Unlocking Financial Clarity with a Fractional CFO | Adam Cooper

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Episode 9 — Unlocking Financial Clarity with a Fractional CFO

In this episode, we sit down with Adam Cooper, fractional CFO and strategic advisor, to discuss how financial clarity and a strong online presence can shape the growth of small and medium-sized businesses. 

Adam shares his journey of building a professional website, the lessons learned along the way, and practical strategies for driving meaningful traffic that leads to real connections.

He also offers actionable advice for new business owners who want their website to serve as a central hub for credibility and communication.


What you’ll learn in this episode:

How a fractional CFO helps businesses gain financial clarity and direction
Why building a website is an ongoing process — not a one-time project
The importance of owning your content for authenticity and brand voice
Why word of mouth remains one of the strongest marketing tools
Practical ways to establish trust and attract the right clients
How AI can enhance business efficiency when used strategically
Why partnering with experienced professionals simplifies website growth


👉 Subscribe for more episodes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/website-growth-show/id1840905450
 👉 Learn more about WP Minds: https://wpminds.com


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Takeaways

A fractional CFO provides strategic insight for businesses.
Building a website is an ongoing process, not a one-time task.
Content creation should be owned by the business for authenticity.
Driving traffic to a website requires a mix of strategies.
Word of mouth remains a powerful marketing tool.
Your website should serve as the central hub for your business.
Establishing trust is crucial for attracting clients.
AI can enhance productivity but should be used cautiously.
The tone of voice on your website should reflect real-life communication.
Partnering with experienced professionals can ease the website development process.

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Unlocking Financial Clarity with a Fractional CFO
Building Trust Through Your Business Website

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Sound Bites

My website is a storefront
We want to own it ourselves
It's been very much word of mouth


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00:00 Intro
01:25 Guest Intro
01:51 Understanding Fractional CFO Services
02:51 The Role of a Website in Business Growth
04:37 Challenges in Website Development
06:01 Content Creation Strategies
07:15 Driving Traffic to Your Website
10:03 The Importance of Your Website as a Marketing Asset
10:46 Advice for New Business Owners
12:14 The Impact of AI on Business and Websites
13:51 Outro

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#websitegrowth #englishpodcast
#bussinessgrowth  #marketingstrategies #digitalmarketingstrategy  #podcast

Transcript

Adam 0:00

What is the importance of your website in your business? For us, when we built our website for both the build and the hosting of it and the maintenance, is to find someone we trust. When starting your website, what was your biggest challenge? We use the content that we generate from the podcast, we use the content that we generate for LinkedIn, and then we make sure that it's right for the website.

Rana Shahbaz 0:16

Um third biggest challenge is bringing people to your website, basically getting in front of your ideal customers. How did it work out for you?

Adam 0:24

Yeah, I think that is before we relaunched the website, it was very much LinkedIn, was where we were driving or putting all of our content, driving all of our attention. And not just LinkedIn, but my LinkedIn, which is not ideal as we're growing the business and there's more of more than just me now. So the website is where we're really focusing our energy. It's still risky to use AI too much. You know, the hallucinations that you're getting, etc. Um, are you know, particularly around finance? It's critical that accuracy is key. If you get a number wrong within some analysis that you're doing, then you lose trust. So I think you have to embrace it and be excited by it. I don't there's no point worrying about it because it's here and you need to embrace it and use it because when you build your website, how did you decide the tech stack?

Rana Shahbaz 1:00

Welcome to the website growth show brought to you by WP Minds. I'm your host, Rana Shadas. On this show, we speak with business owners, agency leaders, and marketers to learn what's working to improve their website and grow their businesses. If you're wondering how your website is performing, please visit wpminds.com and request a free website on it. My team will share what's working and what can be improved to grow your business. We have an amazing guest, Adam Cooper, who is a fractional CFO, and he offers services to business owners, founders, CEOs in marketing, media, and professional services. Adam, welcome to the show.

Adam 1:39

Thank you very much, Rana. Thanks for having me.

Rana Shahbaz 1:41

No, thank you very much for your time and I appreciate your insights. Tell us what is the CFO, fractional CFO services, and how are you helping businesses to grow?

Adam 1:51

Absolutely. So I'm a fractional CFO and I run a company called ACC Finance Solutions, and we help small and medium-sized business owners get clarity and control over their finances. And a fractional CFO is basically a partner-level CFO for businesses that can't justify a full-time finance director or CFO, but need that strategic insight.

Rana Shahbaz 2:18

Fantastic. And would you like to share your any superpower for businesses who are listening might need your services?

Adam 2:24

Yes, superpower. I think if you're having struggles with cash flow, if you're trying to prepare your business for sale or you're looking to open a new office or hire a new member of staff, then you need someone like myself or my team. We can come in and give you that confidence with your planning and ensure that you're not going to run out of money.

Rana Shahbaz 2:44

Excellent. Thank you for sharing this one. And tell us about your website. What is the importance of your website in your business?

Adam 2:51

Yes, so I've used my website really as a storefront, I guess, a calling card to build trust with my customers, with future customers and prospects. It's designed to really reflect both the technical capabilities that we've got and our experience, as well as the tone that we bring to our business engagement. So being professional, but it's approachable and it connects what we do on LinkedIn, what we do with our podcasts. We also have a podcast and our booking funnel. So it effectively brings all of that together.

Rana Shahbaz 3:24

And is your website doing what you just mentioned? You hoped it will do when you build it?

Adam 3:28

It's getting there, I would say. I don't think it's ever a finished and completed job. So there's certainly areas that we're continually looking to improve. At the moment, it's trying to build out the content that we've got on the website and use the content that we're producing in our podcast and on LinkedIn to flesh out what we've got on our website.

Rana Shahbaz 3:48

Excellent. And when you build your website, uh, how did you decide the tech stack? Which system you you will use? There are different systems like WordPress, uh, Shopify, or Wix. There are plenty of systems available. So how did you decide your tech stack?

Adam 4:04

Yeah, I I wish I could say I was more technical and uh strategic in the tech stack that we went with. It was very much going with partners who we trusted and their recommendations. So I I think that's key for us when we built our website for both the build and the hosting of it and the maintenance is to find someone we trust, and then we went with we went with their recommendation rather than going or being aligned with a particular technology.

Rana Shahbaz 4:30

That's the right approach. So excellent. And uh when when starting your website, what was your biggest challenge?

Adam 4:37

I think probably striking uh the balance between me as a as an advisor while staying approachable to people who are who perhaps haven't had dealings with a CFO or an advisor at my level before, or maybe felt that it was outside of their comfort zone. So striking that balance and positioning has been something that we've been quite careful with. So that's probably been the biggest challenge that we had when launching.

Rana Shahbaz 5:05

Okay. Did you manage to overcome this challenge?

Adam 5:07

Yeah, I think I think we did, but we spent a lot of time thinking about it and working with Cassia Digital, who were the partners that we used uh to build the website and host it. Uh, a lot of time going back and forth with them, working out the correct tone of voice. Uh, but it's been something that I've been thinking about from before the website, just as we've launched the company. How do we talk to non-finance people using uh non-finance language to communicate financial ideas?

Rana Shahbaz 5:36

I understand. So basically, uh communicating your offer in a simple word, which people can, your ideal customer can understand, is the biggest challenge for you know most business owners. Once you decide your tech stack, the next item on the list could be the content, which is the backbone of any website, your offer, and all the things attached to related to content. So do you create your content yourself or how do you approach content?

Adam 6:01

Yes, so I've tried different approaches, but now, yeah, it's very much I produce the content, we do it as a team. Um, we use the content that we generate from the podcast, we use the content that we generate for LinkedIn, and then we make sure that it's right for the website. Um, I've tried partnerships with other people producing content, and that's been great, but it feels like something that we it's important enough that we want to own it ourselves, if that makes sense.

Rana Shahbaz 6:27

No, I totally agree. So I think uh when uh producing content, I think that you can hire technical staff like writers, but it's very it's not easy to write, find a content creator who knows your domain. So I think for for us, what works best is finding a domain expert, working with the writers generally produce the best content that resonates most to most people's ideal customers. When you're building, I'm just going through the main fundamentals of building a website. You decide a tech stack and then you have a content challenge. So, okay, now you have you decided the tech stack, you produce the content, you have a nice looking website, and the third biggest challenge is bringing people to your website, basically getting in front of your ideal customers. How did it work out for you?

Adam 7:15

Yeah, I think that is a challenge. I think it's been a slow build, I would say. I I've not been as focused on the Google Analytics or tracking as I perhaps should have been. Because again, it the the objective at the outset was very much this was a storefront. Um, it was there to build trust. So it wasn't really a traffic driver initially. Um now very much we have it, you know, it's on our signatures. We're we're sort of guiding people back to it from LinkedIn. We're posting all of our podcasts on there and hosting them on there as well. So a combination of those factors have gradually meant that we've increased our traffic. I still think there's more we can do as ever. It's it's not a finished piece of work, but uh yeah, that's worked quite well for us so far. But we're we're we're sort of in phase two, I would say, in terms of the website itself. So we launched this version of the website about uh nine months or so ago now. And so we're we're gradually looking at ways of improving that, you know, trying to drive more traffic to it.

Rana Shahbaz 8:15

Fantastic. And when driving your traffic, is there anything particular in whatever you try at different there are several ways you can bring traffic to your website? And of course, each uh way requires expertise, uh finances, times, and stuff. So you have to pick and choose your battles, I would say. Bringing traffic to your website, which is probably the biggest challenge for most business owners. What what worked best for you, whatever traffic you brought in? Is it like a word of mouth, business cards or or digital stuff? Anything you would like to share?

Adam 8:49

I wish I could say we'd done some amazing email campaign or some amazing traffic. We haven't at the moment. It's been very much word of mouth. We're, like I say, we're trying to signpost the website at every opportunity, both from a word of mouth perspective. So I'll mention it when I'm speaking to prospects and clients, mention it in our LinkedIn bios and through our emails. Uh so that's that's what we've been doing so far, and that's worked gradually. But like I say, there's we're in conversations at the moment with with a couple of people about how we can improve that still further and make the website more of a home for us rather than up to this point before we relaunched the website, it was very much LinkedIn, was where we were driving all putting all of our content, driving all of our attention, and not just LinkedIn, but my LinkedIn, which is not not ideal as we're growing the business and there's more of more than just me now. So the website is where we're really focusing our energies.

Rana Shahbaz 9:41

So basically, uh generally, people, whatever the marketing efforts uh they do, generally the goal is to bring all the f marketing efforts to your website because that's your storefront. You have you can showcase your expertise, what you can do for the for the people. Do you believe that that is the case in your business? So website is the the main marketing asset?

Adam 10:03

Yes, certainly. It certainly is now. It wasn't before, as I say, we did the the relaunch of the website, and now it's very much what our focus is on for the second half of this year is driving driving attention to the website. So taking, not necessarily taking away from LinkedIn or other areas, but very much putting that as the home of everything, the home of the podcast, the home of our content, and where we're driving people towards to book meetings, etc.

Rana Shahbaz 10:29

Okay, excellent. And uh, with all these experiences building website for your business and uh marketing it, if you would like to share from your experience, any advice, people who are you know just starting out and trying to do what you have managed to achieve with your website, what would be that?

Adam 10:46

I think, well, having a great partner, and obviously if if you and I had met earlier, then perhaps we would have worked together on that. I think having a great partner, someone you can trust who's got a ton of experience working with companies like yours, I think that's critical. I think the tone of voice, as I've mentioned, making sure that your tone of voice on your website is matches how you speak in real life and matches how your clients speak, I think it has worked particularly well. And I think having trust indicators, again, not sure if that's the right term, but just making sure that your experience, some way of illustrating why they should work with you over all of the other providers that are out there, having that on your storefront is critical.

Rana Shahbaz 11:28

Excellent. So basically, content strategy, I think technicals are uh how-to stuff you can find professionals. But I think as a business owner, what your offer is, the problem you're solving, how you are solving, and the end results. So uh for me, I think these are the three or four communication fundamentals if you can get this right and technical, any professional can do it for you. But these are the optimizing your offer, probably be the biggest challenge for most business owners who are getting uh trying to get website work for them as they hope it should. So excellent. And uh the the buzzword nowadays AI. So are you using AI to do improve your website or any any website-related work at the moment?

Adam 12:14

So to be honest, we're not using AI for the website. I think absolutely AI is changing our industry uh in finance and websites quickly. And so, you know, we're using AI in our operations, you know, where we can, where it makes sense. It's still risky to use AI too much. You know, the hallucinations that you're getting are, you know, particularly around finance. It's critical that accuracy is key. If you get a number wrong within some analysis that you're doing, then you lose trust. So and I think the same can be said for websites. You know, you need to make sure that you use the tools, and and AI is a tool, is a technology to help automate the tasks where it can. So don't try and overly rely on it because again, it's it's still in a very nascent form. So I think yes, definitely we're using that um across our business in in total, but you know, use with caution.

Rana Shahbaz 13:08

Great advice. And uh uh in your industry, are you are you excited uh about the AI or getting are you worried because of the AI?

Adam 13:17

I think you have to embrace it and be excited by it. I don't there's no point worrying about it because it's here and you need to embrace it and use it because your competition are embracing and using it. And it's allowed us to become more productive already. We're a small team, so we have the ability to uh to try different tools and implement them for our for our clients, perhaps to a greater level than some of our larger competitors. So I think that's how we're we're embracing it, being nimble and making the most of it as as much as one can at the moment.

Rana Shahbaz 13:48

Excellent message, uh Adam. Thank you very much for for your time. That's it for this episode of the Website Growth Show. If you find it helpful, please consider subscribing. And if you're wondering how your website is doing, please visit wpminds.com and request a free website audit. My team will review your website and share the insights, what's working and what can be improved to help with your business growth. Until next time, keep growing.