Purpose, Pivots & Profits: Tom Dillon Turns Your Books Into a Roadmap to Success

And in doing that I actually tried to change the world and build a tech startup, which ultimately was a very difficult time during COVID to be launching a on premise hospitality tech platform. And so we struggled and I actually went back to my kind of roots and started moonlighting as a fractional cfo.

So my first project was really born out of necessity and I always kind of thought, hey, I said if this doesn’t work out, I’ll always have this experience in finance that I could fall back on, which I’m good at and I really enjoy. But there’s this kind of entrepreneurial desire in me that really wanted to go and build something that was disruptive.

I suppose during my time and that point in my career you had a ton of companies that started the unicorns, the Facebooks, the Ubers, the Airbnbs of the world where you’d see your friends at these companies or trying to start other companies and it’s really sexy. It makes a lot of sense at that time. And your young desire to be an entrepreneur to go and do this, it seems like that’s the path.

And so ultimately I realized that that’s not the only path. And cash flow is actually pretty cool. Oh, I kind of fall back. It certainly helps.

And so I’ve stepped away from kind of the disruptive technology world and more towards the entrepreneurs that are focused in on building cash flowing businesses. A lot of that stems from people that are doing something better. This model already exists, but I’m going to go and do it better.

I’m going to build a better product, I’m going to service the clients better.

Ultimately I think those that desire that passion to go and do something better for clients because you might have had a bad experience or you want that level of service or that quality of the product out there in the market that you just can’t access, so you go and create it.

And so I think it’s really interesting what you do with the super fans because with that these businesses all rely on their customers or their clients that are ultimately being serviced better or have a higher quality product. And that’s where it’s interesting. I kind of wanted to tell that full story of how it came full circle where I ended back into this world of SMB.

These small, medium sized business owners that are ultimately really focused in on their customers and their clients and effectively, I’ve never thought about it, I never said it this way, but turning them into super fans, how do we create an experience that ultimately people are excited to talk about?

Freddy D
00:06:22.470 – 00:07:11.110
Yeah, you can’t buy that kind of pr.

As we talked before the show, if you think of a sports team, when you got the super fans that got all their faces painted, the jerseys, the bumper stickers, everything else, they’re promoting that team. So if a business really takes the time to look at their entire organization, it starts with the leader.

It transcends down to the team that carries out to the prospective and existing customers, suppliers, distributors, complementary businesses. And nobody talks about businesses like yours, which is coming in to helping them with the things that they need to do in finance.

When we look at that whole system and being a super fan of that company can only go one way and that skyrocket up because they’ve got an army of salespeople promoting their business.

Tom Dillon
00:07:13.270 – 00:08:39.620
Absolutely. That’s the ultimate desire. And there’s a lot of things sometimes that companies need to get there.

So they want to promote their products, they want to invest in sales and marketing, and a lot of times they just don’t have that foundational aspects of the underlying operating business. In order to make good, sound decisions, in order to invest in those areas of the company that creates those super fans.

There’s a lot of companies that need more customer service or they need that extra marketing to attract the right customers, or they need to spend money on cultivating those relationships with their customers and clients. It takes money.

And some companies, they have an abundance mindset, some have a scarcity mindset when it comes to what are some of those aspects that we can ultimately invest in and are we willing to do it. And so for a lot of our clients, we’re kind of helping them Understand, do we have the capital? We hope they have an abundance mindset.

We try to identify clients with abundance mindsets. But do they have the ability and desire to want to invest in the things that are going to help create these super fans?

And they need to understand their finances. And it starts with accounting, really to do that.

And so for us it’s not, not always the sexy part of the business, but it is a foundational aspect, like you mentioned, that we really enjoy doing the finance part.

Freddy D
00:08:39.620 – 00:09:38.670
You bring up an important part there, Tom.

And that’s the fact that a lot of businesses really don’t do a great job, especially SMBs, really tracking their finances and planning out strategies for how they want to be able to go from a marketing perspective, an investment into their existing team. Because that’s not their world. Their world is they’re doing, if it’s a service based company, they’re doing a service. That’s what they’re good at.

And they do sort of an okay kind of maybe wannabe finance job. Because I’ve worked with some and so I’m sure you have too, where you look at the books and you go, what happened here?

These are things improperly categorized. They’ve got something else stuffed in there. But the bottom line that gives them a invalid financial view of where they’re at.

Tom Dillon
00:09:40.750 – 00:13:04.300
Yes, there are some amazing stories, some that I won’t share, some that I can share with regards to the aspects that you’re describing. So messy books. We get it, it makes sense. And the reality is that there are no books. It’s just, hey, here’s my bank statements to their tax account.

And it makes sense because when you think about how a business is born, once you have your service, your product, your first step is marketing. How am I going to find the right people? And then sales, I’m going to actually convert these people. And then it’s customer service.

And you know, around the circle we go, what’s last at year end, I need my books. The accountants asking for them, where are they or are they even right?

And so a lot of times we understand why that’s kind of the last part of the equation. But it’s a foundational aspect to your point, where if they don’t have good information, then it’s very difficult to make sound business decisions.

So we’ve had clients that were scaling unprofitable businesses. So they were providing services. I’m not going to name services or products, but they’re scaling effectively unprofitable services.

We didn’t have the proper Financials and analysis in line to understand it.

But it was a very successful company that got to where they were, had a competitor come in and, you know, create some pricing pressure, which led to the need to compete and market to these people and convert them in the sales funnel, continue servicing them, but without the real diagnosis or the real analysis of can we do this sustainably? And so it has to be growth, but profitable growth. And so ultimately that can be a big, big issue.

And it’s something that for us, when we do that, we find those points of contention within the financials, the accounting. That’s where we turn our clients into super fans. And there’s two aspects. One, there’s kind of cost cutting or the cost focus, CFOs.

Those are the ones that I just kind of mentioned. Those are the ones that are thinking about what are the issues, what’s the leaky bucket, how can I plug those holes? We come in.

And we can certainly do that. And that’s one way to create the super fans.

The other way to create super fans is for us is really understanding what it is they want to do from a growth perspective or where they want to exit the business and sell the company and then reverse engineering the playbook, how to get there. And we focused in on both organic growth and inorganic growth, meaning growth through acquisition.

So M and A on the organic side, that playbook, it’s going to require a heck of a lot of great experiences in turning their customers or their clients into superfans. And ultimately we help them do that. We kind of look at it in terms of how much money are we going to need.

And at different points within these cycles of growth, are we going to need to hire ahead of that growth so that they continue to get good customer experiences and so that they continue to be super fans. And so we really think about it from that entire circular aspect of the different departments internally as well as the experiences externally.

Freddy D
00:13:05.340 – 00:13:50.850
Yeah, because you’re keeping the momentum going and more importantly, you’re also positioning them for an exit strategy. Because a lot of business owners, you know, start a business, but they don’t think of the end game, but they’re just focused on the moment.

And the moment’s great. But what happens if, unfortunately, something happens to that individual? The business just implodes, it’s gone. I experienced that with a company.

I happened to be there and I was running the operations and the goal was for me to run the company and they were going to retire. Unfortunately, the husband was a husband, wife, team. He, he had a Heart attack and passed away.

Tom Dillon
00:13:50.850 – 00:13:51.530
Oh, wow.

Freddy D
00:13:51.530 – 00:14:08.010
And they had nothing in place except luckily I was there. And so I took over as the GM and we grew that company. We packaged it and we ended up getting it sold.

But had I not been there, that business would have been gone in 90 days.

Tom Dillon
00:14:08.890 – 00:14:45.860
And you know, most people don’t have the skill set to run the companies.

That’s why we have department heads and division leaders and people with expertise and the ability to find people with that expertise at affordable rates.

Was you asked earlier why we got into the space and that’s why we knew that most people couldn’t afford a full time CFO or a full time accounting department.

So we step in as a fractional CFO and accounting department that supplements your team that you can keep running them if not toughest loss of in grief period during that time period for her, and then to have the business fall apart on top of that, I would have just been salt in the wound.

Freddy D
00:14:45.860 – 00:14:46.380
Oh sure.

Tom Dillon
00:14:46.380 – 00:14:50.020
It’s amazing that you were there and able to right the ship in some regard.

Freddy D
00:14:50.740 – 00:15:18.680
And we had to bring in a forensic CFO to fix the books because things were all over the place and they never really paid attention. They had money in the bank, the bank account was never negative. They paid themselves the salary and were able to pay the team, pay the bills.

Business was just hunky dory. But in reality, for positioning, as we talked earlier, an exit strategy, whatever it is, it was a train wreck.

Tom Dillon
00:15:21.320 – 00:17:04.450
Yes, we see that a lot. We have clients that we speak to all the time that are looking to exit and we realize that they’re just not ready.

There’s a lot of personal expenses that are coming in that need to have these adjustments done or they’re just not structured in the right way to realize the value of the company that they should.

For example, let’s just say you have a business that has two service lines and within those service lines you have various costs and you can do different accounting practices within them. And by breaking them out, your company might be valued based on one multiple for that type of service and another multiple for the other service.

Well, this company just had everything under one and then we run into others where they don’t have them categorized correctly. And so ultimately what that leads to is less enterprise value.

And enterprise value meaning just the value you get for your company when you go to sell it. What is it valued at to someone else? What are they willing to pay for it?

And why are they willing to pay one multiple for one business versus another? The same thing within companies, they might have different service offerings or they might have different products.

And to think about it in that context, most business owners don’t. And so preparing and positioning the company for sale, getting those books cleaned up, it does take time.

And it also your decisions for the future, how you’re allocating your capital to reinvest in the business and grow that business. You might want to know how that business is going to be valued and perceived by someone else prior to making those decisions.

And so having those conversations early and often to ensure that you’re on the right path I think is very important.

Freddy D
00:17:05.570 – 00:17:55.420
Absolutely. The other thing that I found with that particular company was they were invoicing in the wrong invoicing periods.

So I’m sure you’ve not run into that at all.

What you bring to the table is very important for small to mid sized businesses to get an outside source to come in and at least quarterly take a look at where you’re at and give you some advice.

If you don’t have the funds to hire somebody on a regular basis, having somebody come in at least every 90 days and take a look at what’s going on, because you can at least prevent hitting a big hole in the ground and doing a face plant because you didn’t have the foresight to make sure your finances are where they need to be.

Tom Dillon
00:17:56.490 – 00:19:09.130
That’s absolutely right. You definitely want to have some assessment of what the books look like.

Are the books or what it’s really called, the chart of accounts, are they properly set up? The foundational aspect of are we putting these expenses and these revenues in the right area, in the right category? That’s the chart of accounts.

And ultimately making sure that you’ve got the right chart of accounts and then making sure that those books are set up in a way that also is reducing tax liability and thinking about and working with the tax accountant and making sure that we’re taking advantage of the tax codes that are out there.

And so there’s another aspect in terms of just making sure that the foundational aspects are setting the business up to protect what you work so hard for. And then from there becomes a little bit more strategic. I find the strategic growth side of the business very interesting.

Everything’s a little bit different.

By and large it’s the same, but it’s the people and the processes within the team and then the end market and the customers and clients all focused in on that brand messaging and the overall ecosystem of how you’re going to accomplish everything and that strategy to get there. I Find very, very interesting.

Freddy D
00:19:09.930 – 00:19:43.920
Yeah. It’s like getting everybody into a racing rowboat where you’ve got the eight people in the boat and everybody has one oar.

And you got to get everybody going in one direction and more importantly, in synchronization. Otherwise that boat’s not even going in a circle. It’s just waddling, going no place.

So that’s what you’re helping do from that perspective, Tom, share a little story of somebody that you worked with and how you transformed that company to where they’ve become your biggest superfan advocates.

Tom Dillon
00:19:46.080 – 00:23:39.080
Sure, yeah. A lot of different potential clients I’m thinking of in my head right now.

I think one that will be most helpful and most tactical of how did we get from A to B and what does it look like? And why did that turn this client into a superfan who’s made a recommendation?

We got a recommendation, a newer client, actually, this morning, which is like the superfan stamp of approval that you’re really looking for. I mean, that’s like. That’s the best. That’s the best feeling. And ultimately, it was exactly what you said, which is kind of, you know, this.

There’s no. There’s no script here, exactly what you said in terms of getting everyone in rowing in the same direction.

And if it’s not on our website, it should be on our website. It’s effectively trying to get all of those department heads or those leaders within your organization to be rolling in the right direction.

And it all stems around accountability. So when we stepped in, I wouldn’t go as far as saying it was a toxic culture.

People were very sweet and nice, but by definition of a corporate book, they would say this is a toxic culture. And the reason being was people weren’t owning or having the accountability of their various performance.

So what we really did was just not tell people how they should be benchmarking their performance or tracking their performance, but listening and understanding of how we can help them. If I had this level of information or if I knew I was being benchmarked against this performance, now I have a finish line to row to.

Now I know what I need to do. And so for us, it’s really about establishing what is the bigger company goal.

And then within those departments that we’ve talked about that matter, what are the KPIs, the key performance indicators, which are basically like your North Star for the person on your team that they should care about? There’s different granularity and levels of different KPIs you can look into.

But all ultimately it’s around setting up those kind of performance metrics and then helping the team understand and really again, listening and finding out what is going to be the most beneficial to help them go in the right direction. So we’re kind of like a coach or a trainer, aligning the team so that everyone is accountable and understands where we’re rowing to.

And so that was a very wonderful success story with the client I have in mind. It’s. It wasn’t that they didn’t have a great product, a great service.

The team just wasn’t oriented around finances and they didn’t have the playbook. We’ll reverse engineer that playbook and say, all right, here’s how we get from A to B.

They didn’t have that directional aspect because there wasn’t the finance component, they had the accounting, they had a wonderful internal bookkeeper and they had a great tax accountant as well. They just were missing that financial component.

But they really couldn’t at the time afford a full time cfo, someone that could come in and really guide and coach the team on how we can get everyone rolling in the right direction.

There’s a theme where if we kept talking for hours about breaking down every single client that we’ve ever helped, you would see this very similar theme, which is accountability and helping the team not coming in and dictating what they need to track and how they should be benchmarked, but having conversations with the team in order for them to ultimately determine what’s most important and then helping them build a playbook in order to achieve it and hold them accountable. And so every month we’re trying to understand where are we relative to what we said we were going to do, what did we do?

And that’s where the accountability and it’s not a negative or crack in the whip of saying, oh my goodness, like, I can’t believe this is the performance this month.

Freddy D
00:23:39.370 – 00:23:40.010
What happened?

Tom Dillon
00:23:40.090 – 00:24:47.600
It’s more, okay, great, what happened? How can we figure out.

And there’s a lot of different kind of levers that could be pulled or things that could be pushed in terms of how to make that individual’s performance or the team’s performance within that department better. And so it’s more investigative around how can we improve what’s not working, what is working.

When you think back to like the different movies that are out there where they use data to make decisions and recruit players or make plays based on data, we had winning super successful outcomes. Well, that’s the same thing with finance. It’s using the accounting Data and the performance data to help guide the decision making with actual data.

And so it’s more about gathering more information and understanding why things are happening or why they’re breaking down and then putting the pieces in play to make everything function smoother. Because now they’re being supported. They’re getting the resources they might need in order to perform.

So it’s really grounding everyone in the decision based around real information.

Freddy D
00:24:48.640 – 00:26:48.370
Sure. And the important thing that you said there, and I want to reemphasize that, Tom, is the fact that you were empowering those people.

They were buying into it, so they have ownership. And there’s a big difference between directive saying this is what you’re going to do. And so now I don’t have a choice.

And so I’m not in a really good mood because I’ve got to do this versus you own it. You’re now empowered and now what are your ideas to help propel this in the right direction? It’s a complete game changer because you’re getting.

That’s how you get everybody into the rowboat. Going into the right direction is everybody’s got their own ownership to whatever their responsibilities are.

They have a different perception of everything now because, wow, I’m in charge of this. And even if it’s the person that’s the call center person or the person that’s handling the customer service, they got ownership of that.

And that completely changes their mindset because that’s their department. They’re in charge. And when you do that, that creates, like you were talking earlier about getting the culture going into the right direction.

And now everybody knows what the direction is, what the goals are, what their KPIs, they own it because they helped create the KPIs. It’s another thing if they help put them together themselves because they own it.

That’s one of the things I learned a long time ago in a Dale Carnegie management class is you get the individual to write what their job description is. They own it. It’s a whole different game. And if they own it, their whole performance is completely different.

And then as a leader, your job is to get the heck out of the way and really just help them accomplish their goals. And if you help them accomplish their goals, you don’t have to worry about yours. They happen automatically.

Tom Dillon
00:26:49.810 – 00:26:53.810
That’s really well said, Freddie. You know, you should do like some podcasting or something.

Freddy D
00:26:54.940 – 00:27:39.730
Yeah, maybe one of these days I’ll think about it. But yeah, I mean, it’s really. If you think about it, though, what you’re doing with FRAC finance is really helping businesses play the long game.

But I’ll use a sports analogy, because I like doing that. For American football, it’s the Super Bowl. For European football, which is what they call it in the rest of the world, it’s the World Cup.

And that’s really the goal. Everybody is going into that direction. That’s the direction is to win the World cup or to win the Super Bowl. So it’s the same thing.

What you’re doing with these companies is really helping them financially win their own Super Bowl.

Tom Dillon
00:27:41.650 – 00:28:36.730
That’s absolutely right. And a lot of people just don’t even know that that’s really an option, which is they just don’t think about it.

They don’t understand that there’s a structure to everything in this business world. Winning the Super Bowls, going public, which arguably, maybe it’s not.

Maybe it’s just the M and A event, but in liquidity events, the super bowl, man, the playoffs, the regular season, the summer camps and training to get there, it’s a lot of work.

And the sooner you can start at least putting together the playbook on how you’re going to achieve that and have some fundamental, foundational people in your corner to help you who have done it time and time again.

We’ve seen a lot of wonderful people and wonderful businesses really struggle and fall on hardships because they just didn’t have a few key pieces to help right the ship.

Freddy D
00:28:38.090 – 00:29:43.640
And there’s the other thing, too, that comes into play in the SMB world is, okay, I’ve worked at Corporate America for my 40 years or whatever, and now I’m retired and I’m sitting home and I’m going like, all right, I can only watch so much tv. I can only do so much stuff around the house. I’m bored stiff. I’m going to start a business.

And those people don’t have the skill sets, and I don’t mean it in a negative way, but realistically, they’re going to be that person that’s going to start off a business, leverage your skills that they had over the 40 years. But they’re not a finance person, they may not be a salesperson and everything else.

And I think that what they should really do is reach out to companies like yourself and help position what they need to do from a financial perspective as they’re putting this together and as they’re getting started, so they create the right foundation, they’re going to be much more successful, and they’re going to have A lot less stress because they’ve positioned themselves for success.

Tom Dillon
00:29:47.400 – 00:29:52.440
Yeah, it’s a lot easier to start with a good foundation and grow from there. There is no doubt.

Freddy D
00:29:54.680 – 00:30:35.080
Because when you think about there’s a lot of people that retire and then get back into the business world and they do okay, but don’t. Those are a lot of ones that I’ve ran into that don’t have all the skill sets. They’re trying to generate some additional revenue.

They may not be solid in their marketing strategy.

I’m speaking about this because I think they need to reach out to people like yourselves that are doing fractional financial services, fractional marketing services, fractional sales services to help them really go in a direction. It’ll shortcut everything like buying a book and getting 20 years worth of experience in a book in a week.

Tom Dillon
00:30:38.120 – 00:30:41.960
Well, I appreciate that endorsement. You know how I feel about it.

Freddy D
00:30:43.160 – 00:30:56.660
Yeah, I want to share that because I think that’s really important to drive home is, you know, a lot of people try to do it the hard way and there’s a lot of ways you can shortcut to get to where you want to go and collapse the whole thing.

Tom Dillon
00:30:57.780 – 00:30:58.580
Absolutely.

Freddy D
00:31:00.900 – 00:31:08.020
So as we’re getting closer to the end here, what’s a takeaway that you can share with our listeners?

Tom Dillon
00:31:11.700 – 00:32:13.030
I would say ensure that you have the right chart of accounts, that foundational accounting try to align the team around appropriate KPIs and limit them to one or two. Less is more. Especially when you’re starting and if you need help, reach out to someone like us.

It can be absolutely transformational, not just for you, the business owner, but for the overall team and culture. It’s really wonderful to see everyone on the same page and rowing in the right direction.

It’s amazing what ends up happening to the clients and customers that they serve and creating the super fans out of the people that they actually want. Because now they’re focused on the right things. Not the internal struggles and the game plan on the goals that they’re trying to accomplish.

But now they’re focused in on actually serving, which is the most important thing in business. Who am I helping and why? And they get to focus on the right thing.

Freddy D
00:32:14.000 – 00:32:51.370
Yep. Because it’s not reactionary anymore. You’re being proactive and when you’re proactive, it’s a whole different game. It’s again, I go back to sport.

You see the team that’s high fiving and jumping and excited and everything else, they usually win the game. The guys that are stressed out and frustrated and Everything else, they always lose the game.

You can tell sometimes in the very beginning of the game who’s going to win just by the physical and the emotions that they’ve got. And being proactive, you’re going to get much better results than you would being in a reactive position.

Tom Dillon
00:32:54.410 – 00:33:48.240
Yeah, amen to that.

As well as if you’re planning to ever sell your business, whether that be a succession plan to employees or to an outsider that might be a strategic or a competitor, start thinking about that.

What does that look like, when is it going to happen and what, most importantly, you’re going to put it in the right person’s hands and have you set the company up to transition appropriately. You want to ensure that you have a transferable asset.

And there are certainly companies that are valued more or less based on what their team looks like, how they operate and the efficiencies there with having sound financial information to make sound decisions based on. So it’s all important, it’s all circular in nature that ends up ultimately serving the end customer and client.

Freddy D
00:33:49.200 – 00:33:53.600
Yep, great advice there, Tom. As we wrap up here, how can people find you?

Tom Dillon
00:33:54.960 – 00:34:04.590
So you can reach out to me directly, tomrak finance.com or you can go visit our website@frac finance.com.

Freddy D
00:34:05.470 – 00:34:09.950
Yeah, we’ll make sure that’s in the show notes. And I believe you have something for our listeners as well.

Tom Dillon
00:34:10.110 – 00:34:35.410
Yes, we’re running a promotional aspect for your listeners that’s going to be discounting our services at 15% off.

And so we hope that is something that your listeners find beneficial, given that we know that we’re servicing the SMB market and not everyone can afford the full price or a full time person. And so trying to ultimately practice what we preach.

Freddy D
00:34:36.290 – 00:34:51.570
We’ll make sure that’s in the show notes. Tom, it’s been a pleasure having you on this business Superfam podcast. Great conversation.

You and I could probably talk on this stuff for hours and I really appreciate your time and we look forward to having you on the show down the road again.

Tom Dillon
00:34:52.450 – 00:34:55.650
Sounds great, Freddie. It was a pleasure. Look forward to talking soon.

Freddy D
00:34:56.470 – 00:35:00.790
All right, thank you. Hey there.

Freddy D
00:35:00.790 – 00:37:02.290
This is Frederick Dudek, AKA Freddie D. And this is the Business Superfans podcast, the show that turns everyday stakeholders into raving revenue boosting advocates.

Starting today, we’re mapping every episode to my new Superfans framework. Nine laser focused pillars that move your business from first spark to unstoppable momentum.

So here’s the acronym for Superfans s strategically position you unify stakeholders. P promote magnetic messaging e. Elevate experiences r. Reward advocacy F. Foster authentic connections A.

Activate AI and automation and nurture loyalty s Secure sustained success.

Each week will spotlight one pillar, extract a game changing insight from the given guest and finish with the superfan’s success Spark a single 24 hour action you can execute before the next episode drops. Follow along for the full nine episode cycle.

Collect every spark and you’ll have a step by step playbook to create superfans who drive raving reviews, rocking referrals and raising revenue. Ready to dive in? Let’s hit today’s pillar and remember one action, one stakeholder, one superfan closer.

So here’s your top superfan success spark from this episode s strategically position. So here’s the top insight. Ensure that you have the right chart of accounts and align the team around appropriate KPIs.

So here’s your action step 24 hours set a 30 minute meeting with your bookkeeper or yourself today to review the chart of accounts and agree on one primary KPI that everyone will track this quarter.