind of service, even if you're doing um like HVAC and uh electrician or whatever you're doing, we're looking for a 30% payroll to revenue ratio. Um the closer. So every hundred thousand revenue, you have 30,000 in um payroll. Yeah. Exactly. So we wanna, um, some people it'll be a little bit higher, product-based, it probably maybe a little bit higher because they've got like all the cost of goods sold also in there. Um, but uh the minute your your payroll to revenue ratio is too high, and your your payroll is gonna be your most expensive. People are gonna be your most expensive. So you want to look at that. What does that number actually mean if it's if it's uh if all your money is going into your people? Pricing might be wrong, might be off, but also this is an indication that there's someone on your team might not be performing as efficiently as they should be. Or it could be, could be they don't have enough training, maybe they're not a good fit, maybe they're not quick enough to do the work that you need to do, um, or maybe they're not working all the hours they're saying they're working. Like there could be anything, it could be a mixture of things, but it's just it's kind of like it's a sign that you need to look at something. And then so profit drain number three, we all get super, super busy. We buy a bunch of stuff, we have expenses, and then we forget and we never use things.
SPEAKER_00:Guilty. Uh, that's the one I knew you were gonna call out. I'm like, oh, she's gonna call this one out, and I gotta, I'm already thinking about like I gotta go back to my credit card and find out what's reoccurring that I can kick out.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, there like everybody wants a subscription uh on everything that you purchase, like all of your software, all of your everything. So you need to take a look at that. It's not gonna always be a big number. I just realized I said this on her uh uh the other day, I just realized I was playing for paying for Voxer. It's not even really being used anymore. It's an app. A hundred bucks a year. And since it's only an annual payment, I completely forgot about it. I probably signed up for it five years ago. And um, I just saw it and I can't even figure out how to get rid of it. I signed up for it on a Samsung phone. I have an Apple now, so I have no idea.
SPEAKER_00:Um my gosh, but it's a hundred. Tell them not to ever accept the charge again. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And it's it's only a hundred bucks a month. I mean, a hundred bucks a year. A hundred bucks a year, really not a lot, right? But a hundred bucks is a hundred bucks. So take a look at those things because that those are leaks in your profit.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my gosh, I gotta share this story because that's that I knew you were gonna go here, but that's just for the audience. So when I started talking to my partner and and um talking about her coming on board, and then then I had to kind of get my act together, right? Because now she's gonna want to see how are we spending money, what are we spending money on, is that the right thing? And how are we like the pricing and all that kind of stuff? And through that activity, as I was preparing to get this in front of her, and as we were, even as we were going through it, I was like, oh, I could cut that out. Oh, I don't need that anymore. Oh, and I think at the end of the day, those hundred dollars, they added up pretty quickly. And I think I found maybe about 10 grand for the year. And it's just like, you know, yeah, you see it twenty dollars here a month or a hundred a year, and it's like not a big deal, but it adds up quickly.
SPEAKER_01:It does add up quickly, and I'd rather see people do something that brings them joy. Like if you want to go to Starbucks every day for that ten dollar coffee, do it. Um, but why why pay for stuff stuff that you're not really using? Um that just makes sense. That could be a great vacation.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, ten thousand dollars, that's a nice, you know, week two weeks somewhere really fancy, or you know, longer trip somewhere else, it's not so fancy. Yes, or reinvesting. Um that too. Fine, Natalia.
SPEAKER_01:Let's go back to business. Okay. Reinvesting either in your business or in savings. I I I do want to say one other point about profit drains, but also how to improve um your business with the reinvestment. Those of you that are using any kind of sales or marketing, if you're paying for marketing uh or advertising, um, you know, um, I don't know, Facebook ads or online ads, um, you really need to look on about uh look at your return on investment. How many leads are you getting? It's not clicks, it's how many people are actually getting on your calendar and how many people are you closing, is what's really important. There's a there could be a huge profit leak there. Um and you really, really have to watch that. So if you hire a marketing service, they need to make sure you have to make sure they send you all these reports on a weekly basis. And then if you're still not getting business, like you need to go after them and tell them you're not getting what you signed up for, they need to fix it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And if you're more of a penny pincher, right, there are ways to do it through a lot of AI tools out there. I'm not gonna say that that's the only way you should do it, and certainly I think that there is a lot of value in bringing agencies because they are the subject matter experts and they can help form, but maybe there's an opportunity to do a partnership where they cost less because you're using AI and then you're having them validate or you know enhancer or whatever it might be. So yeah, a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:I do my own marketing right now because I'm trying to figure it out.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, and that goes back to what you said earlier. One of the financial habits, right, is to be a salesperson because in order to know what what you're looking for when you hire your first person, you need to understand it. If you're hiring someone and you don't understand it, then they can just totally, you know, put the wool over your heads and you're just paying for it and you think you're getting something or you're not.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. I had a hard lesson. So I've done my own sales, but I hired someone else for marketing, very good marketing company, but it just wasn't happening. And uh I spent over a hundred thousand dollars before I said, um I you guys you guys gotta go.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. And that is hard. I mean, marketing I think is is one of the hardest ones because it's there's it's an art form and it does take time to start seeing things come through. But like after three to six months, you should be seeing something, some kind of improvement that's leading towards what you believe to be a lead that's gonna say yes to you. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh, so many good tips. I feel like there's so much more. Okay, so let's dive into metrics. Because uh, for those uh that know me um and my audience, that I'm an actual mathematics major by uh education, so it's kind of weird that I'm an HR, but I love numbers, metrics. Talk to me about what are the most revealing must-watch metrics we should be paying attention to to move the needle for our business.
SPEAKER_01:So definitely, and and I would say this goes back to the three habits a little bit too that I forgot to mention is you have to have accurate, timely bookkeeping. It has to be done right. Don't that's that's also an investment. Um, don't like have uh, I don't know, your girlfriend do it or your um your husband's mom or someone like that, unless they're really good, unless you know that they have an accounting background and they're really good. We see a lot of bad, incorrect bookkeeping that comes to us that we have to correct, even from CPA firms. So um, you do have to make sure that your accounting is correct because that's where it all starts. That's the foundation. So, what to look for when you know you have up-to-date financials, you do have to look every single month. So, if someone is working on your bookkeeping and they're not done by the second week of the following month and closing everything out and presenting you with here's the balance sheet and profit and loss, uh, you need to get on them to get that done for you. A lot of folks I talk to, especially when they're starting out, don't have any accounting at all. Look, QuickBooks. Yeah, QuickBooks is not expensive. Um, the beginning one is 35 bucks a month, uh, it's really inexpensive. You can hire someone, especially if you're starting out for a couple hundred bucks a month. It is worth that cost to get it right because it tells you your where your break-even point is, how you're doing from month to month, and what you can afford. So you're looking at what what I love to look at is percentages. So you got you have your revenue coming in, what is the percentage that you're spending on marketing, for instance? That shouldn't be more than 10 to 12 percent of your revenue. And then you should also see um, is it impacting your revenue? Is your revenue growing from this marketing if you're using marketing? Um, so that's one metric to really look at. We already talked about payroll. Payroll should be you know closer to 30%. The closer you are to 30%, the better. Um, that's going to show you how efficient people are. Now, again, if you're a startup, you don't have payroll yet. But let's look at contractors or anybody else that you're using to create your product. That would be, for instance, if you are a video uh production agency and you're hiring uh folks to edit the videos for you, that would be in your cost of goods sold. You want to make sure that you're charging that you're not just paying them and then charging 10% more to the client. You probably need to charge the client 60 to 70% more than what you're paying them because you need to make enough money for all of your other costs going down the line: administrative, operations, taxes, profit that you want. So you need to look at all that. One place that people really um make a mistake is how much cash do they need in the bank. So you can't look at cash and assume that your profit's good. A lot of people look at their bank account and they're like, I'm doing great. And they so profit and cash are two different numbers, and you can get in a lot of trouble if you're just looking at cash in the bank. Uh, so cash could go out in forms of your you pay yourself, you know, an owner draw or personal expenses. Uh, maybe you have some loans that you're paying principal on, maybe you have a lot of expenses, your credit cards, uh, you put a lot of stuff on your credit cards and you're trying to pay them off. So all of that is cash. Could could be that you did that in your personal life. No judgment, but that's just cash. So, what I recommend is really being careful with the credit cards. Um, I actually don't have any credit cards in my personal life at all. And I only have one in my business that I started two years ago. Uh, so two years ago, we were already at over a million dollars in sales. The reason I did that was because I was afraid I'd rack that baby up and not be able to pay it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I'm very careful with the use of debt. That's not a good use of debt unless you can pay it off all the time. Yeah. Um, yeah, those percentages, I think some of them are at 30% right now. Yes. So I have an American Express, I have to I have to pay it off every single month. Um, and I I use debt to my advantage when I can. Um, but really look at that. And the most important thing is even if you're just starting out, have another checking account or a savings account that you're not using on a regular basis in your business and start putting money aside. Um, you need to save up the at least three to six months worth of expenses. That's really the goal is to save up three. I I feel like six months is actually the goal at this point because there's a lot of uncertainty this year. Yes. So saving six months worth of cash in your business is really key. That takes time. Um, that also takes uh effort. Even if every single time you get paid, you throw 10 bucks in there. Hey, that's building up to something.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, that's such great advice. Well, I feel like we could probably talk about this stuff forever. It's so much good tidbits you've already shared. But Natalia, as we wrap up, is there any last thoughts or tips or tricks you want to share with the audience today?
SPEAKER_01:I would just say that it's really hard to be an entrepreneur. And so I applaud every single one of you. Don't give up. Consistency is key. Do something that moves the needle every single day, i.e., sales usually. Sales, sales, sales. And she's not even a salesperson, she's a finance person.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. This is great.
SPEAKER_01:Um, but you can uh build your business. We didn't talk about this, but my background, I started the business um the year I turned 50. Um, and I oh I did mention this. Uh, I was a single mom. Um, and now um, like we I really focused on moving that needle uh every single day, and I wanted to close a certain amount of revenue, so I would really look at like how many people do I have to talk to, how many times a week do I have to um get in touch with someone? And if no one was on my calendar, I would reach out to people. So that's really, really important. So I would say that, but um also I've got some giveaways for your Oh yay, we love giveaways.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, tell everyone how to connect with you. We'll put all the links into the bio, into the description, but go ahead and tell everyone.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, so it would be on our website, www.zacronconsulting.com slash scaling people. So it's real simple for you guys to find it. And then we've got two PDFs there you can download. One is seven ways to find money in your business, a little bit of what we talked about today. Um, the ultimate checklist for financial success in your business. I think you guys are gonna find that really valuable. I use that for myself as well. And then um there's a third um item box that you can click on if you want to chat with us. It's our calendar link if you ever want to connect. Awesome.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so I have one last question specifically around your business. Where, like if the founders, the audience is listening, okay, this is all great. She seems really smart. I think I'd like to work with her at some point in time. What's the right like moment in time in my business growth that I should think about going from the QuickBooks and the CPAs of the world to bringing you on, even as a you know, partner to all those things? What's the typical timeframe that is beneficial for the business, the way they can afford you, but also you know, be beneficial for them?
SPEAKER_01:So we do also start with just bookkeeping um and payroll. We are almost like a small payroll company at this point. Um, I would say um at any point um that probably starts to make sense. Um, the see the fractional CFO piece is where we really sit down with you every single month and we analyze things and we look outside of QuickBooks and we build out projections, we build out those KPIs and those metrics, we build out um graphs because graphs do something different to your brain looking at numbers. Yes. And because in finance, it's trend, it's not where you are today, it's where you're headed. So we want to give you an opportunity to see what's gonna happen six months in advance. So if you're headed in the wrong direction, you have time to uh and you have options to make changes. Um, so that is typically uh at about a half a million and up, is really where it starts to make more sense to work with us because we really talk about who to hire. Like I'm I'm not HR, but we talk about who to hire in the sense of who's efficient, do you have your vision, mission, values, um, are they a good fit? And we can see that in the numbers. So it's just starts the discussions. Um, it's also a great time where it's time for people to start looking at advertising, it's time for people to start hiring sales. So we just support you in those uh aspects as well. Uh, like I said, we don't do human resources, we just can tell you if the numbers are aligning with what's happening. That's it. Then give me a call. Yeah, then you give we give you a call. That's right. And you do need uh human resources, by the way, because you can get in big trouble if you don't. That is very true, very true.
SPEAKER_00:But I will say it's interesting because like how I'm hearing you describe what how you partner with founders. I had a podcast that'll be a couple weeks um go ago where we were talking about boards and the board and the board members and what they're beneficial for. I don't want to see like you guys as being like a mini, like mini sideboard where you're coming in and really being a thought partner to the founder and understanding understanding the numbers, but also seeing the trends and then talking through what do we want to do about this and how do we course correct or this is great. What do we do to continue the momentum and continue growing? So I love that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and you know what? A lot of people come to me um and we have it's actually. Part therapy, that's why we tell we talk about resilience and reframing also. Um, it really helps um to have someone every single month we meet, sometimes more often, depending on what's going on, but definitely monthly, it helps to refocus the founder on the next steps because you're unsure, you're getting pulled in a million different directions. Sometimes you don't know what is the biggest step or the most important thing, or sometimes you don't know if you should continue on this path because you don't see any movement. Um, and so it really helps to have someone that's not emotionally attached and it sees the data and says, no, continue on this path. You're going in the right direction.
SPEAKER_00:There's also a little bit of accountability too. Like if I know I'm gonna be meeting with you in a couple of weeks and I'm thinking about subscribing to this thing that may or may not, I may or may not use, I might think about it uh, you know, a second longer before I hit, yeah, I'll pay for that. Because I know I'm gonna have to talk to you about it.
SPEAKER_01:It gets uncomfortable. Uh like if you don't want to make any changes in your business and you don't want to grow, we're probably not a good fit because we're gonna keep telling you that you need to grow and scale, and that's the way to go. We're trying to get you to build a sellable asset. Build it to sell it.
SPEAKER_00:Um, if you're a lifestyle founder, this is not the conversation for you, is what I hear.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Um, well, and I feel like and lifestyle, lifestyle founders is great to do the bookkeeping for for, but CFO services is really for someone that wants to build something to have a lifestyle because of that, not to have a lifestyle while they're building it. Um, you know, like I feel like there's seasons in our lives. Uh, and uh I have a lifestyle still, like I get to travel, we travel almost monthly somewhere, but I'm always working. I'm always I still have uh my finger on everything that's happening because we're trying to double still every single year, and that takes a tremendous amount of work uh for me as well. But um, I I don't want to leave that um to chance, and I also want to do it as fast as possible because I don't want to work when I'm 65 or 70.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, exactly. Natalia, this is so great having you on the call today. Thank you for joining us on Scaling with People Podcast. I hope the listeners found some great uh information. I know I did, and we'll put all the information on how to connect with you. And thanks again for joining us. And for those listening, I hope you have a wonderful day and we'll see you on our next podcast. Bye, everyone. That's a wrap for today's episode of Scaling with People. If you got value from this conversation, do me a favor, share it with someone building something big. And hey, I'd love to hear your take. Drop a comment, share me a message, or start a conversation. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss the bold, unfiltered strategies we drop every week. I'm Gwyner Quarry, founder and CEO of Guide2HR, where we help high growth companies feel smart with people for strategies and AI powered systems that don't just keep up the lead. If you're building fast and want your HR to move faster, head to guide2hr.com and let's talk. And remember, scale isn't just about speed, it's about people. Until next time, have a great one.
