Buy Back Your Time to Grow Your Business

00;00;02;16 – 00;00;20;17
Speaker 1
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the fractional operator. I’m your host, Mike Nelson from hourglass SaaS. This podcast obviously is brought to you by hourglass SaaS. The. You know, one of the things I love about hourglass is every single day, as a business owner, I always have the question whether or not I’m making money.

00;00;20;21 – 00;00;39;01
Speaker 1
Big concern for every, business owner out there. And it’s going to tie in with our guests today, you know, being able to track how much labor you have going out by project, by task, by client, being able to get real time reports on that, has been a huge boon for us. And to be fair, I couldn’t run my business without it.

00;00;39;01 – 00;00;53;12
Speaker 1
So check us out. Hourglass saas.com, if you, relate to that problem. So, without further ado, let’s get to our guest here, Heather stark from Stark Business Services. Heather, how are you doing?

00;00;53;12 – 00;00;54;16
Speaker 2
A lot about you.

00;00;54;18 – 00;01;14;17
Speaker 1
I’m doing great. I’m doing great. You know, juggling through, what we call the summer slump up here in, the Saratoga Springs market. Northeast New York gets a little quiet around here for a couple of months because everybody’s taking vacations. But, you know, we’re about, what, ten days before kids go back to school and then things get crazy again.

00;01;14;17 – 00;01;17;24
Speaker 1
So that’s. How about you?

00;01;17;26 – 00;01;37;13
Speaker 2
I am actually leaving for vacation tomorrow. It’s our last summer beach getaway. We’re going to New Hampshire, so that’s nice. Yeah, that should be a nice break. But I am actually envious of your slump because I don’t have that. Yeah, numbers. Numbers never rest.

00;01;37;16 – 00;01;51;07
Speaker 1
That’s that’s true. They’re not going anywhere. And, they need constant attention and constant eyeballs. Heather, just to give some context to our listeners, if you wouldn’t mind, maybe just tell us a little bit about you and a little bit about your business.

00;01;51;09 – 00;02;12;28
Speaker 2
Yeah, sure. So, I started my business when my son was born. Prior to that, I was with the Capital Region Chamber of Commerce, and, I just kind of wanted something that had a little bit more flexibility. And I was out and about all day, every day. And the thought of doing that with my infinite home was just too much for me.

00;02;13;01 – 00;02;45;27
Speaker 2
So I dove in and I started my business. When he was two weeks old, I started taking, additional continuing education courses. That built on what I got my degrees in. And, yeah, just kind of opened the business. So I was, I was actually just saying it’s kind of a testament to my network that I was able to, you know, replace my salary rather quickly because I reached out to my network and I said, hey, network, here’s what I’m doing.

00;02;45;27 – 00;03;10;01
Speaker 2
And they were like, cool, we know you. You’ll get it done. And here’s some people. So I’ve just kind of been building off of that. I started as a bookkeeping firm, so I strictly did, bookkeeping. And in doing bookkeeping, I learned that bookkeeping is step one. So generally when people come to me, they have somewhat of a dumpster fire going on.

00;03;10;04 – 00;03;33;12
Speaker 2
I do it sometimes. It’s the entire trash plant, but usually it’s just a dumpster. So I come in and I, I look at the books, I see where they’re at, get to know them, because there’s definitely things that are missing in there. When I, when I come on board, there’s, you know, missing a loan or, you know, didn’t, didn’t log your car payment, something like that.

00;03;33;15 – 00;04;01;12
Speaker 2
So we start with the foundational bookkeeping, and from there we start controller work. So we start, reorganizing the, the financials to align with advisor work. There’s certain things that happen in the books that are different from regular just day to day bookkeeping that you need to do when you’re actually assessing your numbers. So we get all that in place.

00;04;01;15 – 00;04;22;20
Speaker 2
I work very closely with CEOs and management teams to make sure that everything aligns because we’re all intertwined. You can’t, you can’t properly maintain your operations if you don’t know how much money you have to spend on your operations. So we work hand in hand and make sure that everything is everything is up to snuff. And we have the numbers that we need.

00;04;22;20 – 00;04;47;23
Speaker 2
And from there we go into advisory services. I try to stay away from using the term fractional CFO. I just don’t like it yet. So I prefer to refer to it as numbers based advising. So, that strategic advisory kind of points us in the direction that we want to take the business and aligns the financials with that vision.

00;04;47;26 – 00;05;14;20
Speaker 2
So, yeah, most of our CEOs are visionaries, or at least they should be in some capacity. So we basically take that dream, rein it in and see how we’re going to get there. And we kind of put out a financial roadmap for making sure that we have enough funds and enough available capital to us to make sure that we are headed in that direction.

00;05;14;22 – 00;05;31;02
Speaker 2
So, yeah, I do a lot of things and they all build off of each other. So when I take on a client, I warn them ahead of time, this is this is going to be a journey. This is not just going to be like, here’s your financial statements, have a good month.

00;05;31;04 – 00;06;02;02
Speaker 1
So and I want to circle back to the networking portion of things, and kind of recover some ground that you and I covered before we started recording the podcast. But, before we get there, though, you know, I always love hearing about how entrepreneurs start their journey, right? There’s there’s usually some sort of catalyst, whether they’re in a job that they hate or like in your situation, like you’re having a baby and you know, you needed to make changes to be able to allow you to be a mom, but also be a professional.

00;06;02;04 – 00;06;09;12
Speaker 1
I how hard was it? I mean, because, again, I think you said your son was two weeks old when you started your.

00;06;09;12 – 00;06;11;24
Speaker 2
Business two weeks ago. Yep.

00;06;11;26 – 00;06;30;11
Speaker 1
Hat how in God’s name did you launch a business with a two week? Your your, two week old child, like. I mean, I have four kids. I like, you know, I’ve been through similar, we’ll say trials, but, you know, new mom, brand new baby. Like, how does that go now?

00;06;30;12 – 00;06;54;13
Speaker 2
Oh, fun fact. Just to add just to add on to that, it was also during Covid and I had two teenage girls in school, which they were in school. I was their teacher. So that was that was also fun. So I definitely had a lot of things going on. But I mean, the the thing for me, yes, I was working 80 hours a week and taking care of the baby didn’t sleep.

00;06;54;17 – 00;07;18;22
Speaker 2
So I have this Red bull here. But no, I think a lot of it for me, how I was able to do it was I was mapping out my time strategically, mainly because I didn’t have any. So it was it was definitely difficult. I put in way more hours than I should have, as do most business owners when they’re starting out.

00;07;18;24 – 00;07;43;03
Speaker 2
Which is one of the things we work on in advisory is how to get you, how to get you working, you know, not working in the business, having the business kind of work for you. You can work on the business instead of in it, essentially. So, yeah, it was hard. I was, I was working, I was working 70, 80 hours a week taking care of the baby, trying to trying to figure out Common Core.

00;07;43;04 – 00;08;05;27
Speaker 2
That was fun. Hey. Yeah, yeah, I’m an accountant, and I had to take a course to to teach the kids Common Core. But, yeah, it was. It was quite a journey. But, then I started bringing on my staff, and, you know, we we all have a really good dynamic. I think that was important to was that when I, when I brought my staff on, I involved them in the growth as well.

00;08;05;27 – 00;08;16;26
Speaker 2
They were involved with decisions that I was making and the directions that we were going. So my staff is very loyal and I’m super thankful for that. But yeah, it was great.

00;08;16;29 – 00;08;41;22
Speaker 1
Yeah. And now obviously, I mean, I know you personally, I’ve worked with you in the past. And so I know that, you know, prior to you starting your business, you did a lot of business development, you did a lot of sales, you did all that sort of stuff. How did you end up leaving that territory and going into, you know, bookkeeping and CFO work and that kind of stuff.

00;08;41;25 – 00;09;08;18
Speaker 2
So, with when I was with the chamber, I, I developed a passion for small businesses like I had. I had always been, you know, of the mindset that whatever my product is that I have, I want to help people with it. So regardless of the industry that I was in or the product that I was offering, I my ultimate goal was to help the business.

00;09;08;18 – 00;09;35;25
Speaker 2
And I’m a B2B girl all the way. So, I mean, when when I transitioned from, you know, regular business development to chamber sales, it was all focused on the small businesses. And, you know, I’m helping with community development, I’m helping to organize events. I’m listening to the business owners talk about their challenges and trying to figure out what we might be able to do to support them.

00;09;35;27 – 00;10;01;12
Speaker 2
So that kind of became my passion was helping small businesses. And I’m thinking to myself, like, if I leave the chamber, how can I still help everybody that I have all these connections with? Right? And then I remembered that I’m a nerd, so my hobby was like paying bills and reorganizing things and making sure that everything, you know, had structure.

00;10;01;17 – 00;10;09;22
Speaker 2
The running joke is that I turned OCD into a business. So that’s a such a nice that’s like a.

00;10;09;24 – 00;10;11;09
Speaker 1
Marketing tagline right there. Have.

00;10;11;10 – 00;10;25;26
Speaker 2
Yeah, right. Absolutely. But yeah, that was that was pretty much how I could do something that I enjoyed doing while also still helping the business community. So that was important to me.

00;10;25;29 – 00;10;58;03
Speaker 1
That’s amazing. So we’ve talked about in the past on this show with other people about the whole sales and marketing game. Right. And I think one of the biggest traps that new business owners, and certainly in the fractional or if you don’t like fractional in the outsourced realm of things, you know that a lot of people fail because they’re so good at what they do, but they’re not great at finding clients.

00;10;58;07 – 00;11;25;19
Speaker 1
Right? And so you and I were talking about before, and you’re like, you know, honestly, I have not done any marketing. Right. But you’ve been in business five years at doing well and growing and, you know, and doing great work for your clients. So I’d really like to talk about the for a little bit anyway, about the business development side of networking, the power of networking, how to turn that network into clients.

00;11;25;22 – 00;11;30;03
Speaker 1
So let’s, let’s, we’ll start there. I’ll turn it over to you. So I stop talking, but.

00;11;30;06 – 00;12;01;26
Speaker 2
Well, I mean, it’s it’s pretty simple. Ask er. So for me, I, nobody knew me as a bookkeeper. I didn’t know me as a bookkeeper, but everybody knew me as a person, and I, I’ve always made it a point to go above and beyond and to try and help people in any way that I can. Like, for instance, I spent my weekends when I was at the chamber introducing members to each other, so I’d send out 5060 emails over the weekend.

00;12;01;29 – 00;12;25;02
Speaker 2
Hey member, you should meet other member I think you guys might have some synergies like you should talk. So I, I mean, I have always tried to do right by people and in turn, I went back to that network that I had been, you know, loyal to. And they were loyal to me. So I said, hey, I’m a I’m a bookkeeper.

00;12;25;02 – 00;12;52;07
Speaker 2
Now, if you know anybody who needs a bookkeeper, please send them my way. I mean, I wasn’t posting all the time, I wasn’t I was reaching out to people directly and saying, hey, can you help me? It was the same thing with, my Google reviews. I have a lot of five star reviews on Google, and a lot of potential, clients find me that way because I reached out to my network and I said, hey, can you give me a review?

00;12;52;09 – 00;13;16;25
Speaker 2
And I reached out to them individually, person in person, and said, hey, can you do me a solid? Basically. And these weren’t clients. I didn’t have any clients. These were people who I had known through networking or worked with previously. Just people who I knew and said, hey, doesn’t have to be about my business. Can you make this a review for me as a person?

00;13;16;28 – 00;13;31;28
Speaker 2
And so I have a ton of reviews on Google. It was from when I first started out. I had like three clients. Yeah. So, it’s all about asking if you ask directly, people will help you.

00;13;32;01 – 00;13;36;09
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. And if you don’t ask, the answer’s no. Yeah.

00;13;36;11 – 00;13;53;05
Speaker 2
Okay. And who cares if they say no? You know, move on to the next person I like I always I’ve always said this and this. This puts me back to my, my days and sales. I like, knows because they let me move on to it. Yes.

00;13;53;07 – 00;14;10;03
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Great book for people out there that are not aware of it. Go for no. One of my favorite sales books ever. And, and that’s what they talk about in that book is, you know, go for the. No. And then the S’s happen eventually. You just got to be patient.

00;14;10;03 – 00;14;17;15
Speaker 2
Keep working. Now that I’m an accountant, I can do the probability.

00;14;17;18 – 00;14;40;00
Speaker 1
So, you know, obviously you were with the chamber for a number of years, and, you know, that puts you right into busy rooms and lots of people. And I’m sure people listening to this are going like, that sounds terrible. And that sounds awful. How did you navigate those types of events in the, in those rooms?

00;14;40;03 – 00;15;14;12
Speaker 2
So I actually have told a lot of people this because they’re like, how how have you networked so effectively? So, I am the weirdest person in the room every single time I enter a room, I’m probably the weird one. So, generally I will kind of give people a vague introduction of what I do. And this this is extremely effective when it’s a virtual room, because you don’t get to actually, you know, look at people individually and you don’t always get to have individual conversations.

00;15;14;12 – 00;15;37;04
Speaker 2
I will I’ll go into a, virtual networking and I’ll be like, hi, I’m Heather, I put out dumpster fires and then everyone wants to know what you do. And, so, but yeah, when I’m in in-person events, I just connect with people and I, you know, exchange information, and I follow up with them. And that’s the key to it.

00;15;37;04 – 00;15;56;29
Speaker 2
You can’t just go to an event and not follow up afterwards because people get busy. We all have stuff to do. Like it’s it’s all about the follow up. Like, you know, hey, I, I had a great time meeting you. Let’s schedule 1 to 1. Here’s my calendar link. Like it’s that easy. It takes two seconds to follow up.

00;15;57;01 – 00;16;19;29
Speaker 2
And if you follow up with enough people, someone is going to meet with you and you don’t need you. You don’t know what could potentially come out of that relationship. Yeah. And my I don’t network for clients. That is not what network. I network for resources for my clients and for my network. So I’m not out trying to trying to peddle a product.

00;16;19;29 – 00;16;38;18
Speaker 2
I am out there trying to find people who can help people that I’m working with or that I know. So if you come to me and you ask me, hey, Heather, I know you know a lot of people, can you help me with XYZ? And I’m like, oh yeah, let me introduce you to these three people who do XYZ.

00;16;38;20 – 00;16;52;02
Speaker 2
So I mean it by proxy builds my value. But it also helps me to feel fulfilled that I help someone. So I network for resources not for clients.

00;16;52;05 – 00;17;17;07
Speaker 1
Yeah I think that’s a great way to look at it is you’re I, I’ve often said and I feel strongly about that networking is not selling. However, it does lead to sales and leads the clients. But you can’t go into a networking event looking to sell someone on something, and you have to go in and you’re there to meet people, grow your network and then add value to that network.

00;17;17;13 – 00;17;34;18
Speaker 1
Help them in some capacity. I just had a coffee appointment with a local business the other day, and I the whole time I was like, hey, do you know this person? Do you know this person? I can connect you with them. Would it make sense to connect you with them? And I think they initially thought that I was going to go in there and try to sell them.

00;17;34;18 – 00;17;56;15
Speaker 1
And a couple times they, like, tried to bring it into that. And I didn’t steer them away. But I was like, oh yeah, I’m like, we can talk about that. But in the meantime, like, how can I help you other than you buying something from me? Like, what do you need? Like, who do you need to know? And, yeah, I think that’s I think that’s a great, great point on your part as far as what networking looks like.

00;17;56;17 – 00;18;23;18
Speaker 2
I also tend to talk to people like they’re people, which makes it which makes it a little bit easier for me. As you know, somebody who deals with with a complicated subject. So I’m not the person to, you know, go into a client meeting and speak as, you know, a boring accountant, if you will. I got to be like, you know, throwing out buzzwords and things of that nature.

00;18;23;18 – 00;18;35;18
Speaker 2
I like to talk to people like they’re people, and I like to connect with them on a personal level rather than, here’s your statements, here’s your solvency ratio, here’s your liquidity ratio. Like, no one wants to listen to that.

00;18;35;21 – 00;18;38;14
Speaker 1
Oh, I get a little nauseous when I hear those terms. Heather.

00;18;38;14 – 00;18;46;14
Speaker 2
That’s great. I mean, some people need like, okay, so the blue car is going down the street and the red car is going down the street.

00;18;46;16 – 00;18;51;07
Speaker 1
That’s what I, that’s that’s what I need. I need that conversation.

00;18;51;10 – 00;19;09;05
Speaker 2
But most people I can say, okay, here we have this. We can pay our short term debt this many times or we have this much money, you know, in the bank, in reserves. It’s not going to be the accounting buzzwords, although I do speak that language.

00;19;09;08 – 00;19;11;15
Speaker 1
Yes. When you need to, I’m sure.

00;19;11;17 – 00;19;20;22
Speaker 2
Well, I don’t want to be one of those accountants that when you talk to them, it’s like watching paint dry or like grass grow or something like that, because I’ve had those conversations.

00;19;20;25 – 00;19;22;28
Speaker 1
You want to be the fund accountant I am.

00;19;22;28 – 00;19;32;27
Speaker 2
Like I said, I’m the weirdest person in the room, and it’s not even like I strive to be the weirdest person in the room. It kind of just happens because of who I am, this person. Yeah.

00;19;32;29 – 00;20;02;17
Speaker 1
So I, you know, I want to talk a little bit about maybe the first couple of years. Obviously, you’re already dealing with the challenges of being a mom. With a young kid. You’re dealing with the challenges of running a business, growing a business, working in the business, working on the business, all the things. What do you think maybe in the first couple of years was one of the biggest challenges that you saw as a business owner and trying to perform the work as well?

00;20;02;19 – 00;20;26;02
Speaker 2
Actually, the the biggest challenge for me was transitioning from solopreneur to having staff. And this is this has come and this is something that I see a lot with clients as well. So you start out as a solopreneur, you’re doing all the work. You are every single department. It’s you like the box ups there. You don’t have anybody to help you because you can’t have anyone to help you.

00;20;26;02 – 00;20;49;27
Speaker 2
And because you’re building the business, that transition from that mindset of, I have to do everything to I can delegate is the toughest part. So you’re you’re overcapacity, you’re killing yourself, and you’ve got your employee who doesn’t have enough work to do. But you’re like, I don’t have time to train them because I have to do all this work.

00;20;50;00 – 00;20;55;00
Speaker 2
So essentially you have to buy back your time.

00;20;55;02 – 00;21;09;08
Speaker 2
And you have to go back to utilize the purchase of that time. So that was the hardest part for me was, was allowing people to help me.

00;21;09;11 – 00;21;10;15
Speaker 2
It’s a control thing.

00;21;10;21 – 00;21;42;12
Speaker 1
It’s like oh no listen I, I’ve been mostly a business owner for probably the larger part of the last 20 years, and that is still to this day, one of the biggest problems I have, like I have and I have an amazing team. They do an amazing job. I have full trust in their abilities all the time, though I when I should be working on the business and looking at these reports and, you know, looking at, you know, our cost basis for this project and, you know, all that fun stuff.

00;21;42;12 – 00;21;55;29
Speaker 1
Looking at the details, I find myself getting pulled back into, well, maybe I’ll just, you know, I’ll do the thing. It I’ll help my team member, you know, like. Yeah, it’s hard.

00;21;56;01 – 00;22;26;16
Speaker 2
It really, really is. And that is actually a lot of the focus of advisory because most people are like, oh, okay. A CFO does math, right? No. So, yeah. Do I do all the math? I certainly do, however, that is that’s only one of the drivers of the business. So we work on we work on things that are aligned with the vision itself.

00;22;26;16 – 00;22;47;28
Speaker 2
So if the vision is work less, we have to make sure that we allocate funds. But we also have to work on changing mindset. We have to restructure, you know, what duties do you want to keep? What do you want to offload? Who is the right person to take these duties over? So it’s not like, okay, you want to work, let’s hire another person.

00;22;47;28 – 00;23;28;16
Speaker 2
You have X amount of dollars to do so. Oh no. Oh no it’s lots of it’s lots of pep talks. It’s lots of motivation. Sometimes I feel like a motivational speaker and I’m like You know I didn’t really I didn’t really think that I would get here. But I really enjoy, you know, helping helping the entrepreneurs to realize that vision and knowing that I was able to be a part of that, that that gives me some personal satisfaction in what I do rather than, you know, here’s your statements, because and here’s your here’s your fancier statements with this, with, you know, percentages and,

00;23;28;18 – 00;23;49;04
Speaker 1
Right stuff. I won’t even understand it. Anyway, how did you as for yourself, how did you overcome that in the beginning of going from solopreneur and having to delegate? And I love the way that you put that with buying back of your time and then really making sure that that’s a solid investment. Right? That’s kind of what we do as business owners.

00;23;49;06 – 00;23;53;02
Speaker 1
How did you get over that? You know, control freak side of things,

00;23;53;05 – 00;24;19;16
Speaker 2
Necessity. So my business was growing to the point where I. I couldn’t do it. I was so burnt out. And I actually hired a business coach to help with that, because I’m saying, you know what I am? I’m a fractional person myself. I’m doing I’m doing coaching as part of advisory. And you can’t trust a coach without a coach.

00;24;19;19 – 00;24;59;26
Speaker 2
Sure. So, my coach was actually able to help me with that mindset shift, just to have somebody else to bounce that off of. And they say, did you do x, y, Z yet? And you’re like, oh no, I’m in the principal’s office. And I didn’t do my homework. So it’s, I think that I think that having somebody else to, to help with that accountability and that mindset shift was important for me because I really needed I could not keep I could not keep up what I was doing, like physically, emotionally, it was just completely draining.

00;24;59;28 – 00;25;09;19
Speaker 2
And I think that I think that that’s actually how a lot of business owners feel and getting over that hump, it takes help.

00;25;09;21 – 00;25;17;18
Speaker 1
Yeah. And like, yeah. Are you were you like holding up signs like you can do it like.

00;25;17;21 – 00;25;28;11
Speaker 2
You know like I do have motivational posters around my office and I actually I actually have this I don’t know if you can see it.

00;25;28;11 – 00;25;30;18
Speaker 1
Oh that’s hilarious. You got a fire.

00;25;30;19 – 00;25;58;03
Speaker 2
I know, I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Yeah, but no, I, I try my I try my best to make sure that I’m staying in a positive and forward thinking mindset. Because mindset is everything for an entrepreneur. Because if you start going downhill and you’re a negative Nancy, your business is going with it because your staff is going to pick up on that.

00;25;58;03 – 00;26;14;11
Speaker 2
They’re going to start getting miserable, and then your clients are going to pick up on that. They’re going to start leaving. It’s a whole the whole cycle. So I think that positivity is it has a lot to do with it. Positivity and mindset.

00;26;14;14 – 00;26;17;28
Speaker 1
Is that something that you work on all the time?

00;26;18;01 – 00;26;40;19
Speaker 2
It’s not as conscious anymore. So I used to have to remind myself, like, you are going to Victim Island right now and you’re feeling sorry for yourself. And this is, this is not where you want to be. I just have to remind myself of that. Now. It kind of does. An auto reset. When I was starting, you’d be like, oh, this is terrible.

00;26;40;19 – 00;26;52;26
Speaker 2
I’m like, you need to get up. You need to walk away, and you need to come back. Even if you just, like, walk out the front door and walk back in, you’re. Yeah, you just switch it.

00;26;52;28 – 00;27;10;27
Speaker 1
I love that you’re going to Victim Island thing and I ask I, you know, I think every I think every business owner goes through these ebbs and flows, when things are really hard and, you know, like, I like I have a friend of mine, I joke around all the time whether I’m like, yeah, like, I think I’ve quit my job like five times this week, you know, because things are just so rough.

00;27;10;27 – 00;27;25;08
Speaker 1
And but as a business owner, you can’t quit. Really. Right. And no, I like I said to my wife, I was I’m like, the only way out is through. I just have to get through this at the deal with this. It’s not going anywhere. I might as well just dig in. But I love that I’m going to Victim Island.

00;27;25;08 – 00;27;53;10
Speaker 2
That’s. I actually, I actually co-wrote a book that’s called empowered. It’s the journey from Victim Island to Solution City. I wrote it as a love that I wrote it as part of, a charity that helps, girls in Africa get paid. And they’re, it’s a collaborative book with, like, motivational stories about, you know, how to how to overcome obstacles and how to not quit.

00;27;53;13 – 00;27;58;02
Speaker 2
So that was, that’s a little side project I did during all this.

00;27;58;05 – 00;28;05;11
Speaker 1
I can I can I buy that book on Amazon? Like, I want to go, oh, I can’t okay, I’m writing a note, right? I don’t need to write a note. We record.

00;28;05;13 – 00;28;30;14
Speaker 2
We’re really I love it. Yeah. That was, that was something that I. That I did it as, like a give back as well, because I actually wrote my chapter about having started the business and my son getting diagnosed with autism and kind of, you know, how that can get you down in the dumps. And what I did to kind of get out of that.

00;28;30;17 – 00;28;31;20
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;28;31;22 – 00;29;00;16
Speaker 1
That’s amazing. And yeah, I didn’t want to, out your situation. You know, you had shared with me before on air, but, you know, the additional, challenges that come along with raising an autistic child, it’s not easy. And, so, you know, even I mean, again, the and it what’s the word, the mental fortitude. You must have to be able to have a young child.

00;29;00;16 – 00;29;05;07
Speaker 1
Young child with autism, starting a business. Growing a business.

00;29;05;09 – 00;29;49;19
Speaker 2
Yeah. My, my my motivation there. I have done tons and tons of research. I’ve taken a lot of courses with the University at Albany. They have, they have a special department that specializes in disabilities. And so I’ve, I’ve done I’ve done a bunch of courses, meet a lot of friends, and I want to be able to put myself out there as a resource for other parents because, you know, other parents might not be in the position that I’m in to be able to take those courses, to be able to educate themselves or, you know, maybe they hate school and don’t want to educate themselves and just want to have somebody tell them,

00;29;49;19 – 00;30;12;25
Speaker 2
like, hey, here’s what I learned. So, that was the same thing as starting my business. I also, you know, wanted to give back and wanted to help other people that were in my position. So, yeah, anybody who has, you know, questions, want some tips, tricks, wants to, you know, hear my story and kind of what I’ve been doing, I’m happy to share.

00;30;12;27 – 00;30;20;02
Speaker 1
That’s amazing. And thank you for that offer. So.

00;30;20;04 – 00;30;44;06
Speaker 1
To I know we’re getting kind of close on time, so I don’t want to keep you here all morning. You got obviously have many things to do. You know, as far as when organizations are growing and this this obviously applies to any business. And but certainly with fractional companies, whether they’re solopreneur or if they, you know, have teams and they’re growing a company, they’re growing business.

00;30;44;09 – 00;31;05;09
Speaker 1
Well, at what point does someone start to say, like, hey, I need a bookkeeper, or maybe they have a bookkeeper, but they don’t have a CFO and they really can’t afford a CFO, right? Like, that’s, you know, that’s our situation. We certainly cannot afford a CFO at this point. At what point, though, does it start to really make sense?

00;31;05;09 – 00;31;11;18
Speaker 1
We’re like, hey, I need to hire a bookkeeper, or, hey, I really need someone to come in as a CFO and start doing some of these activities.

00;31;11;19 – 00;31;35;22
Speaker 2
It’s funny that you would that you would say that it’s not affordable, because that was actually my goal when I started taking the courses to become certified for CFO work. I wanted to build CFO in a box, so I wanted to make it affordable for the people who actually need those services, which are the smaller businesses. So I essentially productized a service.

00;31;35;25 – 00;32;07;26
Speaker 2
So I built a model that will work with most businesses. It gets a little sketchy with nonprofits, but for most, most for profit businesses, I have one model that I use that works. And if I don’t have to continuously keep building, those custom models, it’s a I’m able to keep my costs down so that the people who actually need this need the service can afford it, because most businesses within the fail within the first five years because they don’t have consistent positive cash flow.

00;32;08;01 – 00;32;39;27
Speaker 2
So that’s always the goal is consistent positive cash flow. But yeah, I built a business in a box. But yeah, everybody needs bookkeeping from the jump I think. So what it does, and I know a lot of people starting out are like, I can do it myself. It’s fine. I’ll just choose my books. That’s where my dumpster fires come in is, you know, they people, people start the books themselves, but they don’t have any background in financials at all.

00;32;40;00 – 00;33;08;20
Speaker 2
They don’t know how to properly log, you know, capital coming in. They don’t know how to log loans correctly, those sorts of things. So, I recommend getting a bookkeeper before you start your business. Okay. That person can help guide you through. Well, depending on who the bookkeeper is and what their skill level is, they can help guide you through some of the, some of the regulatory stuff as well.

00;33;08;22 – 00;33;31;12
Speaker 2
So as bookkeepers, a lot of us that have been in business for a while are familiar with, you know, sales tax, we’re familiar with, you know, obtaining loans. We’re familiar with whatever you can possibly throw at us because we’ve probably seen it. But, there are some very important things that need to be set up from the beginning.

00;33;31;15 – 00;33;44;13
Speaker 2
Making sure that you have your. Yeah. And letters, making sure that all your paperwork’s organized. Yeah, we do a lot of stuff that people don’t think that we which we have to watch our scope, but that’s a whole nother conversation.

00;33;44;16 – 00;33;53;26
Speaker 1
You know, it’s funny as you’re talking, I’m like, God, I am such a dumpster fire. I have no idea where my iron letters are. I don’t know where they’re they’re super.

00;33;53;26 – 00;34;40;06
Speaker 2
Yeah, but, yeah, just making sure that everything is set up properly from the beginning becomes super important later on when you’re trying to get financing to, to scale and grow. And, as far as the CFO work, generally, I mean, people know when they need that and they usually seek it out or they’ll, they’ll start being like, oh, I wonder how much my actual cost of goods sold is, because all of my, all of my employees that are working on producing the product are in payroll in, you know, regular expenses that’s not split out or they start asking themselves financial questions is when they kind of need me to come in and help

00;34;40;06 – 00;35;06;26
Speaker 2
with controller work first to get everything separated and get things teed up for, advisory services. So it’s basically when you start asking yourself more questions, then what is my net profit? Or another fun question that people ask that, they need advisory services is where did my money go? Because net profit and cash flow are super not created equal.

00;35;06;29 – 00;35;07;27
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;35;07;29 – 00;35;18;21
Speaker 2
So and like I said, most most businesses go out of business because they do not have consistent positive cash flow. Where do you find that on your P and you don’t.

00;35;18;24 – 00;35;21;23
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah.

00;35;21;26 – 00;35;27;17
Speaker 2
And your money isn’t actually what you have in the bank account. That’s another fun one that I.

00;35;27;17 – 00;35;35;02
Speaker 1
Actually just said that to my accountant on a zoom call two days ago. I’m like, where did that? Like where if I’m making that much money, where is it?

00;35;35;05 – 00;36;03;25
Speaker 2
Yeah. And that was the question that I consistently answer and make you, I actually educate you on where your money’s going. Yeah. It’s not like, oh, well, here’s my categories in the PNL. That’s where my money is going. You’ve got a balance sheet over there. Yeah. So yeah, I make sure that, you know, we have an understanding of what cash flow is, but in a language that you actually speak.

00;36;03;27 – 00;36;05;09
Speaker 1
Red car. Blue car.

00;36;05;11 – 00;36;06;12
Speaker 2
Yes. Red carpet.

00;36;06;18 – 00;36;07;16
Speaker 1
Red car, blue car.

00;36;07;16 – 00;36;16;03
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. Red car has to go faster than our blue car without hitting the green car in the intersection.

00;36;16;04 – 00;36;21;22
Speaker 1
That’s amazing. Yes. Thank you. That is exactly the kind of chat I need.

00;36;21;25 – 00;36;27;01
Speaker 2
I also have lots of dinosaur figurines and things like that, so we can mix it up.

00;36;27;06 – 00;36;30;04
Speaker 1
All right? Yeah, that makes that makes it fun.

00;36;30;07 – 00;36;47;06
Speaker 2
But, you know, when you start asking yourself questions that you don’t have the answer to about your finances is one you need to first, you know, talk to your talk to your bookkeeper, see if they have that level of level of knowledge, and if they don’t have that level of knowledge, you need to find somebody who does it because of you.

00;36;47;06 – 00;37;00;29
Speaker 2
You’re asking yourself those questions. If you have investors down the road, if you’re trying to get a loan, your tax accountant, other people will probably be asking those questions that you don’t have the answer to. Hello, I know the answers.

00;37;00;29 – 00;37;11;14
Speaker 1
You know the answer is okay, well, so, Heather, if people have those questions and they want your answers, how do they find you and start business services?

00;37;11;17 – 00;37;31;00
Speaker 2
So, like I said, I don’t market, but I have like a really terrible website that I built and cried three times trying to build it. Okay. So I have a website. The best way to reach me is email. And, if you, if you Google Stark Business Services, my phone numbers on there. So I mean, I’m pretty approachable.

00;37;31;00 – 00;37;45;07
Speaker 2
I’m on LinkedIn. That’s the only social media I use. I do I don’t use any other social media for business or personal. Yeah. Just LinkedIn. You can find me there. All right. I understand Mike Nelson. He knows how to find me.

00;37;45;14 – 00;37;58;21
Speaker 1
I do. Yes, they can certainly shoot me an email and I’ll make sure that you guys get connected. Heather, I really appreciate this is a great conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time and coming on the show and talking to our listeners. And, thanks so much.

00;37;58;24 – 00;38;01;01
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me.

00;38;01;03 – 00;38;22;20
Speaker 1
Yes, of course. And you can find, to our listening audience, you can find this episode and all episodes of the fractional operator at hourglass, Ask.com. You can also, if you’re interested in, getting a curated list of amazing information from around the internet, we have a weekly email that we send out. Let’s call it a newsletter, even though I don’t really care for that term.

00;38;22;24 – 00;38;40;18
Speaker 1
But we have a newsletter that goes out each week and it’s, all the not all, but the best of the curated information for fractional is out there on the internet. Our team does a great job putting that together. Please sign up and, you’ll get that in your inbox. It does not come with any kind of sales conversation.

00;38;40;18 – 00;38;51;14
Speaker 1
It’s really just again, like we were talking about adding value to our network. It’s meant to be, and informational and educational. So thanks everybody for listening. And thanks again, Heather. Appreciate it.