Mike Derringer - Are You Ready for a Fractional CFO?
Unlock the secret to steering clear of the dreaded Bosshole® Zone with Mike Derringer of Focus CFO as we traverse the financial leadership landscape. Mike brings enlightenment to the podcast, showcasing how small to medium-sized businesses can harness the expertise of seasoned CFOs part-time, a concept that's changing the game for companies not yet ready for a full-time financial executive.
Links and Resources from the Episode:
Click here for Mike's LinkedIn profile
Click here for FocusCFO's website
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The Bosshole® Chronicles
“Mike Derringer - Are You Ready for a Fractional CFO?”
Original Publish Date: 2/20/2024.
Host: John Broer
John Broer: It is so good to have you back joining us on the Bosshole Chronicles. This is your host, John Broer, and today you're going to get to meet a friend of mine. His name is Mike Derringer, who is introduced to me by another friend, Roy Getz, who's been on the program before, and Mike is on the senior leadership team at a company based here in Columbus called Focus CFO. Their expertise is helping organizations small and actually quite large organizations right now find fractional chief financial officers. So, in other words, for CFOs, they're kind of in the business of Bosshole Prevention, because you certainly don't want a Bosshole in your CFO position. So let's get a chance to meet Mike and learn more about their great work.
The Bosshole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, a talent optimization firm helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode, well, mike. Hey, it's great to have you on the Bosshole Chronicles, welcome.
Mike Derringer: Well, thanks for having me here today, John. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you.
JB: Absolutely, and, as our listeners know from the introduction, you and I actually met through a mutual friend, Roy Getz, and Roy is an EOS implementer here in the Columbus area. By the way, go into the show notes, you will see a link to his episode. It's a great episode. He did it for us last year and I was so intrigued, Mike, having a chance to meet you and the work that you do with Focus CFO.
I thought the Bosshole Transformation Nation just needs to hear more about what your organization does because it's very unique. I mean, people have heard of fractional executives but you focus specifically on that CFO role and in just our conversations I've really become interested in how you approach it. Or, as you would say, this is our "why and what is the process that you use, and we'll get into that. We'll get into that. But maybe you can give us a little bit of history if you will, because, again, we want to have CFOs that are not showing up as Boss Holes, fractional or otherwise. But give us a little bit of background of Focus CFO and then kind of lead us into the what's it all about and how do you go about doing this really unique kind of business?
MD: Yeah, thanks, John. So Focus CFO is a fractional CFO services company. And what does that mean? Fractional means we're not full time, so you can hire us for a day a week is a typical arrangement, and we're chief financial officers. So we are high level, experienced people. We bring in 25 to 35 years of experience to every one of our clients on a CFO our time basis really. So we're in the office a day a week or remote a day a week, whatever the case may be, working with our clients on high level financial strategy and opportunities for the business. As part of that, we look for clients that every client could use our services and they need us.
But not everybody really wants the service. They have to really get it and know that they need help. Okay, and that can be a tough thing for entrepreneurs to admit, they've started the business from scratch and they've worked their way to this point and now they're a five, $10 million business. And, by the way, I should mention we work with small and medium sized businesses. Our sweet spot is that two to $30, $40 million company that doesn't have the need for a full time. They don't want to go drop a whole bunch of money on a full time CFO executive but they need the service, they need the benefits of having that person as part of their leadership team.
So we look for the clients that realize that and a lot of it is education to the prospect. They don't know what a CFO is, what we can do and why they would need it. A lot of times they just know they need help. So that's where we come in. We mentioned the history. So we were started about 23 years ago here in Columbus with the idea that companies, when they need the service, if they don't have an alternative, they go out and hire a full time person and they're spending a lot of money on that service.
JB: And then that person.
MD: A lot of times we'll end up doing maybe they become the office manager. They're fixing the copier, they're filling out HR forms, doing the books and things like that, because they don't have an alternative. That's all they know that they can do. So they can lose sight of the big picture, the strategy of the business and where the business is going. So by really separating those roles and having the day-to-day done by an accountant, an HR person, whatever the case might be that they need, and then having a fractional CFO as part of your team, you can really make some changes and drive your business forward.
JB: No doubt about that and I think one of the biggest takeaways and I appreciate the idea when you have an entrepreneur who launches a business and that person is doing everything, it reaches a threshold of I have got to either staff up or outsource. And this one, especially on the finance side, is so critical. If you go into your point, you drop a ton of resources, money on a full-time CFO and your vetting process is in question. You might have just purchased a really challenging scenario and again, I'm not suggesting that this Bosshole scenario happens automatically, but the fractional option. That is super intriguing and I would think would be very appealing, especially to those entrepreneurs who are saying I'm ready, I'm ready to grow, but to your point, Mike, I think it's like I can't grow without this expertise, and that is a different.
This is we're not talking about bookkeeping, obviously, or basic finance. We're talking about people that have seasoned, are seasoned and have been in that workplace for a long time. So help us understand when it comes to matching that and creating that. Now let me just side note one of the other cool things about Focus CFO is that they will use data. You are not looking for the hard driving, traditional, I guess, stereotypical CFO. You're looking to create a good working relationship with these clients, so just take us through a little bit more about that process, of how you do that and how you create that connection.
MD: Yeah, that's a great question. So it took us a long time to figure this out. We didn't get this right in year one out of the grade. Over the last, I'd say, 10 years we really learned that emotional intelligence and personalities and fitting in is blending with the culture of our clients is incredibly important, probably even more important than the skill set of the person. Now we're bringing people in that have, I guess, 25, 35 years experience.
I like to use the line with prospects, especially when I see their team picture and it's all these people in their 20s and 30s. I say now we're going to look like grandpa up there for one thing and say like or grandma, the reason we bring people in that look old, they're going to look old, it's because we are. What that means is we have a lot of experience that we're bringing in, not to counterbalance. They're bringing their average age up or anything like that. We can bring ideas from things that we've done over those 30 years that there's not a lot of new ideas out there, but maybe it's new to them that they haven't heard. So from our experience we can bring that in and try things. From our experience with other clients we can bring that in, but none of that matters if the personalities don't match Right. That's the thing we've spent. We spent a lot of time on emotional intelligence, personality training, personality recognition and really understanding the culture of the business, the culture of the personality traits of the business owner.
Part of my role as the area of president is when I'm talking, I do an initial meeting with the company and I'm assessing what is their culture. I'm asking what are your core values? A lot of times they're on the website. The really good clients for us are the ones that when we match up core values, our core values, to their core values, we've got a really, really good fit. I'd say most of the clients that have identified core values. They're very similar. You boil a lot of the stuff down. It's a lot of integrity, it's teamwork, it's trust, it's communication. It's those sorts of things those align really really well with us.
We have to understand that, because we can't go into a client and say I'm Joe Schmoe, I've got 35 years experience and here's what I want you to do, here's what you're going to do. That never works. We have to become active listeners. We have communicate effectively. In some cases, our idea is their idea. When it's their idea. It's the best idea they've ever heard. I've had this happen before and I'll say something and three months later the president will come back to me and say I was thinking about doing this and like, sounds like a great idea.
JB: This sounds fun yeah.
MD: Then it'll look at me and say why didn't you come up with this? You just. It's that point where you can either fight it or you can say I need to do a better job. You have to have a huge element of humility, and really it's all about them making, helping them succeed, and what is it that could help drive them to the next level? That's why we're here.
JB: When we talk about people, we talk about the head, the heart and the briefcase. I know you and I have walked through it because we've gone through your PI data and head, heart and briefcase. Briefcase is that's the easy part. You can go out and you can find these experienced CFOs that have a great briefcase or, as some would say, resume credentials, knowledge, skills, abilities, expertise in that field of finance. Heart has to do with passion, interest. I would imagine you've got fractional CFOs that are.
I just really get excited about helping these smaller companies two to $30, $34 million dollars, launch them and do it for a number of them. But the head, that's where the behavioral data, the cognitive data. But your work, when it talks about matching up emotional intelligence, personality, styles, that goes well beyond the briefcase. That goes well beyond the resume. That seems to be your secret sauce at Focus CFO. You really spend time making sure we're getting a good match and it goes beyond the entrepreneur or the president, doesn't it? Tell our listeners a little bit more about the process you go through. I mean you involve a lot more people.
MD: Yeah, we do. So the resume in the background, gets them in the door, gets them in the interview, more or less. But when I sit down with a CFO candidate I'm looking. All that personality, how do they interact? Could I put them in front of most of my clients? Now, maybe there's some that you can't because you've got you've always got your exceptions here and there, but working on the bell curve, if you can put them in 95% of it, or whatever it is, you're in good shape and that's what I'm looking for.
How do you communicate? Do you have that eye contact? Do you have good body language, good tone? What's your personality like? Are you interacting well, because we have to interact with all levels within the organization. I mean typical day we are talking to the owner, the president, in the morning and then interacting a lot with the accounting team. Those are usually different personalities. Then, if it's a manufacturing facility, we're walking through the plant floor, we're talking to the sales people, we're talking to the operations people. What do you need to help do your job better? What is it that we can help provide? What should we be looking out for? How is this project coming along? What's the new idea? What's the new product about to come out? Things like that. And then, what's it cost?
So, we're looking at all of that information and so you can see the different level of people you're interacting with. We have to blend with all of them.
So, you're shifting, almost shifting who you are a little bit depending on who you're interacting with, but it's really not shifting who you are, it's recognition. I'm here to help. I want to see you succeed. Best success stories for us are the companies that grow, whether they exit or not. But the owner's in a nice place and he's got a business that runs without him or her, and the business is ongoing. Our mission is to help entrepreneurs on the climb to sustainable, transferable business value. That's what we want to. We don't know what that means. Are you going to transfer it? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe some do.
But how do you sustain it? When you can get to the top? How do you then stay at the top? So how do you best do that? You have to have a team behind you. Typically the companies we're talking to, the owner is in every seat. They're head of sales, they're head of product development, they're running the finance group, they're running marketing. And which one do you want to give up first? Which one can you afford to give up first? It's interesting.
The fractional world has really come about the last five years. I mean, we've been doing it for a long time and it's been out there for a long time, but over the last five years you've really started to read a lot more about it. The Wall Street Journal and other publications are picking up on it because executives, when they get to a certain point, are saying if I really want to work 60, 70 hours a week and travel all over the country doing this, or do I want to have more of an impact with a smaller business that really values my input and wants me as part of their team, and I can be home four days and work three or four, or whatever they want to do. They can manage their own schedule and come to work with us. So it's a nice blend. And when they recognize that, hey, I can give up this financing. I really don't like doing this finance stuff. The banks asking me all kinds of questions.
JB: My.
MD: CPA wants this stuff and I don't know what this stuff means. I'm doing my best to work my way through it, but could you help me with that and we just take it over? Let's get all the parties in the right room. And where do the issues arise between a bank and a company? It's because they're not communicating. Usually.
They're asking for something and they don't know what it is. Then the owner goes to the head of accounting and says here's what I need, but maybe they misinterpret it. Post office game. What am I actually asking for? Well, when we can come in and read the document and understand it and explain it, put something together where they're getting all the information, bring the parties together, have those communications, things go really, really well and forward in, the frustration level drops and I would think that would then transfer into Little bit of an assistant being less of a boss.
JB: Oh, I would agree with you. I think you said the pressure comes down. Or to me it seems like it would be a relief, because not that it can't happen, but entrepreneurs or people that have started and grown these businesses. It's not that they can't have or don't have a finance background. I know entrepreneurs that some that do sure, yeah, but for many that don't that becomes a huge relief to be able to say I've got somebody who I can. I can work this into my budget, it's financially, it's manageable. I've got somebody with a great track record and Focus CFO has, you know, helped to make sure this process, that there's a good integration and a good connection. This is a person that is not a roadblock to me but actually a real catalyst to help my business grow. That's got to be a huge pressure relief for that business owner. And You're right, I mean, if that takes a model that keeps them from wandering into the Bosshole zone, all the better.
And I would imagine, Mike, in the the years that focus CFO has done this, obviously you probably run into Bosshole scenarios. Obviously we don't want any names. Bosshole, it could be the, the business owner you never know. One might sneak through your vetting process and we may get a fractional CFO who's got some Bosshole tendencies and, as we say, nobody is born to be a Bosshole. But I think a word you used a little while ago was humility and you're getting somebody who has this expertise in the world of finance and being able to manage that relationship with a business owner. He goes, get involved, can really butt heads and there's nothing wrong with healthy conflict. I would imagine it takes a dose of humility and that's part of what you do to really help those fractional CFOs be successful.
MD: Yeah, it really does it's. It's not about us, it's about the company.
Yeah, and where do they want to go? It doesn't matter what we think the company should do, let's listen to them. What do you want to do? Where do you see the best opportunities for you? Could I help you? Look at that? I mean, imagine you're that, you're that owner and you you're doing something. Where does your personality go? Where does your mindset go when you're doing something you don't want to do?
Yeah, goes into, you know, the old gap in the game. It goes into the gap and yes, so you know, tensions rise, stress rises, all of that stuff. We can take that off your plate. One, you're, you're free from a mindset. And two, what can you do with that time if that's taking you it? So I typically ask the question look, a lot of the stuff is getting done by the companies. And I'll ask the question who's doing it? Well, I'm, I'm taking it on. Well, you like it? No, I can't stand this stuff. If somebody could help me do this, it'd be great. Okay, so if we can free up, let's just say eight hours, it's probably gonna be more than that a week. What would you do with that time? What is your time worth?
Yeah where would you spend it? And hey, that answer can vary. It can be I'm gonna go to the beach more. Great, good for you. It can be I'm gonna go sell, I'm gonna go work on another product, I'm gonna look at acquisition. I we don't know where that is gonna go. It depends on each company, but that's where we want to help them get is to that point of now, the business is running without dependency on one person, which increases the value of the company. I mean, that's one of the things companies look at when they're making acquisitions how dependent is this company on this owner? I need to have them along for the ride for the next two to five years. I mean you're gonna see a difference in price. You're gonna see a difference in structure of the deal when that happens. So, and what does that then relate to stress? You know, tension and pressure, and money and potential Bosshole behavior.
JB: That's exactly. That's exactly right. So indirectly you made an up-known this. But focus CFO, you're kind of in the business of Bosshole prevention, helping those entrepreneurs not wander into the Bosshole zone. No, I get that, Mike, the the idea of when you say freeing up eight hours a week, that is a huge amount of time. I mean, I know you're just throwing that number out there and you said probably more, but those listening to this realize what would I do with an extra eight hours a week. Who wouldn't love to have an extra eight hours a week and, like you said, do whatever you need to do, whether it's grow your business or go to the beach or spend time with family. That's the value that a fractional CFO, how they can help that entrepreneur. So let me ask you this really quick. You've been doing this long enough, you and the team at Focus CFO. The world of work is different since COVID and fractional work continues to evolve. I think it will even more so. What should our entrepreneurs and business owners be thinking about that you're seeing in the marketplace?
MD: That's a great question. There's a lot of uncertainty in the world all the time. We see it a lot. What's gonna happen with the election? Well, that's not till next year. I mean, this was last year when they were talking to. Covid was a huge uncertainty. There's always gonna be something that's getting in the way. So that really comes down to how proactive are you and where do you wanna take the business. So the things that I've seen over the years and I've been doing this I've been with Focus CFO now 18 years and love every minute of it. I love the work we do. I love the clients we work with, the people I get to work with every day are amazing. I learn, I continually learn more and more from the people I work with and the companies I work with every day. The things that I've seen then evolve over the years I mean business has changed.
The whole idea of AI and data has become a little bit more out there, I guess, which has actually kind of helped us, because one of the things we do is, hey, are you using good information to make decisions? And usually the answer is I don't really know what my data tells me. Sometimes they do, obviously, but how can we best use the data that you have? And it's not that they don't have the data how can I best use it? So we're really I think what we're seeing is more of a transition into using the tools that we have, whether that be data, whether it be well, I'll come back to the personalities in the culture.
I think, that's probably the top thing that I should have led with that. That's one of the top things that I've seen over the years is 15 years ago when I was doing this, I don't know that we might have thought about culture, but we didn't lead with it. I think we pretty much lead with it now. What's the culture of your organization and how do we best get somebody to match that? So part of my job is making sure I'm bringing the right CFO to that company to make sure we're blending in with their culture.
So we've seen a big shift in that and I think that's a little bit of work-life balance coming into play. I think it's a little bit of backing off the bosshole tendencies of why doesn't everybody do it the way I do it and why isn't everybody here at seven in the morning and staying until seven at night? That doesn't work so well anymore. So we have seen a transition with that. And then I think that's really about it. I mean, we don't really. We haven't seen a whole lot. The industry's changed, the business has changed, but the work and the stuff that goes on is a lot similar.
JB: That makes a lot of sense. I also think how cool is it that you get people that may have, within the last five, 10 years, retired CFOs have retired, or people that have a strong track record and expertise in the world of finance, and this provides an additional channel for them to be able to continue to do this work, an area of expertise which they enjoy, and these smaller organizations benefit from that. I love the idea of a fractional role because it satisfies so many needs that a smaller business may have even a larger business and I would imagine and you correct me if I'm wrong if this is not an accurate statement I would imagine that over time, as this fractional CFO impacts and helps this company grow and evolve into your points is sustainable, hits that level of growth or sustainability that they can help actually transition, perhaps to find somebody in a more permanent role, because, sure, we've established the role, we know what's needed, and the business owner goes oh, I get it. Now I see exactly what that is. I'm sure you run into that all the time.
MD: Yeah, it's a great point, and thanks for mentioning that, because that is another area that we've seen as a change over the last couple years is because people have become a little bit more scarce and some people are retiring. We look for those people that are. Maybe they're thinking about retiring, maybe they're thinking about just cutting back a little bit. No, they still want to make a difference, though, and they want to work two, three, four, five days a week, whatever it might be. It varies for all of our CFOs, but we can provide them, you know, control over their life. I can set my own schedule, because you're running your own business, pretty much right. You're working with the clients you work with, you're the deliverer here, and you've got a nice steady stream of income for for the next, however long you want to do it.
I mean it is you know, people ask me what I want to do when I retire. I think I might be doing it. So when you love what you, when you love what you do, you just keep doing it, and maybe you do it a little less. I don't know.
JB: Maybe you know.
MD: I don't know, but not there yet. But well, when for us is a successful exit for the business owner or a successful hiring of a full-time person resource, whatever it might be, those are wins and, as you might imagine, we measure our you know our former clients. Why they're former clients and we analyze them pretty hard to look at what the reason is. Sometimes it comes back to personalities. Within that we didn't quite mesh, but for the most part the wins are this successful exit and or the transfer to a full-time person. One thing I was gonna start to mention before. We have seen a trend over the last, just over the last six to twelve months, of the bigger businesses. I mean we're now talking to $80 million, $150 million dollar companies that can't find a full-time resource and they're saying, "Could you focus, cfo, do this two days a week for us? We've got three or four clients like that here, just here in Columbus, where you know we'll see if that's sustainable, but if the structure is in place, For the business and they've got the day-to-day being run.
Question I come back to is how much CFO do you really need?
Oh, it's a good question, yeah, if you need it every day, then you should get it every day, no doubt about it. But if you can really need it a day or two a week, this works really, really well. Let's get somebody to make sure the day-to-day is covered. Not that those people are easier to find- they're not. You know, the accounting world has gone upside down and there's a lot less people in that, in that field, so it's hard to find them and salaries have going up, not as much as the CFOs, but they've still, still expensive to hire people. But if we can get it properly structured and with the right people and then help train them, help guide them, help mentor them, maybe help mentor that high-level person into a CFO role and transition out, that's great. That's a big win for us.
JB: So that's a pretty critical trend. You hit on another one that people are not necessarily racing into the field of accounting. That's going to have a huge impact on the workforce, the available workforce, in the next decade or two and what's interesting about that is why are they running out of you know? You see it in accounting, nursing, police forces are down, teachers. We're seeing it in a lot of different areas and there's a lot of different reasons. But if I just focus on accounting that I can speak to a couple younger people that I know that have gone into accounting it comes back to the Bosshole.
JB: Oh yeah, I'm getting pressured.
MD: I'm working 60, 70 hours a week and I don't know that I really my friends over here working 40, 45, maybe 35.
I don't know, but you know working, working more normal, and I'm being pressured to. You know, one, pass the CPA exam and two, work a little extra. And I didn't do something quite right. Of course you didn't, because you've got two years of experience. We all make mistakes, so you know. And how? How are we then trained? Are we training? Are we developing? Are we, you know, you think about these managers that become the managers that are training the people that they just hired? Right? This is a big question we talked to clients about, because there's usually that next generation that's about to take over the managers. Do, have they had any training?
Yes they had, as is there any manager training that they that they've gone through? Did they know what to do? Did I have any manager training when I became a manager back I don't know whatever 30 years ago?
JB: I don't think so.
MD: No yeah. No I have Seminar and thought I knew everything you know.
JB: But well and again, this is. This is our issue is that we continue to repeat this, the bad process of just promoting individual contributors without equipping them to be developers of people, to be managers and supervisors. And, by the way, I mean in the field of accounting, when did it ever start to be that sort of that right of passage that the new people that we just hired in you're the ones that you know before you know tax deadline? We are going to grind you to a pulp? I mean, that's just sort of inherent in your world. I kind of get it, but it also I could see that how that would discourage people from moving in that direction for sure.
MD: It's interesting, my dad is a former CPA. He's told both my son and I. My son's also in the field of accounting, but he's told my son, you know, back when I started I think it was 1960 or whatever you know we weren't 67 hours a week. It was just expected. Everybody did it. Nobody really said anything about it.
Yeah well, 20 years after that, 25, 30 years after that, when I was doing it it was 50 to 60, little less, probably not as as much. I wasn't a tax though either again kind of just expected and what everybody did. And then you really started to see a shift into, well, yeah, I'm, I'm expected to do it in accounting, but now the other fields are pretty much more of a normal. It comes down to that work life balancing.
It does, it does, and then and I think there's a heavy element of coaching involved in understanding that and really, do I know what my employees want? Yeah, I don't work this much and we're starting to see some firms really, you know, you can work remote, you can work a normal week, things like that and if they get the right staff, they're able to do it and they're retaining people pretty well. But it's, it's hard, it's a challenge.
JB: Oh sure, absolutely. Well, Mike this has been great. Thank you so much. I know we've been talking about this for a few months, leading up to just learning more about Focus CFO. I want to remind our listeners go into the show notes. You'll find information about Mike, Focus CFO, my episode of the Roy Getz, who's a great guy. I'm so glad he introduced us. But thanks very much. I know our listeners and our entrepreneurs out there that are listening and going. I think maybe I need to check this out. I just really appreciate you're showing it with everybody.
MD: Well, I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. John, thank you very much.
JB: You bet. All right, everybody, we'll see you next time on the Bosshole Chronicles. We'd like to thank our guest today on the Bosshole Chronicles and if you have a Bosshole Chronicles story of your own, please email us at mystory@thebossholechronicles.com. Once again, my story@thebossholechronicles.com. We'll see you again soon.