CFO Chronicles: The Secrets Behind Success

What Most Consultants Get Wrong About High-Ticket Clients (And How to Fix It)—with Stan Sukhinin

• James Donovan • Season 2 • Episode 26

Share episode

Ever wondered how a hedge fund dream turned into a thriving career in financial consultancy? Meet Stan Sukhinin, the fractional CFO advisor from Sorso in Austin, Texas, who did just that. At fifteen, Stan was already captivated by the world of finance, setting him on a path that included investment banking and a bold move to start a hedge fund in New York—only to pivot to financial consulting during the pandemic. We promise you'll uncover not just his story of resilience and adaptation but also the innovative methods he employed to master client acquisition in a field where technical skills often overshadow business development acumen.

In our conversation with Stan, we unravel the complexities of managing client relationships and the art of business development within financial consultancy. Listen as he shares insights into conducting effective discovery calls and the strategic decision-making involved in recognizing when to refer clients to other experts for mutual benefit. Learn about the transition from hands-on client work to focusing on expanding a consultancy, and discover the secrets to attracting high-end clients using platforms like LinkedIn. Tune in for a masterclass on elevating your accounting business and staying ahead of industry trends with strategies that promise to unlock your business's full potential.

Send us a text

Speaker 1:

Welcome to CFO Chronicles the secrets behind success, the go-to podcast for fractional CFOs and accounting firm owners who want to attract more high-paying clients and increase their revenue. Hosted by James Donovan from Nine Two Media, this podcast dives into marketing strategies specifically designed for lead generation and client acquisition. In each episode, you'll hear from industry leaders sharing their success stories, and Today we're joined by Stan Zukinen from Sorso, based out of Austin, texas.

Speaker 2:

Stan is a fractional CFO advisor, working with a variety of industries, helping firms improve their cashflow, reduce their expenses and the overall health of their business. Stan, thank you so much for joining the show. I'm looking forward to learning a little bit more about you and your business.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, James, thank you very much for having me. Yeah, it's my pleasure to be here.

Speaker 2:

Really cool, really cool. Looking forward to getting into this. Stan, let's go back to the beginning, maybe. How? How did you get into into the world of, you know, cfo advisory, the financial world, helping businesses improve the overall health of their company?

Speaker 3:

yeah, like my story starts started very, very early. So in like, when I was 15 years old, I really kind of figured out what I'm going to do with my life. I like financials and I like businesses. And I decided that my first job should be at the bank, at the corporate lending department, because I can see businesses and analyze financials. So it's where I end up like a mid-size bank. And then I switched a few jobs during investment banking and then I had, like this, this dream like to set up my own hedge fund. It was like a long dream and like reading all this Buffett, all these like hedge fund gurus, like follow them, and yeah. So I decided when I was, I think, 34. I decided so I'm originally from russia, moscow.

Speaker 3:

I decided like to move to the capital hedge fund industry, new york with my family and start my own hedge fund. So it's uh, it's kind of like didn't really work out. So I moved just before the pandemic. And then pandemic happened and we struggled even to open a hedge fund. When we opened we didn't have enough asset under management and we had one employee. So it just like it was like expenses after expenses with no revenue and I was almost like depleted my savings and it's just like thinking, okay, what's I gonna do next?

Speaker 3:

And at that point I had this kind of weird, weird kind of like message in my head. I thought like financials are too easy, you know. I thought it's kind of like. It's like I thought it's kind of like a no, like another language. It's kind of like it's good to know this, but it can be your profession.

Speaker 3:

And and until I get this offer from a friend of mine, a new friend of mine from New York, his father was fundraising for his startup and they sent me the deck and the financial model.

Speaker 3:

And I look at this and I was like, and before they sent me, they say the financial model is the best that I will ever see in my life and I've seen a lot, so I've been working with more than a thousand businesses during my career and yeah, I just opened this financial model and it was the worst financial model that I ever seen in my life. It was absolutely terrible. No logic, it's just like, yeah, it's, it was terrible. So and then I kind of said, okay, I can't help you, like just to redo the model. And the deck is also wasn't great, and yeah, and then I kind of say, okay, I can help you, like, uh, just to redo the model and the deck is also wasn't great. And in the end then I realized they actually I think at that time it was like two thousand five hundred dollars, something like that, for the deck and I realized.

Speaker 3:

So they pay for this and they really need my skills and I kind of like lights on okay, so I can do this. And since then I started doing this. At that time I didn't call it fractional c4, I didn't at that time like it wasn't a thing. It just was, I don't know, kind of like a financial consulting okay, interesting path on.

Speaker 2:

It sounds like you kind of fell into it a little bit backwards, but, um, it seems like it's working out for you right now. Let's flip the script a little bit there, stan. Then tell me, how are you finding new businesses to work with so that you are able to provide that same value to new clients who you're providing to your existing clients? Because I think a lot of professionals in your space, they are so skilled at the fulfillment aspect but there can be some struggles at times to find new clients. So what, what's been working well for you in that arena?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think, james, you are totally right. I think, like our industry full of like accountants and financial people and they just like, like they, they choose these professionals like because of their personality, and usually they just like they choose this profession because of their personality and usually it's like introverts, they rather spend the entire day in front of the Excel. So it's just like opposite of I don't know like a salesperson, like I don't know like it, probably even like CEO or so, like they don't really get used to the go to the public, share their, their opinion publicly. I don't know. Yeah, it's kind of like there's a lot of hurdles. I think, uh, for me, uh, like my kind of previous entrepreneur experience with the hedge fund, because when I moved to new york, uh, I set a goal that I'm just going every day, I will spend time to networking and I just like start going on events every day and it was literally like my job. So I just find any event that is relevant for me and just trying to get as many contacts as possible. And right now it's also the same.

Speaker 3:

I think, like offline, especially in my category, I'm working with the higher revenue clients, so I'm working with at least like 3 million of revenue clients and I'm not the cheapest one. I know there's different price buckets and I think like to sell like this kind of like service with this price tag. You need to establish relationships offline or somebody should refer to you. I think it's only like two reliable ways how you get clients, especially in my segment. If you don't work with startups and you don't really provide accounting service, you're working like I'm only providing like a fractional cfo service. So it's I think it's the way to go like. Just find any any kind of events where you can. You can meet potential customers okay, I, I would.

Speaker 2:

I would have to challenge you a little bit I would say there's other ways to certainly get in front of the ideal clients. You're already working with word of mouth. It's always going to be the best. But there's a catch-22 there. You need to have enough people you're working with in order to actually send out the word of mouth. And then the networking.

Speaker 2:

You can get very restricted to either the serviceable area you're in, where you're attending these events, or it can become extremely costly if you're flying where you're attending these events, or can become extremely costly if you're flying around to different events. So just depending on what those look like. But you're absolutely right, you can certainly get in front of great, great audiences and great prospects. That though, through those methods but, um, yeah, I would definitely challenge you that there's. There are other consistent ways to still get in front of the business owners who are doing 3 mil plus per year, outside of the networking events, because I'm sure not tried in the past that didn't work that you no longer you no longer you know do anymore, because it's simply just it was. It's not yielding the results that you're looking for.

Speaker 3:

What I'm not doing anymore. That, okay, it's a good question. I think I'm stopped working with certain clients. It's like, it's like the biggest realization. I spent too much time on the clients. That just is not a good fit for my service and I couldn't realize. So I just like when I learned about my peers like successful fractional CFO companies, and then when I met certain clients that were okay to pay, pay I know 6 000 a month, so as I realized, okay, I just I'm doing the right service.

Speaker 3:

I'm just not in a certain. I just like targeting not the right clients, because before that I was working with the startups and like, yeah, like up to one million of revenue and they really they don't have like even like two thousand dollars per month to pay like for any kind of service and yeah, it was a struggle and kind of like this realization helps me and I think like I think a lot of, especially like just first time, kind of like a fractional c4, they just started and they trying to get any kind of clients and usually because they're more like those, like small companies, than larger companies, just because of the low numbers, and like they probably will meet those and they will say no, it's like $5,000, even like $3,000 is just too much we can pay. And then they can like create this wrong kind of mindset that they okay, it's like it's probably too much.

Speaker 2:

I'm asking for this service, but it's actually just you're talking with the wrong client yeah, that's, that's really good insight and I I'd love to to ask a follow-up on that. But kind of just building off of what you're saying, it it takes me back to the analogy of a bottle of water. Um, a bottle of water at, say, the corner store might be a dollar. The same bottle of water at the airport could be seven bucks. It's not that the product isn't right, it's where. Where are you trying to sell the product? Who are you trying to sell it to? And it sounds like that's what you really noticed is hey, I have, I have the right thing, people want it, but I was selling it and I was trying to sell it to the wrong people who just simply can't afford it. Now I'm selling it to just a whole different audience and they're saying, yes, no trouble, at a much higher price point. Same service offering much higher price point to a, to a more qualified audience. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

And yeah and and right now, for example, it gives me, like when I learn about like those right clients and when you see like that you deliver the value, it give you a real like a boost in your confidence. And, for example, I'm like right now I'm not gonna discount my price, even if it's gonna be a smaller scope of work. I know it's just it doesn't work like my time and it's just not the right client and I will just decline it. It's just like it's it's going to work. So I'm kind of like very firm on my price and don't really like negotiate below like a certain cap.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, what are some of the things you look for Like do you have an internal checklist? When you're on a sales call with a prospect Excuse me or someone's interested in your services, are you running through a couple of different things? Are you trying to identify on the call, because everyone speaks about, hey, I only work with the best. You know the best clients and these are the people I want to work with. But oftentimes, especially when you're getting started, when push comes to shove, if someone's like, hey, I'm, I'm willing to pay you what you're asking for, let's, let's engage in business, most of the time people are going to say, yes, let's do it. But what are you looking for now that you're a little bit more established, where you're like, you know, but that's a red flag. I actually don't want them as a client because that red flag doesn't outweigh the value in which they're providing my firm.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think the easiest one is just kind of not red flag, it's just a criteria Like for them even if they agree to pay my price.

Speaker 3:

But, for example, their revenue is $1 million and they are not a startup that's growing like double their revenue every few months. It's just like I know it doesn't make economically for them like to pay this price, so I will decline anyways, obviously. Just it doesn't make any sense for you guys right now, like another thing is just like I'm looking for the scope of work on my discovery call, like to understand what they're really looking for and like when you kind of like dig deeper and like understand, like okay, what you need help with, like, for example, I, if it's kind of like I don't know really distressed situation when, like I know they're running out of the money, like in two weeks and it's just like they need like help, it's probably too late for me to step in and it's like and it's probably it's gonna be like a full-time project for my team, including me, just to save this company for the next three months probably, and it's probably there's a very high probability that we'll still end up closing the company and I will lose them as a client. So it doesn't work for me and I think, just in general, you kind of see the person, what's they asking, what's they looking for, what's the expectations from you?

Speaker 3:

I think sometimes it's difficult to kind of get it from the first call, but I usually do discovery call and then kind of like a sales call where we like go more in detail. So what's the expectations, what's the issues and how we can solve them. And so you're trying like to gauge this and like to understand okay, is it a good fit? Um, yeah, yeah. And like scope work, yeah. So sometimes they kind of expecting kind of what I'm doing, an accounting work, or like, uh, yeah, I, I don't do this, so it's yeah. Or like I know five day taxes.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, do you have. Are you? Are you partnered up with other firms? Stand who the people, the business owners that you can't work with, the ones who you don't feel are a good fit for you. You're able to refer them to someone else and you're still monetizing a little bit off of those connections not my direct peers.

Speaker 3:

so I have a lot of conversations if other fractional roles like marketing, chief revenue officer, like HR, like other, like in trying to establish those referral fees. But I think it's I don't know it's kind of challenging, at least for me it's yeah, I don't know. We have a lot of conversations, but they just don't really turn into anything right now.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, but let's see, see, have you thought about having some of those partnerships where if especially if you have a solid lead flow coming through and you can't take on everyone and not everyone's a good fit where you can send them to another firm, who who does specialize in maybe those smaller businesses like between the half a mil to the two million dollar range, or if they're people looking for specific services you don't offer and you can still monetize off the back end? Have you considered that for your business model?

Speaker 3:

um, yeah, probably at some point. Yes, yeah, right now. Just I don't think I have. I know so many leads that like I need to establish like these processes there's a short time. I know like people approach, approach and they need help. I know trying to find Even for my current clients they need a new tax advisor, or I know something doesn't work with, I don't know, with accounting firms. So, for example, with accounting, I have kind of this hate and love because I usually so it's usually kind of like the first things on to the list or the new client okay what, what are one of the, and if you can narrow it down to one.

Speaker 2:

But what stands out to you is like one of the biggest wins, the, the biggest thing you're proud of with your business. Maybe it's a win for a client, a win for yourself with your business. Is there anything that stands out top of mind? They're like, yeah, this, this is awesome, this is a win. I, a client, a win for yourself with your business. Is there anything that stands out top of mind? They're like, yeah, this is awesome, this is a win I'm very proud of.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, like just get them clarity what they need to accomplish, like get their picture because, like before we start working, they have this kind of like awake understanding, like even like what's the need to do the business and revenue where they are, like they're just like they want to sell at some point but they don't have anything, you know, like firm and concrete, like what's they doing, like what kind of revenue, what kind of ebitda they want to achieve, how they want to achieve how much capital do they need to provide.

Speaker 3:

And then, like I just see, like in in six months, like we have like this great visibility what is happening with different parts of the business, how much they generated cash, how much they need capital, how much we need to invest in the future to get where they want to. And it's great to see and I hate this word strategic approach, find those insights, all these kind of like buzzwords. But yeah, it's, I think it's and I think it's main differentiator of myself from others, like I. I like I don't have any accountant background. I've never been in cpa and never been a controller. I've been on the investment banking side, on on, uh, lending side, and so it's kind of like helped me to see strategically when I look at each client okay interesting and you mentioned earlier in this recording.

Speaker 2:

You have a team now. Um, what, what's a an average day look like for you? You get up in the morning. How much time is spent are you working in the business? Is most of it on the business? Are you? Do you work half days now because everything's been? You have the systems and processes. Everything can run like what. What's the average day look like for you during the, you know, monday to friday?

Speaker 3:

yeah, right now I'm switching more to business development. So I kind of like my goal, I know, for this quarter, like I know, decrease the like actual work on the current clients and not to less than 50%. It's a bit challenging, particularly this quarter, because just like a lot of stuff like going on with each client they have like audits, board of directors, like closing their financials, just so many things happening. But yeah, it's kind of like I'm right now spending more time on business development and it's just like part of this is like I post already on LinkedIn and Twitter. I want to expand this one. I do a lot of offline networking events and just follow up, reach out. I have kind of like online meetups with different people. Usually it's kind of like these fractional roles, different fractional roles to establish like those partnerships, so kind of exploring different things, trying like my goal I think by the end of the first half of this year to spend, like I don't know, 60, 70% on business development.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, that's great. I'm sure by getting to that goal you're going to see significant growth on the bottom line of the firm. So definitely wishing you all the best as you work towards that goal.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Stan, thank you so much for coming on today. I appreciate all the insight and knowledge you shared in the background on how you got your firm off the ground and the direction you're hoping to go in and continue to push forward with. So again, thank you so much for coming on. This has been a great conversation.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, James, for inviting me. Yeah, it was great to speak to you inviting me.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, it was great to speak to you. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of CFO Chronicles the secrets behind success. I hope you found value in today's conversation. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, make sure to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss any future episodes. If you enjoyed today's discussion, please rate and review the show. It helps others discover the insights we share here. Second, if you're ready to take your business to the next level and attract the high-end clients you deserve, head over to accountingleadsnowcom or click the link in the show notes to book your strategy. Call. It's time to position yourself as the advisor your clients need. And don't forget you can connect with me on LinkedIn to stay up to date on what's happening in the world of accounting and financial growth. We've got more exciting topics coming up, so stay tuned for the next episode of CFO Chronicles. Until then, keep pushing forward. Your growth is just one strategic move away.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to CFO Chronicles the secrets behind success. We hope today's episode provided valuable strategies to help you attract more high-paying clients. Be sure to subscribe, thank you and unlocking your business's potential.