CFO Chronicles: The Secrets Behind Success

Founders, You’re Leaking Profit, Here’s Where It’s Going - With Tom Schultz

• James Donovan • Season 3 • Episode 45

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You’re not broke, but you might be bleeding.


What if your biggest profit leak isn’t your pricing or marketing… but the decisions you’re not even tracking?

🎙 In this episode, fractional CFO Tom Schultz (48+ clients, $1M - $80M businesses) breaks down:


 • The hidden cost of founder “gut calls”
 • What really happens when you scale without financial structure
• Why money in the bank ≠ a healthy business
• The mindset shift that separates operators from real CEOs
• The hiring mistake that quietly kills growth

⏳ This episode might save you six figures, or years of rework.

📬 Want to connect with Tom?
 Reach him via LinkedIn or at CFO2Fractional.com

Send us a text

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back to CFO Chronicles, the podcast where we go beyond the numbers and into the boardroom with the financial minds who keep businesses alive and scaling. Today's guest is Tom Schultz, a seasoned fractional CFO the guy companies bring in when they've outgrown their bookkeeper and the wheels are coming off at 60 miles an hour. Tom isn't just managing cash flow, he's building financial infrastructure. He's helped companies streamline ops, raise capital, prep for acquisition and just clean up the financial mess that most founders don't even realize they're sitting on. If you're a founder operator or just someone trying to make sure your business doesn't die from cash burn this episode's for you. We're going deep on.

Speaker 1:

The moment you actually need a CFO Spoiler, it's probably before you think. The moment you actually need a CFO spoiler, it's probably before you think how to build to scale without blowing the budget. And the financial BS is still floating around LinkedIn. That Tom can't stand, and I throw in a couple of wildcard questions in the middle just to keep him and you on your toes. Let's get into it. You've worked with businesses from scrappy startups to scaling machines.

Speaker 2:

When did you realize finance was your lane? Well, I started actually back in my MBA program. I was in my MBA program at University of South Carolina and they started giving us case studies as part of the curriculum and I just did exceedingly well, to the point where my professors usually would never call on me because I would always have a good answer on a case study. And then that evolved into I worked as a consultant for the Small Business Development Center and so through my MBA program I was meeting with small businesses of all sorts and they you know, if it's affiliated with the Small Business Administration, they all want to come in and borrow money. So I kind of evolved down. I put together my first three statement projection model back when I was still in the MBA program. It was just something that you normally don't get to until after you get out of school, but I did it back then and that I just it came natural to me.

Speaker 1:

Interesting, that's cool, and when you just find your knack, something's working super natural for you. I'm curious what's the biggest myth you see floating around CFOs or finance leadership in general?

Speaker 2:

In finance CFOs general, the biggest myth is that you need to be a CPA and need to have an accounting background to be a CFO. I don't have a CPA. I don't have an accounting degree. I did get my MBA in finance but to this day I oversee relationships with CPA firms outside CPA firms for my clients and usually it comes up at some point. They assume I'm a CPA because I can talk the talk, walk the walk, I understand debits and credits. That's always come natural to me and just you know. You learn as you go along and that's all you really need. What you really need is the CFO, the high level stuff, and accounting really is just a foundational requirement.

Speaker 1:

Interesting. That's cool. When a founder tells you we're doing fine without a CFO, what's your gut reaction?

Speaker 2:

Well, how much better could you be doing if you had a CFO? So usually I get that kind of response either they are too small, which you know, some of them are too small, but sometimes I get a. I've talked to people that they've got $10 million in the bank. They have no debt. All they're really doing is just looking forward to the next year and how much money they can take out of the company. Well, a CFO could even help there.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I help client companies invest their money smarter. I also do my projections in the future so that they can get to the mid part of the year and know how much they're going to be able to take out by the end of the year. Know how much they can comfortably take out out by the end of the year. Know how much they can comfortably take out. Also, they typically look at transitioning or exiting later in their lives and if you don't have a CFO in place, you're going to rely on your CPA and your lawyer and they're going to come up with this great transition estate plan and there's going to be money involved somewhere. Well, as a CFO even a part-time CFO I can help them translate what's going to be the financial impact. Do we need to save up some money in order to affect that transaction? Do we need to borrow some money? How much do you need in your retirement? So there's lots of different ways. Everyone comes at it from a different way, but I do get that question a bunch.

Speaker 1:

How do you normally overcome that? Because a lot of people don't like change, and if they feel they're doing well, it's like well, I don't really need you though, so you can see and you know what the benefit looks like. But for someone else who's like, well, we've got it, we've got this far, we're doing fine, like really, how much better could we be doing? Like I'm not, I'm not feeling any pain, why would I make a change? Why would I invest in this? How would you navigate that? I guess objection or yeah, let's call it an objection, I mean in a sales conversation objection or, yeah, let's call it an objection I mean in a sales conversation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, first of all, I don't encounter too many of those because most of my opportunities for clients come from referrals and they've usually kind of pre-qualified. There's usually a pain point or a need that they've, they're talking to me and so I can address that need. And so if they say, well, I need this need addressed, but I don't need you long term, I just need you short term, and I say, all right, I'll just come in and address your need, but let's, let's do that. I'm going to be trying to demonstrate to you what kind of value I can provide over the long haul and you know it is the case.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes they don't need someone like me and we can mutually agree on that. But almost always someone will bring me in for one thing and in the first week or two I'll find something else where I can add value and I'll do it and it'll be like whoa, you know the owner will be like, well, that's pretty cool. And so it's really up to me. If I can get in the door and spend a little bit of time, I can show them the value.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, awesome. That's really cool, tom. At what point does a business, in your opinion, actually need a CFO, or even a fractional?

Speaker 2:

CFO, yeah, typically it needs to grow to a certain size. I say typically, but in reality if anything is investor financed, capitalized, so if it's a you know angel investor, if it's a you know pre-revenue tech startup, vc based, if you're reporting to investors, the investors are going to want a CFO there, even if you're pre-revenue or way before making a profit. So in that case the investors are only putting in a little bit of money at a given time, maybe in phases, and they can't really afford a full-time CFO anyway and certainly not keep a full-time CFO busy. So if there's a startup that's backed by investors, that's a good point for a fractional CFO. Also, then you know it's going to grow so or it's going to come in at a growth level. So I kind of use minimum 3 million in sales, but that's really just an arbitrary number.

Speaker 2:

And to need a part-time CFO of some sort, and it depends on the complexity If they're borrowing a lot of money, you probably need a fractional CFO. If you're just doing a small business that's doing not a lot of transactions, a lot of high dollar transactions, maybe all you need is a bookkeeper. But when you start making a lot of profit and start hiring a lot of people. At some point it will be helpful for you to have a fractional CFO, and I use the analogy when the owner stops signing their own checks, the payables checks when they stop doing that, they probably need a fractional CFO of some sort to help them sort through the data and give them the reports, because then they don't have their fingers through the data and give them the reports, because then they're not. They don't have their fingers in the trenches anymore of all the dollars that are going in, and out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's the litmus test.

Speaker 2:

Now, yeah, now let me just tell you, though separately. I've been at clients. I had $80 million company where I was a two day a week fractional CFO and people say, well, don't they need a full-time CFO by the time they get to 80 million? And the answer is it was working just fine. I had a very strong controller and he did everything that needed to be done on a day-to-day basis for all five days, and I was able to do just the CFO stuff two days a week. And so that's you's.

Speaker 2:

I don't know that there is an upper limit for fractional CFO.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I guess it all. Every business is different, right? No, no business is the same and it depends on the systems they have in place and the team members. So it correct. Yeah, that's interesting, it's a cool take. What? What are the common financial landmines that you see in businesses doing one mil to 10 mil a year?

Speaker 2:

Well, the financial landmines typically are one growth oriented. So if they I've had companies where they they're 3 million in sales and they land a big $3 million opportunity, so they're going to double in sales, it's like, oh okay. So they run to the banker and the banker says, well, I need this and this and this and this, and then I'll lend you the money. But if no one does the projections to see how the cashflow is going to be impacting, if you have a big spike in growth, it's going to suck a lot of cash into it. And sometimes, too, the owner gets to the end of the year and says, well, I doubled my sales, doubled my profits, so I'm going to take even that much more money out of the company no-transcript.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's tough, though. Sometimes as the owner, if you have a good year, you're like, well, I'm going to reward myself. But again, if you don't have that financial support looking over understands the numbers a little bit better you can find yourself in a sticky situation. Correct, how do you help founders understand the difference between cash, profit and growth and how to prioritize between them?

Speaker 2:

cash, profiting growth, and how to prioritize between them. Well, I mean, they all need to dance together. So everyone wants to grow, grow sales, grow profit. And you know the but the cash has to be there because, as as you know, as I'm sure all, probably all our podcast listeners know that you need to have cash to be able to fuel the growth working capital needs. And so, you know, a lot of times companies just pull off their, their income statement and that's all they see and think that that's not, that's good enough. But that's why I always look as a CFO and really as an FP&A person you look forward. You look forward at the cash If we're growing. Do we have enough cash? What do we need to do? Do we need to, you know, factor in some money, some debt? Do we need to have a big enough line of credit? So it's they all dance together and you need to harness them all together. You can't look at them separately.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I like, I like that. That they all, they all mesh, they all dance together. That's. That's cool, Tom, what's one of the most impactful changes you've ever made inside a business? Something where you know the numbers turned around relatively fast, based off of a change that you were able to spearhead fast, based off of a change that you were able to spearhead.

Speaker 2:

So I've had 48 clients and I've had some really interesting ones. Usually I have not been able to contribute to the bottom line by my action. One thing I did do I went into a company and he just wanted a CFO fractional CFO because he was transitioning to his next generation. His three kids were in the company and he wanted to make sure all the financials were in right. And I'm actually helping educate them.

Speaker 2:

But in the first week there I looked at his bank debt and it was probably three or four years ago and he was paying too high an interest rate and his debt service was too high.

Speaker 2:

So I went to the bank and the bank banker knew that I knew other banks and I said listen, we need to restructure this thing. And literally within a few weeks we had dramatically lowered the interest rate, interest rate, we had stretched out the payments and I think in my first month on the job we reduced $100,000 a year in interest expense and $1 million lower in debt service payments. So that's one thing, but a lot of what I do is I model something. I provide data to a company owner so he can make better decisions he she can make better decisions and that allows them to then make impactful bottom line things. If they're thinking, ah, maybe I can do this, maybe I can do that, and I show that model it for them and say, hey, you can do this and we can support it by this, then they can go out and do that, and that's happened a number of times.

Speaker 1:

I mean being able to knock off $100K. Not a bad first couple weeks on the job.

Speaker 2:

Right, right right.

Speaker 1:

Where do most founders leak profits and never realize it? They and I'm listening extra close on this one Founders leak profits and never realize it.

Speaker 2:

They.

Speaker 1:

And I'm listening extra close on this one.

Speaker 2:

Where did founders leave profits? They leave them.

Speaker 1:

A leak, oh, leak yeah, yeah, leak yeah.

Speaker 2:

Where do they leak profits? They leak it in making decisions based on what they think is right instead of factoring in what is appropriate. So I'll give you an example. I had one assignment once and the owner of the company was very particular on the appearance of his building and his operations and it looked beautiful. I mean it was a manufacturing operation. He looked like he could eat off the floor. But to keep it that way was very, very expensive.

Speaker 2:

I mean, you know full-time janitors, full-time, you know lawn grounds people. I mean everything was just as soon as something broke it was fixed immediately and you know there's nothing wrong with that, but it was very expensive for him to do that. The other vanity thing he did was he wanted a building he was building to be higher up, so it was higher profile from the road, and he spent quite a bunch of money trucking in dirt to build up the land to put that. It wasn't needed because it was too low. It was just needed to build up the property. So that's just one example. But they, you know they leak profits all over the place. You know people, too many people, if you've got someone on staff that's been there a long time and they're not contributing anymore. Owners will be reluctant to pull the plug on that, and so they're carrying excess staffing, just because they don't want to face that. That's another leak. Just because they don't want to face that.

Speaker 1:

That's another leak. This one's off the cuff. But what's your take on either having the perfect amount of staff, Does that?

Speaker 2:

exist in a company. It doesn't really exist until maybe 20, 30 years from now, when your staff is AI, but for right now, I'll tell you it's something you strive for. So one client company we went through the COVID period and our sales overnight dropped 30%, 40% and our mantra during that whole period was 40%. And our mantra during that whole period was we want to right size the workforce to match the workload. And what we did is we used at the time and here in the United States we had that unemployment, extra $600 unemployment so we did voluntary furloughs for our staff and we only did furlough, allowed that it was oversubscribed.

Speaker 2:

Everyone wanted to do it because they were making a lot of money to stay home, and so we were able to right-size the workforce to match the workload through those voluntary furloughs. That being said, it's not something that you can. It's a moving target because revenue comes in, revenue goes out. People sometimes come in based on your hiring, but sometimes they leave before you're ready for them to leave. So it's never going to be perfect, but you can strive for that and you should always strive for that, because that's your optimal profit level.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's tricky, though. Like you said, revenue goes up, revenue goes down. People can work out really well, people cannot work out. It's a tricky dance, right.

Speaker 2:

What's the real reason so many companies stall financially even when revenue looks healthy? I'm the CFO person, so I'm just throwing pot shots outside our group. But I've been in situations where the sales group gets too conservative and so I can only do so much. I can kind of whisper in the owner's ears. Usually. I'm, you know, developed a relationship with whoever the VP of sales is and I can offer my two cents worth. Relationship with whoever the VP of sales is and I can offer my two cents worth. But I've seen that too many times where the sales force gets pretty conservative and focuses more on cost of the sales effort rather than. I always view sales and revenue as a return on investment equation. So you're not spending money out of your profit on sales. Uh, in the sales department you're investing money and so you're going to look for a return on your investment. So that typically when I see sales to all, that's that's what's happening there. Interesting.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Us, us salespeople. It could be an interesting breed.

Speaker 2:

So you're, you would call yourself a salesperson.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I do. I do majority of the sales here at Nine Two Media. I really enjoy it and I've, I've. I did it for years before starting this business about six years ago. But right, yeah, there's a lot of interesting personalities you come across in sales.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's a lot of interesting personalities you come across in sales. Oh yeah, well, you know, we CFOs we're not really salespeople by training. But you know, if you're going to be successful as a fractional CFO, you've got to have some kind of sales streak in you 100%?

Speaker 1:

Well, just anyone running a business. You need to have a bit of sales acumen and just know how to have those conversations. All right, Random question for you, Tom. If you could instantly master any non-financial skill in the world, what would it be and why?

Speaker 2:

Like your random questions here. Non-financial skill I've got it. Can you edit this out? Sure, Okay, I just I needed to think more about that.

Speaker 1:

I just it's raw, it's authentic. Take your time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so non-financial skill I would like to be more, have better physical attributes. I'd like to be an athlete. I'd like to be more, have better physical attributes. I'd like to be an athlete. I'd like to be, you know, going out there and winning races and things like that. I went through a period in my career where I was doing triathlons until my body started breaking down on me. But I would have loved to, you know, been up there leaders and, uh, in some of those races. But I, I was good.

Speaker 1:

But I wasn't that good. I mean to to complete a triathlon. I feel like there's a very, there's a very small group that can say they've done that. So how many triathlons have you completed?

Speaker 2:

a dozen or more. I did one ironman. I did. I did one Ironman and that was my. That's incredible. That was kind of it was once I hit that on my bucket list. That was all downhill from there. The mental toughness, the mental toughness for that.

Speaker 1:

I can only imagine what that's like.

Speaker 2:

Well, the Ironman was 13 hours and 25 minutes and you know know, started with swimming at the crack of dawn and finished with my running in across the finish line.

Speaker 1:

It was getting dark already, so it was yeah, quite a quite an achievement, but yeah, no kidding, something I could do now talk about a full day of work yeah, exactly 13. A lot of overtime yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, wow, congratulations. That's incredible, that's really cool. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, tom, what's the best piece of advice you've ever heard business or life that's stuck with you.

Speaker 2:

Well, when I first became a CFO, my very first job, the owner of the company called me in and he said you know, I've got a lot of faith in you. I was a controller and I want you to be my CFO. The VP of finance was retiring and he was in his sixties and the owner of the company was young and he said listen, I'm going to make you my CFO and I just want you to remember one thing. He said never let us run out of cash. And I keep coming back to that as a CFO. That really at the core of everything you know and there's really multi facets to that, because you're going to look down the road to make sure you're not going to run out of cash. So that's been kind of my North Star always through my whole CFO career Never let us run out of cash.

Speaker 1:

That's great advice for anyone listening Personal or business never run out of cash Correct. I love it. It sounds so simple, but there's a lot behind that. Tom thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story, sharing your insight. This was an amazing conversation. How can others get in touch with you if they want to reach out or continue the conversation with you?

Speaker 2:

Okay, Well, of course, my LinkedIn profile. A lot of people see my posts and that's one good way. Also, I have a website for my coaching activities. I coach would-be fractional CFOs, and that is a really easy to remember website name. Can't believe it was available CFO2Fractional C-F-O-T-O-Fractionalcom.

Speaker 1:

Perfect. We'll put that in the show notes so that people can get in touch with you. I highly recommend everyone does. Tom. Again, thank you so much for coming on. This was incredible. Thank you, james.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for tuning into 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 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 3:

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, follow and share with fellow professionals. Connect with us on LinkedIn and leave a review or comment to join the conversation. Your feedback helps us bring you the best insights in finance and marketing. Until next time, keep striving for success and unlocking your business's potential.