If your Fractional CFO firm's revenue is between $0 and $500,000, there's a roadblock standing between where your firm is and where you'd like it to be - and almost no one is talking about it... 

Two days ago, I had a call with a brilliant Fractional CFO firm owner.

He worked in private equity for years. 
He had attended an Ivy League university.
Tight scope of work and a fixed monthly price. 
He scaled his firm from $36k of MRR in under 6 months.
He was niched down and seemingly had it all figured out! 

(But I probably wouldn't be writing a blog about him if that were the case!)

So what's the problem? 

The firm owner was already capped out, burnt out, and frustrated. 

 He was working 60-70 hours a week:
• Servicing 6 clients. 
• Meetings w/ referral partners. 
• Handling all of the sales meetings.
• Documenting processes and procedures.
• Scheduling client meetings and CFO calls.

He asked me bluntly, "How the heck am I supposed to scale this thing?"

When you think about how much time goes into each of those bullet points every month, you can quickly see how time-intensive it can all be. There's just so much that goes into running a Fractional CFO firm - especially if you want to scale beyond 5 or 6 clients.

This is why you've got to have a team if you plan on handling more than just 4 or 5 clients.  

Now, when I say "team," I'm not advocating for or against W2s or 1099s. 

That's not the point here. The point is that the idea of sustainably building a firm beyond $250k or $350k completely as a solopreneur is a myth. 

There's too much work to do it all with excellence.
There's too much at stake to do any of it with mediocrity. 

You've got to hire. 
But who should you hire?  

The Assistant 

I'm a huge proponent of the Fractional CFO's first hire being an assistant of some sort.

Now, the pushback I typically get when I recommend hiring an assistant goes something like this, "Meh. I don't know if I really need an assistant. It seems like a lot of work and expense to have someone respond to my emails and handle my calendar. I don't even really get that many emails!"

I agree wholeheartedly. 

It's probably not worth fooling with an assistant if you're only going to allow them to handle the occasional email and some calendar blocking.

But what most people don't realize is that a good assistant can and should be doing significantly more than that.

They should also be overseeing:
Travel and logistics 
Meeting prep and follow-up 
Gatekeeping access to you 
Document and file management 
Daily briefings on your schedule and priorities 
Management of internal tools (Calendly, Slack, Notion, etc.)

If you can find an assistant who can handle all of these things, you'll quickly realize they're worth their weight in gold. 

They can even be in charge of documenting your initial processes and procedures, which is essential to have in place before hiring your second team member. 

The Fractional CFO

Let me say this in no ambiguous terms:
If you want to scale a Fractional CFO firm, you've got to get out of service delivery.

That means you'll need to hire a Fractional CFO to handle client work.
Period.  

You can't handle clients with excellence and also:
Consistently get new leads
Get really good at closing sales
Develop new referral relationships 
Document key processes and procedures

You'll struggle to handle a book of business while also having the time and mental bandwidth to think about things like your firm's strategy. And that doesn't account for having the time to execute the strategy, even if you do have one!

The Story You'll Tell Yourself 

Most of us intuitively recognize that we've got to hire a Fractional CFO at some point or another if we want to scale. 

The problem arises when we tell ourselves the story that no one can deliver the same level of quality that we do, thus making hiring impossible.

I have news for you: you're not as special as you think you are.

While that doesn't serve the ego well, the good news is that there are absolutely others out there who can deliver exceptional service to your clients.

That doesn't mean that ANYONE can deliver exceptional service. Not by any means.

You've got to learn where to find that kind of talent, how to recruit them, how to hire them, and how to onboard them.

But that's a blog for a different day.

The African Proverb

There's an African proverb that I love.

It says:
If you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.

That's as true for Fractional CFO firms as it is for anything else.

If you've hit a ceiling in your firm, maybe it's time you brought in some help.