The Handbook: The Operations Podcast

Lessons From Scaling $750k to $25m with Lindsey Head

• Harv Nagra • Season 1 • Episode 39

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Touch the same piece of information more than twice – fix the workflow. That’s the kind of CFO-meets-COO thinking we get into in this episode of The Handbook, where Harv sits down with Lindsey Head to connect the dots between finance, ops, tech, and people – and what really changes when you standardise how the business runs. 

Lindsey helped scale a PR agency from 5 to 125 people and $750k to $25m in revenue, leading finance, ops, HR, tech, legal and M&A along the way – so she’s seen where the cracks form, and how to close them.

Here’s what we dive into:

• The case for “non-billable” hires early – why dedicated new-business and ops roles pay for themselves, and a simple admin-as-%-of-revenue rule of thumb (aim for ~7–8%).

• Systems thinking > shiny tools – map the ideal information flow first, then pick tech to automate it. If you’re touching the same data repeatedly, the process is broken.

• Change management that actually works – phase rollouts, involve users early, test, train, and measure adoption before you “go live.”

• Multi-entity without the migraines – standardise what you can across entities, respect local nuance (currency, tax, PTO), and use partners/EORs when expanding fast.

• Run the business by the numbers – utilisation, gross margin by client, and labour % tell the truth; AI can accelerate FP&A and reporting, but you still sanity-check the outputs.

If you’re feeling buried under tools, processes, and hiring questions, Lindsey’s final nudge is simple: pause, map “how it’s going” vs “how it should go,” and focus this quarter on the single change that unlocks the most leverage.


Additional Resources:

 👉🏽 Follow Lindsey Head on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindseylhead/ 

💡 Check out Pulse Business Group: https://pulsebusinessgroup.com/  

👨🏽 Follow Harv on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvnagra/ 

📈 Measure your business maturity and find out how to get to the next level: https://bit.ly/assess-business-maturity 

📬 Stay up to date with regular ops insights. Subscribe to The Handbook: The Operations Newsletter: https://www.scoro.com/podcast/#handbook 

➡️ This podcast is brought to you by Scoro, where you can manage your projects, resources and finances in a single system. Sign up for a free trial or a demo at https://scoro.com/demo – and for the VIP treatment, tell them Harv sent you. 

Lindsey Head:

Multi-entity businesses can be challenging, especially if you're running ops and finance from the hub, from like the headquarters, right, and you're doing it for multiple entities. My big thing is consistency across all. Make it as easy as you can to manage the information, the financial reporting, the financial forecasting, your cashflow management. You wanna standardize as much as you can, have the same system, have the same forecasting. If you're running the engine, the ops team behind the scenes, if you can handle it in a similar way, you're gonna be more successful.

Harv Nagra:

Thanks for listening to the Handbook. This episode is brought to you by Scoro, and shout out to them for supporting my new project with The Handbook, the Business Maturity Quiz. Here's why this matters. Most service businesses grow without a clear benchmark. You feel busy, maybe even successful, but without something to measure against, you don't actually know if you're set up to scale. That's where the quiz I've designed comes in. In three minutes, you'll see where you stand across five key pillars, people, process, tech, data and growth. More importantly, you'll get tailored advice on what to focus on next to level Up. Most service businesses, including agencies and consultancies, stall at level one or two. Only 5% ever reach the top, level five. So where do you think you sit? Find out now at bit.ly/assess-business-maturity. Once again, that's bit.ly/assess-business-maturity. I'll include a link in the episode notes. Now? Let's get to the podcast. Hey all. Welcome back to the Handbook. One of the best working relationships I've ever had was with the finance director at my last agency. In fact, we're still besties. We had really complimentary skill sets. She was sharp, tech savvy, really cared about what she did, and she got it, we were on the same level. We weren't just working side by side, we were making decisions together that shaped the way our business actually ran. It was through working so closely with her, even before I moved into a formal operations role, that I started to see how finance, ops, tech, and even hiring decisions are all tightly connected, especially when you're trying to scale. And like so many young ops leaders, I learned that the job isn't just about wearing a lot of hats. It's also about building the structure underneath so the business isn't reliant on duct tape and goodwill. When the foundations are shaky, you know, fragmented systems, muddled roles, siloed decisions. It doesn't matter how hard you work, things start to fray. In today's episode, we're looking at all of this through the CFO lens, the people decisions, the operational structure, and the systems sitting underneath it. It's not a tech episode, and it's not just a finance one either. It's about what changes when you actually start connecting the dots across how your business runs. That's where today's guest comes in because she brings the vantage point of A CFO, who's done far more than just manage the numbers. Lindsey Head has been both CFO and COO of a global PR agency where she didn't just own the financials. She also led operations, hr, tech training, and legal. She helps scale the business from 750 k to 25 million in revenue, expanded it across borders, consolidated multiple legal entities, and steered it through a full m and a process, all while keeping the business consistently profitable. What makes Lindsey's perspective so valuable is that she sees how everything fits together and she knows how to structure a business. So it's not just growing, but growing in the right way. Today she works with service businesses to help them make smarter decisions and avoid the slow breakdown that happens when finance and ops aren't truly aligned. Let's get into it. Lindsey, thank you so much for being here. It's a pleasure to have you on the podcast.

Lindsey Head:

Thank you, Harv. I'm excited to be here and excited about our discussion.

Harv Nagra:

Excellent. So you've gone from hedge funds, tech, startups, agency, life, and now into consulting. Can you give us a quick tour of your background for us?

Lindsey Head:

Ooh. Yes, I definitely can. So my background spans from helping to start a money management firm right out of college I worked in, that industry for about five years. And then I moved into hedge fund accounting, which was very technical accounting, so spent a lot of time in the technical accounting details, accounting for investment funds that were really hard to price and things like that. And from there, I really have always had an itch for, startups. And I got an opportunity to join a tech startup that was in, Seattle, Washington. It was just an incredible experience. It was me and, five developers and they, they went on to be acquired by Yahoo, which was a very exciting thing to be part of. Then I got the opportunity to join J Public Relations as their CFO. That was my title,

Harv Nagra:

Right.

Lindsey Head:

a variety of things

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

from HR, operations, legal tech, implementations, you name it, I did it. Everything but the PR.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

And I was there for, gosh, a lot of years and still they remain a client of mine, which I'm so lucky and feel very grateful to have. And I've gone out on my own, about six years ago to do consulting for a wide range of clients.

Harv Nagra:

Amazing. Amazing. I think it's really interesting you weren't just overseeing finance, you were overseeing ops, hr, legal, tech training globally for this organization. That's a huge remit, right? how do you oversee all of that without becoming a bottleneck?

Lindsey Head:

My approach to that, to overseeing all the different aspects of an agency without becoming the bottleneck was, or is that I leveraged technology. I should back up a tiny bit. I went to school for, started my career or my schooling in, computer science.

Harv Nagra:

Okay.

Lindsey Head:

for two years of my life, I thought I was gonna develop software and I thought I was gonna develop systems that were gonna change the world. And so I always had a kind of techie brain

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Lindsey Head:

moved into operations management and info systems

Harv Nagra:

Okay.

Lindsey Head:

graduated with. So I always look at things from a tech standpoint and from a workflow standpoint.

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Lindsey Head:

being in the position I was in with JPR, that's the short name for it. I looked at everything from how do I do this as a one man show? To help them leverage everything and systematize everything at the stage they were at

Harv Nagra:

Yep.

Lindsey Head:

So it was a really, I, I mean, I love problem solving and being in that seat. I was okay, this needs to be automated. This needs to be automated. Let's look at this system. Let's put something in place that's gonna work better and leverage my time, and then I can oversee it. So I built a lot of workflows and a lot of systems that allowed us to do that.

Harv Nagra:

And what was kind of the headcount like when you left?

Lindsey Head:

so it was five, five people when I started, and the funny story was I was working in hedge funds still when I started helping the company. And so I would go to my job in the morning and then I'd

Harv Nagra:

I.

Lindsey Head:

the gym, and then I'd get dressed and go to the office at 6:00 PM.

Harv Nagra:

Oh, wow.

Lindsey Head:

would walk in the office and everyone says, oh, she's the nighttime accountant. the

Harv Nagra:

That's hilarious.

Lindsey Head:

nighttime. And it was really back in the day and, gosh, 2, 9, 10

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Lindsey Head:

guess those years when I was helping at nighttime. And so it was a funny story and the, and the staff would laugh, and there's five people at that time.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

I left, I guess six years ago, technically

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

was, I think, crossed over the a hundred person mark and had, at that point, I would say six offices,

Harv Nagra:

Oh wow. Amazing.

Lindsey Head:

at this stage it's like 1 25 is the staff headcount.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah. That's excellent. That's excellent. And you know, I was saying in the intro that you helped JPR grow from 750 k to$25 million in revenue, which is incredible. Um, and, and you were exceeding industry profitability KPIs, so that is huge. Talk us through what made that growth possible, uh, behind the scenes.

Lindsey Head:

Yeah, there's a lot of things, you know, I think it's like the secret sauce, right?

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Lindsey Head:

very, very lucky to be part of such an incredible agency and still am. And at the time of growth, we were, Figuring everything out.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

what really made a difference, and I feel early on, was that we had a dedicated person responsible for intake of new business leads.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

we weren't spreading that across as many like executive team members. It was someone being the head point, the point person for all of that. And then I was the point person for all the ops on the other side. So she'd bring it in and I'd help. Figure out where it was going

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

having that point person as a, I mean, non-billable employee,

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

Talking about that is a really big deal because a lot of agencies think, if I don't have somebody I can bill or put in the mix to service clients, I don't, I can't afford it. However, I look at it as a, as a trade-off. know, the CEO can give up the time that she'd be working on it, and that'd be a ton of time that we could take it on, right? And that's a big trade off. You look at how many hours we're going into that. there you figure out how much it's costing you.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

having this point person, having me kind of both sides of the business, I think was a really big benefit

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Lindsey Head:

steering the growth and allowing it to scale.

Harv Nagra:

There's a couple of really interesting things there. You know, there, there's something there about just being comfortable, the, the, the owner, the md being comfortable hiring non-billable roles. Right. And, and that sounds like it was a big advantage for yourselves. That is often not the case in a five person service business. So it's quite, quite impressive that that decision was made so early on. you know, for, for a lot of businesses you, you get to that kind of 20 person headcount where they even start thinking about operations roles and things like that. so I, I guess there's a couple of questions or comments there? Maybe you can just start with reflections on why you think, your business had those roles so early on.

Lindsey Head:

it's, it attributed to the amazing leadership for sure. I think making the decision to say, this, this isn't the where I should be spending my time. Can you help me? And, and making that decision early was so, so important and so great. So I attribute it to the, that the leadership was incredible and they, they, they still are. I adore.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

amazing. So I think making that decision early on and saying, I'm gonna do this. And I mean, I guess early on I was part-time.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

then when I came back into a full-time after my tech tech startup days up in Seattle, there was probably maybe 25 people. So I was in that 20 mark

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

decision to say, let's really do this, and you come

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

time. And I think it was at that point, and then the new business. Position that I was mentioning was originally working on accounts

Harv Nagra:

Right?

Lindsey Head:

and then said, no, I actually think I really focusing on new business. So

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

a natural evolution for that role. So it was bridging, two roles that for a short of time. And then she just focused a hundred percent on the in intake.

Harv Nagra:

Amazing. Excellent. so what would you say to somebody listening, a founder or MD listening about the case for investing in these kind of behind the scenes roles that are not billable? What would you say to that?

Lindsey Head:

would say find a way to do it Whether it's fractionally or whether it's full-time. When you're ready, it's all about the numbers. If you run your agency by the numbers and you can say, okay, I need this behind the scenes person or this behind the scenes team, I always can attribute it to a percentage of revenue as well. So I recommend that admin percentage being a percentage of revenue not to exceed like 7 Maybe 8%. but you have to just manage the time and weigh out how much time you're spending doing the tasks. That should be more behind the scenes. Right.

Harv Nagra:

Right.

Lindsey Head:

there, if it's more than like half your week, mean, I would say go for it. It does, it doesn't make sense for you to be doing that. And with so much technology now and automation. It even more so, right,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

off your plate there. It should be systemized, it should be laying the foundation that's gonna scale and looking at all the aspects of the business. I know for me, I'm very visual, so I'll draw out all the workflows that have to happen to run different departments, So I'll map it out. I'll say, okay, everything's coming here. This needs to happen. And we gotta be able to obviously do payroll as easy as possible. Pay people as easy as possible, figure out performance reviews as easy as possible. expenses and billing as easy as we can, and of course those processes evolve as the agency grows, It's not gonna be perfect the minute you put it in place, it's not gonna last forever. You have to always revisit time and say, is this still working the way it's meant to

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

if we evolve so much that we need to evolve our process as well.

Harv Nagra:

Right. Right. And I, I, I think it goes down to also people doing their best work, right? If everyone's spread so thin in the early, early years or growth stages and everyone's juggling four different jobs, no one's really gonna be able to excel. So I think that just goes to a point how great. You know, situation you were in, in that organization where everyone was specializing really right from the start and in these really important roles so you could grow the right way. And I, I think the numbers attest to that. Super, super impressive. so, when we, we had a call before today just to chat and of course, earlier in today's conversation you were also talking about your, your background and interest in tech. you, you've got a really strong point of view on tech and systems and, and consolidation. Why, why is that important to you?

Lindsey Head:

It's so important because I believe in efficiencies and I believe in a strong foundation that can scale quickly.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

if you don't have a lot of these pieces in place or all the, the foundation in place, you are gonna run into roadblocks. You're gonna run into frustration. And my end user in being an ops and finance role was the staff, right? They were using the tools that. We were building, I was building as a team, and, and they were the users of the workflows. They were the users of what I was, we were putting in place to create efficiencies. So my big thing was like, Hey, how's it working for you? You know, do you like this? I would always get, wanna get feedback from the staff, is there anything that's not working for you or could be better?

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

from there, going into how do we solve for, the challenges that they're facing and. we put an expense management platform in play. I mean, things that are now everyday

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

like back then weren't as much.

Harv Nagra:

Yep.

Lindsey Head:

newer, the technology was coming out, but it's okay, we need to do this because they're spending X number of hours trying to put together their expenses. And from a financial standpoint, we're not capturing all those receipts right

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

way we can.

Harv Nagra:

Yep.

Lindsey Head:

better ways to automate that workflow and then it's looking at, okay, how are we billing clients? Is that the best way? No, we can do things differently and, and make it happen more efficiently. And, and then we talk about the contracts, and then we talk about, time tracking and

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely. Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

utilization, which I go back to first and foremost too, in an agency, where are they spending their time and how do we make sure they're spending their time on work that's super

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

get the clients the results they need? I think early on, in the agency, it was really figuring out the, the metrics, right? What, how, how much time should people, should they be spending on client work? And you, you talk about this all the time, is staff utilization. You should be spending so much time on billable hours

Harv Nagra:

Right.

Lindsey Head:

what? the operations team needs.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

producing results and giving those clients what they need and what they're paying for, and not spending your time flipping through receipts, trying to get your, you know,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

in, or trying to get us, fill out a contract. You

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

that it's like, that's not worth your time. I'm taking that off your plate.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

should not be involved in that. Let me figure out a way that it is automatic so you're not worried about it.

Harv Nagra:

Is easier and faster. Right, because I, I think like as your business scales, obviously your, your tech stack, you were saying that processes need to be constantly audited and improved, but so does your tech stack, what worked, despite you being very tech forward right from the start, I imagine that the stack that you had. When you kind of left and what you're doing now in your consulting work evolved as well because you outgrow things, right? So what works when you're a team of five or 10 probably doesn't work that well when you're a team of 25, 40, or 50 or a hundred, right? You start to get those inefficiencies.

Lindsey Head:

I would totally agree with that. And so what you've done in the past is not always, yes. Is not gonna always scale with, I mean, it will scale to an extent, but then typically what I see is that the users of the information evolves, right so if you're working with a bigger team, a bigger staff, more decision makers, it's like, okay, so the eyeballs I had on this. dashboard or things like that is not just for our internal team anymore. Now it's, a bigger executive team, or now it's the vice presidents or now it's committee members. It's like okay, let's revamp how that information's being, presented. How it's being, how we're taking it in and how we're putting it back out. So I, I always look at that and so, yeah, it's hard'cause you're like, oh, I put this in place, it's gonna be forever. And no, that's not the case You gotta be expecting that systems need to evolve too.

Harv Nagra:

absolutely.

Lindsey Head:

I always recommend just doing an audit of what's working, what's not working on a regular basis, because once you know what's not working, the hardest part after that is change management and getting the team to adopt a new system. Mm-hmm. I feel. You can't just put something else in place and expect them to be. rolling with it. it's really, it's harder to make those changes as the company gets bigger, but it's necessary I think at that stage, it's gonna take more work on the front end to really make sure users are gonna adopt it properly and that they play a big part in making that decision.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm. I think the.

Lindsey Head:

beginning.

Harv Nagra:

No, totally. And, and you know, the longer you put stuff like that off, I, I mean, with each evolution, you know, every several years you might need to, or, or sooner than that, you might need to evolve your tech stack. But the longer you procrastinate the decision, the harder it is to roll out what you needed because you're at an even larger size and more complex projects and clients. So, being on the ball is really important. Um, I remember during our previous call, you, you'd said something that I really loved, something like, if you're touching the same information five times, something's wrong. And I, that reminds me as well, because I, I think. There's things that are fine when you're at a smaller size

Lindsey Head:

Hmm.

Harv Nagra:

become not fine when you're at a larger size, and it has to do with inefficiencies. You know, when you're a team of 10, it's maybe okay that you're being a little bit manual with certain things and certain systems, but as you start, growing your head counts, that that is all multiplied, right? So what might have been that 10 minutes of inefficiency per person is now. A lot more when you have 10 more employees. So going back to that point, touching the same information five times, something is wrong.

Lindsey Head:

I stand by that,

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

my, any, any team member who's worked for me knows that, and one of my favorite stories, and I, I love this gal deal, she's so techie, and she says, Lindsey, I learned so much from you just by you saying that, because every time I noticed that I was touching the same information or I did do it repetitively,

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

there and say, I wonder. there's a better way.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

so I ingrained that in, in, in the staff that works for me. And, she's gone on to do amazing things with another company and, and totally in tech and automation, which makes me so proud. But she called me when she said, you changed my life because you said that. And it just makes me look at things so differently. she's like, I bring it to my managers now, and they're like, well, wow. Why do you think like this? And she's like, well. Because why are we doing it this way? And it's not asking a question why, because it's wrong. But it's why are we, because there might be a better way. And

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Lindsey Head:

that's what I always tell my team too, is If we're doing it and we're touching things too many times, a, that's inefficient, and b, I bet you there's a way we can fix this. Looking for those opportunities to automate.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

And now with ai, I mean it's unlimited opportunities, right? If you touch it more than five times,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

two times these

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

you should really think do I have to do this every day, or do I have to do this in manually? Or is there a better way?

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely. Absolutely. for leaders that are, you know, trying to untangle that mess wherever they are with their stacks, where do you start? do you start researching tools or how do you start identifying what you even need?

Lindsey Head:

I would, I would literally take a moment of sit back. Imagine the best case scenario for your business, I would say, and I would, I would draw it

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

say this department, this department, this department. Itemize, what's not working and why. So then I think about okay, in a perfect world, information would come here to, here to here. And how do we do that without somebody having to push that along or

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

some, a human be involved? Right. I love, I love people. It's my, I get so much energy and love people of course, but I want them to do their best and highest work. I want them to be involved in thinking about how to improve things, not the doing of it. Right. As

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

As much as we need that. I mean, of course we need that at different stages, but I also think, I want you to think,'cause your brain is valuable and your contribution's valuable.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

I want them to play a part in how do we design this in a perfect world?

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Lindsey Head:

So every client I work with, it's first like let's talk about the information. How do you get it and how do we get it quickly?

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

need to make decisions and how do we kinda reverse engineer that so

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

a ton of people to do the job.

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely. Figure out the problem that you're trying to solve, right? Rather than getting distracted by shiny tools. I, I think, that's something that is, it, it's an important point because I think we do get distracted by shiny things. Your friend texts you something, maybe not in a work context, but sometimes you hear somebody saying, oh, I use this thing, and then you, you go and research it and you end up solving a very small problem without looking at the big picture. And that is. Kind of the opposite of the kind of solution you're, you're suggesting that we should be aiming for, which is really thought out and considered and thoughtful. and that improves everything rather than solving one small thing.

Lindsey Head:

Hundred percent. it's gotta be big picture. I'm always big picture thinking and then

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

to why are we solving this piece of the big picture?

Harv Nagra:

Hey all, just taking a quick break to ask whether you've heard of Operations Nation. It's the global community for ops leaders of all stripes, they've got a buzzing slack space. I know that because I'm a member myself, A COO course and an annual conference that's coming up on the 20th and 21st of October in London. Go to operations nation.com to learn more and use code. SCORO for£30 pounds off conference tickets. Now, back to the episode. A lot of what we're talking about impacts. well change management has a big role to play, managing people's expectations. you know, with a lot of the, the stuff we're talking about, technology, if you're not prepared to put in the groundwork, things can, Get a bit messy is probably the best case scenario. you know, complete failure is probably the worst case scenario if you haven't done the work. Right. What do you think leaders should be thinking about in order to manage change well?

Lindsey Head:

Totally agree. I'm totally aligned with you. I think it's, that's probably the most important part of, rolling out systems and change management is really figuring out what the plan is to

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

be successful. And whether that's relying on implementation teams to do this properly, knowing who the point persons are, people are to be part of that. Focus group to then test it and then to roll it out. And there's so many phases

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

I feel it's phase one is this and who's involved phase two, did it work? Did it not work? Are we sure we know it works? double checking and then let's talk through the other scenarios that we haven't thought of. So it's not Hey, let's get this now and roll it out. You do that sometimes'cause

Harv Nagra:

Right?

Lindsey Head:

I wanna get the problem solved.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

But it can be a to total failure or it can be something that keeps, not getting to the perfect place that you want it to

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

And that happens with systems. I mean, I get it. You're eager to solve the problem. But I think, again, back to that big picture,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

big.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

it's testing. Get the people involved, educate the people, train everybody, make sure the adoption rate is there. And then ask the question, are we solving the problem? And if we're not, still are. Back to where you started. So I couldn't agree more. It's test it, role play it.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

it's

Harv Nagra:

Exactly.

Lindsey Head:

go through the testing as much as possible.'cause I, it's painful

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

it's not and people get frustrated

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely.

Lindsey Head:

thing you want is your team to say like, Ugh, just over this. It's been going on for months.

Harv Nagra:

Yep. Yeah,

Lindsey Head:

happens.

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely. Absolutely. Lindsey, we've been talking about m and a a lot recently there, there was a recent episode we had, which we were talking about how you should be running your business like you're looking to sell. Even if you're not how, how important that is and how valuable, it just means you're operating in a really smart grownup way, and that's absolutely key. We have also had an episode on actually someone that's acquired multiple businesses and the pitfalls and, and, and learnings that he had on that journey. And you've led an m and a process, you, you've managed operations across borders in this organization and, and supported others. and had to keep those behind the scenes pieces moving. what, when it comes to how a business is set up to handle that kind of complexity, Multi-entity, mergers, acquisitions, what makes life easier and the business more resilient? Can you give us some, some advice?

Lindsey Head:

multi-entity businesses can be challenging, especially if you're running ops and finance from the hub. If you're, if that makes sense from the headquarters, right and you're doing it for all multiple entities.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

that's what I'm used to,

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

leading everything. You're doing it for all entities involved.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

My big thing is consistency across all. Great to make it as easy as you can, to manage the information the financial reporting, the financial forecasting, your cashflow management. You want it the same across the board as much as possible given, currency,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

and all that stuff, especially if you're overseas, that that does throw a wrench in things

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

'cause you have to constantly think about, okay, what's the impact there and how does this work? And, but if you have teams in the US doing some of the work in the uk.

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Lindsey Head:

Brings up a lot of,

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

have to think about. And I can't say you always know the answer, but I'm always committed to saying, you are gonna figure it

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

do best we can. but going back to running it from an ops standpoint, much as I could be consistent across all is the best way I would do it right. You wanna standardize as much as you can, have the same system, have the same forecasting. Set up have the same approach,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

to price pricing's gonna be different because the markets are different. That

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely. Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

But I think, um. Going back to just, if you're running the engine, the ops team behind the scenes, if you can handle it in a similar way, you're gonna be more successful.

Harv Nagra:

Yep.

Lindsey Head:

that's, that's how we approached it. And I think from a O owner standpoint, they wanna see things all consolidated so it, I think standardize as much as you can

Harv Nagra:

Yeah. I think that's, that's really good advice. And, I, I was working for a, a agency group as well that had multiple entities we're doing similar things in different markets. But yeah, I, I think the, the value of being consistent makes the life of that kind of group finance director, group ops director, and, and the kind of head of the agency group as well. So much easier because there's, there's just so much complexity like you're saying. I remember things like cross charging,'cause we used to work and support each other, cross borders and stuff like that. So if you've never had to deal with that, you're very lucky because that can be a bit mind boggling. So I'm glad I wasn't doing that. It was RFD. but, but yeah, it gets really complicated.

Lindsey Head:

Gets complicated in the like laws around and that, well, I should

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Lindsey Head:

standards around that and the

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

need to be handling that. It's unique. And then I have to say, when you get involved with different tax you've got that over in the uk we don't have that in the us. Like how do you handle those things? It's like there are just so many nuances that are not handled in the same way,

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

then you get into the people aspect of it and you've got paid time off over there you've got holiday standards and different things. So we, as much as you wanna be the same across the board, you still have the nuances impact us on the backend and behind

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely,

Lindsey Head:

having to account for all of it the right way and make sure. is handled in the right way, and

Harv Nagra:

Yeah,

Lindsey Head:

so much differences when you start getting into cross border.

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely. another thing that reminds me of, Tech has a role to play in that as well because you know, from a, a tech stack point of view, we might think, okay, we're using zero or QuickBooks or whatever, but often that decision can't be made globally, right. like that, that example with France, like they have their own accounting platforms because everything is just so unique to that market. So it's gets really tricky. That's something that you have to bear in mind when you're, you're running a group, isn't it? Is.

Lindsey Head:

nailed it. I think when we've launched and started operating in the uk. Our tax team was like, wait, we don't use QuickBooks online,

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Lindsey Head:

we use Zero. And I said, well, we're not going there because we're gonna be consistent and we use QuickBooks online for our us, and entities. but that was a challenge. Absolutely. And the way it's presented when you use a different country's version

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

And the way it's presented financially is different.

Harv Nagra:

Yep.

Lindsey Head:

And it just doesn't work the same. I mean, similar with I know there's companies now that do employ staff here and overseas For you.

Harv Nagra:

right. DEEL, DEEL is an example that comes to mind for me, they help you hire local employees when you don't have a entity there.

Lindsey Head:

Yes. You know, have an entity. So with a lot of the things we faced was our owners were US based.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

They were not UK based yet. We opened in full operations there. And I gotta tell you, you can't go get a bank account.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

a us, you're not a UK citizen resident. You know, you don't. So that has that, those types of things are super challenging.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

are not a resident of that region and you don't have the same ability to go do the things that you would do like in the United States. So

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

solutions out there. So yes, DEEL's like one of them that I think came in later that I was like, oh, that would've solved a lot of challenges and headaches in the

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

other ways, there's local directors who can serve for a very short time, just support you and opening, opening bank accounts and supporting in that manner. and just helping you on the ground.'cause they know what they know about the challenges businesses face. So

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

like that that I know we've relied on.

Harv Nagra:

Right.

Lindsey Head:

to help. So yeah, really, really good stuff. But it is really challenging'cause nothing is consistent when you start going cross

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Lindsey Head:

and globally, and I just see these large, large companies and I'm like, wow. I just think about their teams in the background.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

Right. You and I would know, like, I know they're going through hoops for different reasons,

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

it doesn't always seem that way. But I, I know there's a lot going on behind the scenes.

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm. And I think you know, we're talking about headcounts growing and, and that gets more complex obviously, when you're a multi-entity like domestically. And if you're talking internationally, it's even more complex. So I think that's where that consolidation element. Becomes really, really important is try to streamline, simplify, and consolidate as much as possible. Right.

Lindsey Head:

Couldn't agree more. Yep.

Harv Nagra:

so you have, written that, about how AI is reshaping the CFO role. not necessarily replacing people, but by removing the repetitive stuff. Right. And you've been talking about automation today as well. in your work, what parts of finance and ops do you think are really ripe for automation right now? Can you give us some examples?

Lindsey Head:

I think a lot of the day-to-day tasks, obviously. and I think reporting and analysis, fp and a right for if the planning and analysis I think is completely there. And you have to check. I don't always rely on it, but it is so, so helpful

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

give you the insights you need on

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

of data. And so I'll run something where it's a full analysis and I'm like, okay. Yeah, that's great. And also the presentation of information. are so many ways now, you can ingest information into an AI

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

and it'll create beautiful dashboards and it'll create the insights you need. So if you can do that, and you can cut down the time it takes to do the analysis and report on it. Hands down, I think it's gonna be, it is a game changer already, and I can only imagine what it will continue to offer to companies and business owners.

Harv Nagra:

Absolutely. You work with, a mix of agencies, consultancies, other service-based businesses. Now, are there any patterns that, you, you recognize where businesses are hitting operational ceilings or, or. Consistent issues.

Lindsey Head:

patterns across all of them. I

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

when they're in the 10 to 20 realm,

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

points of how do I manage my team effectively? When can I hire? These are common questions I think, where people are like, I wanna grow, but the CEO is still super involved

Harv Nagra:

Hmm.

Lindsey Head:

they could be very, very involved for a long, long time too. It's not that, but what I do see a pattern of is I always ask the question, how is your staff working?

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

How are they, do you know how much time they're spending on the work? their time going? Do you have five people involved in a meeting when only one needs to be there and send out a recording?

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

that are like through and through happening across every service based company that I work with. they always have to ask that question and go back to the gross margin by client. Are we actually making money? So I'll see one thing in certain trends on the financials, and then it'll make me say, who's managing this process, first of all, and who's managing the

Harv Nagra:

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Head:

And it's similar across the board. And I would say that's the number one thing that is through and through what's going on. And then the second thing is. I get involved with clients at different stages And what I do see is if they haven't been managing by the numbers and we try to get them into a place of managing by the numbers and they're a service-based company, a lot of times they're over staffed financially, from a labor standpoint, from

Harv Nagra:

Mm.

Lindsey Head:

from what I would recommend from a really healthy labor percentage. So you'll

Harv Nagra:

Right.

Lindsey Head:

of that. And so you're trying to solve for that, but that brings you right back to how is the team working because they feel like they're overwhelmed, but then their labor percentage is too high. And so you try to like problem solve to get them in a really good, strong place financially And not to say they're not in a good place financially, but I always look at that labor number as indicative of.

Harv Nagra:

Yeah.

Lindsey Head:

your financials in the best place they could be from a service company, right? Because you wanna keep that in line. You don't wanna have to lay people off if something goes south. You really wanna then dig into, are we being as efficient as we can with our team to deliver on the services? So that is a theme.

Harv Nagra:

That is super interesting to me that when you're not really on top of your metrics and control of your organization, how you might feel busier and need more people. And it's when you start to tighten that ship, you realize this is where all the time is being wasted and this is how we could be more efficient. And we have too many people actually. So that is actually really, really interesting. So, Lindsey, we're coming towards the end. I've got my last question for you, and it's, it's kind of a broad one, but let's see, what you suggest. If someone's feeling buried under their tools, processes, hiring decisions and visibility issues, what's one decision they could make this quarter that would genuinely move things forward for them?

Lindsey Head:

I think if they can pause this quarter, take a minute, take three hours, whatever. I don't know. Write down how it's going, how you wish it was going, and then I

Harv Nagra:

That does.

Lindsey Head:

glean some insights into where do we need to focus our energy this quarter or next quarter to make improvements so everybody can, work smarter, not harder.

Harv Nagra:

Good advice. And you know, the analogy that comes to mind for me is that, I listened to a lot of things about mental health and stuff like that. A lot of times we might feel anxious, but we don't, and we want that feeling to go away, but don't spend enough time thinking about why am I feeling that way? And if we did, we might be able to get to the, the meat of it. Address that issue. And that kind of aligns with what you're saying is that rather than just knowing that something's not quite right, just really taking the time out to think about it in a deeper way.

Lindsey Head:

I think we're really accustomed to pushing, pushing, pushing, and just keep it going. We'll deal with that later.

Harv Nagra:

Lindsey, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast today. If somebody wants to, you know, speak to you and get, get some advice, you're, you're based in California, is that right?

Lindsey Head:

Based in San Diego, California.

Harv Nagra:

Amazing. Amazing. And how can they find you and connect with you and speak to you?

Lindsey Head:

I am a huge fan of LinkedIn, so you

Harv Nagra:

Okay?

Lindsey Head:

LinkedIn. search for me and I operate. My business name is, Pulse Business Group. That's my consulting group. And, you can reach out to me anytime. Happy to connect and happy. Yeah, send me a message on LinkedIn or anywhere else you wanna email me. My email's on there. And I also have a way to schedule a brief meeting if you ever wanna chat.

Harv Nagra:

We'll put the links to all of that in our episode notes as well. Once again, Lindsey, it's been a pleasure having you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for being here. I loved that conversation with Lindsey. We covered a huge range of topics, but here are five things that stuck out to me. First, Lindsey's advice, invest in non-billable roles to unlock growth. Dedicated business development and operational roles pay for themselves. Number two, if you're touching the same information more than a couple of times, fix the workflow. Keep auditing and evolving the tech stack as the team scales. Okay, number three, change management is a program. Phase the rollout. Involve users early test, test, train, and measure adoption before you declare victory. Number four, multi-entity is survivable. If you standardize what you can and respect the local nuance currency, tax, time off banking, that kind of stuff, and you can lean on local partners or EORs employers of record companies like Deal or Remote when you need to get moving fast. And number five, run the business by the numbers. Utilization gross margin by client and labor percentage, all that kind of stuff. It tells the truth. AI can accelerate financial planning and analysis, but you still need to sanity check the outputs. Regular listeners will know that I send out a newsletter a week after the episode goes live with a cheat sheet of the key learnings. If you haven't signed up, go to score.com/podcast. Scroll down the page and look for the signup form And if you've enjoyed today's episode, please share it with someone that would enjoy it and join the conversation when you see Lindsey and I posting about it on LinkedIn. That's it for me this week. Thanks very much for joining us.

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