Financial Efficiency Hacks: The Secret Weapon for Business Growth

Megan - 00:00:18: Today, my guest is Hurley Fox. In an industry that often treats business owners as customers, Hurley prefers to think of them as partners. He founded Fox & Partners with a mission not only to provide excellent controller and CFO services to entrepreneurs, but also to truly help them navigate the business world. And while others may be focused only on the bottom line, he's more passionate about making finance easy to understand and creating clear reports with insights to give decisions for those he works with. He believes that entrepreneurs should get practical help that's effective and provides value to their companies. His approach is unique because his background is unique. He's a licensed teacher, but his path changed when he realized he could combine education, business, and finance. He uses his teaching skills to help entrepreneurs learn accounting, understand their financials, and develop solutions for their problems. It sometimes feels like being in the classroom again, whiteboard and all. He's worked in a variety of fields from construction to accounting. So has an eclectic mix of experience and skills. Fox & Partners is a result of everything he's learned along the way. Every experience and bit of knowledge he's gained allows him to support businesses by introducing fresh ideas to help them succeed. Because he and his team truly want to forge a partnership with those he works with. He doesn't lock anyone into contracts. He's easy to reach and always looking to improve. He makes it a point to assist in any way he can. And that's why Fox & Partners goes beyond just business help. It's proof that great guidance can turn dreams into success. Outside of his business, he's on the board of two nonprofit organizations and takes his faith and family seriously. He enjoys taking walks and fun trips with his greyhound, diving into books and spending quality time with his wife and good food. Hurley, thank you very much for being my guest on today's episode of CFO Weekly.

Hurley - 00:02:44: Thanks for having me, Megan.

Megan - 00:02:45: Yeah, today our topic is business accounting, and we'll be discussing why financials are a good first step, as well as how business and personal finance intertwine for small businesses. And I'm really looking forward to learning from you and about you, so let's jump right in.

Hurley - 00:03:01: Sounds great.

Megan - 00:03:02: So it's evident from your career journey and the founding principles of Fox and Partners that your passion for finance and entrepreneurship runs deep. So can you share with us a little bit about your background, as well as the moment or experience that ignited this passion within you and set you on the path to becoming a financial leader and business partner?

Hurley - 00:03:26: Sure. Background is I was working at a small construction management firm in New Jersey, which is where I'm from, and it was helping them do a lot of the stuff on the business side of things. So I wasn't in the field, but was helping the home office do marketing, accounting, sales, HR, whatever was needed. And while I was working there full time doing that, I was also going to school for my education degree. And I graduated with my teaching degree and teaching license, but I wanted to stay in the business world. And so then I left that construction management firm and worked with an accountant that I knew from that firm. And while I was at that accounting firm, I quickly realized the fairly large gap between business owners and business professionals, because we had all these business owners coming into the office and we were giving them their books and their accounting or giving them their tax returns, but there wasn't really any discussion had, or we would turn back or hand back financials or tax returns with a loss or not the greatest numbers and nothing was said or talked about, that was just the way it was. And so that was kind of the light bulb moment for me when I just started asking business owners when they came in questions, why are you running your business this way? What are you trying to achieve? How was this year compared to last year? What are you going to do next year? And these conversations were really well received by the business owners. And so then I just started coupling a monthly conversation with a monthly kind of financial review. And so we would do the books, we would review it with the business owner and then talk to the business owner. And that grew pretty quickly because there was a pretty big need for it. And I didn't know any real accounting at the time, but I was just curious about the business, curious about how we could help. And that program at that firm grew pretty significantly. And then I essentially took that business plan, business model, and that's what I started the company doing is, hey, we're going to do the monthly accounting for businesses. And I'll talk to the business owner. So that was the moment that kind of ignited the passion was just, wow, I'm in this accounting firm and we're just not helping business owners the way I thought we should have. And so just through engaging and asking some questions, we were able to grow a program big enough where I was able to start a company doing that.

Megan - 00:05:43: Yeah, that's amazing. You must bring a lot of value to your clients because I'm sure there are a lot of firms out there that just do what needs to be done and then hand it back to the business owner.

Hurley - 00:05:53: Yeah. There's like two parts to it, right? The first part is you have to have the right accounting. And so that was another thing that always drove me nuts was when I would be talking to a client and they would have a business coach or consultant or, you know, somebody helping them. And they were giving this advice and I would ask them, well, what do they say when they look at your financials? And they would say that they don't look at my financials. And so that was always, you know, kind of wild to me. You know, I use an analogy of a doctor, right? It's like giving health advice without ever looking at where's the patient today, right? Where are the blood tests, height, weight, et cetera. So the first part is you have to get the accounting correct because those are the stats that tell us the health of the business. But then the second part is what do you do with that? Right? So just like that medical test, hey, here's my results. Okay. But now what should I eat? How should I work out? How should I sleep? What should I change? If a company has perfect accounting, but it's losing money every month, what's the point, right? And so you have to have both. You have to have great and clean accounting, then give good advice and conversations to help drive the company and the individuals forward and providing next steps. So it's those two parts.

Megan - 00:06:58: And your unique background blends education, business, and finance. So how has your experience as a licensed teacher influenced your approach to educating entrepreneurs about accounting and financial management, which is, I'm sure, two things that most of them have no education or training in?

Hurley - 00:07:16: And definitely in the small section of the Venn diagram there, with being kind of more extroverted and liking communication, being in the accounting world, going to school for teaching and having to teach to get the certificate and certification and all of that was a really helpful exercise. Because essentially what teaching is, is every day, six or seven times a day, you have to get 20 kids to do stuff they don't really want to do. Right. And so how to do that is a feat. And every kid is different. Every class is different. And I remember I was teaching one class and it was in this middle school that, you know, kind of ranked lower in the state. And the class was just so crazy. And my first time kind of getting up in front, I turned my back and kids were running all over the place. And it was just insane. And I was so overwhelmed by it. And I complained to my teacher at the time. And I said, you know, this class, they're just not going to listen. You know, it's just too crazy. And he said, everything in the classroom is on you. And so you can impact everything. And so I took that to heart and developed with my professor a plan to, you know, before we went to the classroom, all the students had to line up on the wall. And we were going to be calm before we entered the classroom. And then as soon as I entered the classroom, I shifted where the desks were. And I had very specific instructions up. And I made sure that students, you know, had kind of assigned seating. And I would walk around the room in a certain way. And the room actually got and stayed calm. And so I realized that, you know, take that to heart. It's everything, you know. It's kind of on you. And you can influence a lot of people by doing a lot of small things, right? And how you have conversations with them, how you present them certain data, et cetera. And then just, you know, how to communicate to people certain ideas. And so in this case, it's financials, what I'm doing with business owners. But it's also listening and just understanding, you know, how can I help you understand this, right? Is it, you know, hey, you want to retire by 40? Okay. Well, here's why the numbers help us answer the question of whether that can happen or not, or what needs to change in order to do that. So teaching and going to school for teaching was really impactful and structured a lot of the way that I have conversations with the business owners. And even today, you know, virtually the meetings, you know, often pull up a whiteboard on my screen and just walk through, hey, here's why, you know, we're doing this journal entry or, hey, this is why profit doesn't mean cash in the bank and walking them through that concept and, you know, having them ask questions. And, you know, kind of assigning them homework for the month. You know, there's a lot of crossover between what I'm doing now and what I learned going to school for teaching.

Megan - 00:09:55: And at Fox & Partners, you prioritize building partnerships with your clients rather than just treating them as mere customers. So can you elaborate on how this partnership mindset shapes your approach to providing controller and CFO services?

Hurley - 00:10:11: You know, the number one thing that we do is we just try to solve problems for our clients. And in some cases, they may have really good accounting and they just need somebody to vent to on a weekly, biweekly, monthly basis of just here's the chaos that I'm going through. And, you know, we can empathize with them from one business owner to another. And so, you know, we want to make sure what we're doing for them is truly valuable to the client and solving their problems. Problems in most of the cases, accounting and kind of the financial aspect of their businesses is a very stressful part of it that they aren't too familiar with and don't have the right people in place to help them. And so, you know, that's how we get our foot in the door and we try to solve as many of those problems as we can. But we don't ever want to just have here's what we do and whether or not you need this specifically or you need it now, we're not going to pay attention to that. We're just going to roll out our kind of cookie cutter services. Instead, it's what are the problems you have and how can we help? And if it's not us and you really need somebody else to come help you, I will make that introduction. If, you know, you need our help to do something for the first three months and that changes on the next three months and it changes in the next three months, we will do that. We're here to help you solve problems on a monthly basis, whatever that may be.

Megan - 00:11:23: And just curious, who is your ideal client? Is it a certain size or a certain industry?

Hurley - 00:11:29: Ideal client is, you know, we use the line, you know, we do good work for good people. So the first part is, you know, our ideal client is always, you know, a really good person because they're much easier to work with. You know, relationship with them is great. It's a back and forth and it's, you know, people having mutual respect for each other. In terms of specifics, you know, a typical client of business will do a small side of our clients. They're doing a million dollars in revenue a year, and our largest clients do a hundred million dollars in revenue a year. Kind of our typical or ideal client would be somewhere between that, you know, 5 to 20 million dollar range with, you know, a couple of thousand employees because that company size we've done really well on. But we have clients from one million to a hundred million. And you know, the biggest thing is, do we have a really good partner to work with and the business owner? You know, are we able to get what we need? You know, when onboarding, for example, it's like we have a lot of questions and we need a lot of documentation. And so some business owners just, you know, don't have the time or can't give us that stuff. And so that's going to make it really hard to work together. But if people are serious about trying to get their accounting correct, put themselves in the company in a better financial position, and they're a good person and we're able to communicate well, that's a really good start.

Megan - 00:12:43: And why do you believe that understanding business accounting and financials is a crucial first step for entrepreneurs, especially those in small businesses? And how does this understanding empower an entrepreneur to make better strategic decisions?

Hurley - 00:12:59: Yeah. So it's just like the medical analogy, right? Before I go do a workout program or I go do a certain diet or change my living based on my health, I want to understand, well, where's my health now, right? So before I change my diet, what did my blood tests say? Where am I deficient or what do I have too much of? What do I need to do? And so the accounting provides those results. Before moving forward, you want to know where you are. Are you cash flowing? Typically, business owners do not know, small business owners don't know if they're positively cash flowing on a monthly basis. They will often know their revenue. They may know their profit, but cash flow each month is a number that typically when we start with a client, they don't know kind of off the top of their head or they don't even know an estimate of. It's because it doesn't show up in the profit and loss, which is what, most business owners look at if they're looking at any financial reports. And so a question that we get all the time when starting with companies is, I don't have any money in the bank, but how could I be paying income tax or how could I owe taxes? And so understanding where your business is financially each month is giving you the data on what your business is doing. And specifically with cash flow, you could be doing all the right things, but if you're not positively cash flowing, something's wrong, and it's not sustainable. And you would want to know if you're going to change something, if you're going to bring on somebody new, if you're going to increase your advertising spend, increase inventory, cut software costs, whatever it is, you'd want to know, well, is that changing in a positive way in the bottom line? The bottom line in this case being positive cash flow. And if it's not, we'd want to understand why and what we can do. And if it is, we'd want to understand, well, can we do more of it? Because at the end of the day, the cash flow is the oxygen to the company. And if you don't have consistent positive cash flow, you're going to have a really stressful and difficult time sustaining yourself and the company over a period of time.

Megan - 00:15:03: And many small business owners might view financial management as overwhelming or intimidating. So how do you take accounting concepts and simplify them for your clients?

Hurley - 00:15:16: I totally empathize and understand that it can be overwhelming and complicated because people call these different terms and stuff that you think means this means actually something else. And, you know, the investment advisor is giving you different advice than the tax advisor, which is different than your accountant. So it's complicated. But two things help simplify it. The first is, at the end of the day, it is a fairly concrete subject in terms of there's, you know, very basic patterns. A profit and loss for various companies looks pretty similar. There are rules to it, and it's very orderly. And the second is, we want to relate it to the business owner in a way that they understand and that relates to them. And so using certain analogies is helpful, using kind of a whiteboard and drawing through images or walking them through a certain kind of T-chart journal entry or, hey, look, here's month over month, and here's why we're paying attention to this or providing stories of other clients or other examples in the business world. I'll send, you know, YouTube videos to clients, podcasts, articles, visuals, you know, again, going back to the teaching world, you know, different people learn through different ways, right? Some people like talking it through. Some people like, watching a video. Some people like actually doing an exercise, et cetera. And so finding that out and then helping the business owner through their preferred way to learn, learn about accounting and why it's so critical to the business world is not only a lot of fun, but it makes our job a lot easier because now the business owner understands the importance of what we're doing and why it's helpful to know certain numbers and why it's helpful to know accounting, you know, it's the language of business. And so if you're in the business world, you should have a decent understanding of the language, and you should have somebody in your court or in your network that really understands the language that can help you if you have questions.

Megan - 00:17:09: And your firm offers customized reporting and monthly CFO review meetings. So can you share an example or two of how these tailored financial insights have helped your clients to either navigate challenges or maybe seize opportunities in their business?

Hurley - 00:17:26: Sure. So a lot of our clients have multiple entities. And so typically they will not have consolidated reporting. And so we have had success putting together consolidated reports. And so a typical client would be an entrepreneur that owns a bunch of real estate, has some equity in a couple of businesses, and has a couple of side projects. And so how does this business owner understand on a monthly basis how the whole portfolio is doing? And so we will build custom reports that take all that information and provide a clear, concise summary to the business owner on a monthly basis with how his or her whole portfolio is doing and making sure, okay, if you're doing real estate, and something else, well, what's a better use of your time? What's the return on each? Or if you have multiple projects, what's the product that's doing the highest amount of return? And then can you double down on that effort? In other cases, it's putting together reports that compare our client to industry standards. And so I had one client out in Arizona. And we put together a report, profit and loss for them, and benchmark them against typical businesses in their same industry. And we realized they were spending way more than is normal on payroll. And so, we put together a plan to allow them to reduce their payroll costs, get back closer to where a typical company should be. And this allowed them to become profitable on a monthly basis and have their first profit annually in over five years. And so benchmarking, consolidating reporting, or highlighting certain things, or just taking these financial reports that can be long and very, not complex, but inundated with data and simplifying it. And here's the one or two numbers that you as a business owner need to pay attention to. And if these one or two numbers are getting better, the bottom line and the end result will get better. And so those are some of the ways that we will put together reports that are more than just what your accounting software is printing out to help the business owners understand their financial situation.

Megan - 00:19:30: As someone who's worked with a wide range of businesses, what are some of the common financial pitfalls that you observe among entrepreneurs and small business owners? And how do you help them avoid or overcome these challenges?

Hurley - 00:19:45: First would be typically when we start with a client, their accounting is not accurate or clean, right? So that's a typical pitfall in terms of, you know, again, how can you make decisions if you don't have not only accurate, but clean and updated financials? So getting that is the first, you know, very typical problem and one that, you know, we solve. Two, it's making sure that they have the right kind of team in place that can do the work in both accounting and operationally on a monthly basis in a detailed, consistent manner. The third kind of consistent problem is not focusing enough on cash flow and instead focusing on other metrics. For example, revenue, employee size, amount of locations, et cetera, that sound really good when you're talking to people. Hey, we went from $5 million in revenue to $10 million in revenue. That's great. But if you're losing cash, whether you're doing $5 million or $10 million, it doesn't really matter. And so focus on cash flow to ownership on a monthly basis. And you should be positively cash flowing no matter the revenue size. And so pay attention to the right metrics, cash flow, and make sure that you are also checking in on the metrics or goals you're setting on a monthly or quarterly basis. So I think, you know, a lot of people are just so in the day-to-day and they're very rarely looking up and saying, hey, are we better than we were last year? Or where do I want to be next year and how do I get there? And so those are some of the typical kind of pitfalls that we see from both startups. To larger companies of, you know, the mistakes they're making, it's just they don't have the right accounting team and accounting in place. They're not looking at those reports consistently enough and understanding what to really focus on. They're not prioritizing cash flow. And they're not looking up enough and saying, hey, look, where are we trying to go and what are we doing to get there?

Megan - 00:21:34: And small business owners often face the challenge of intertwining personal and business finances. So how is it that you guide your clients in navigating this intersection and ensuring financial stability and growth for both their personal and business goals?

Hurley - 00:21:51: You know, it's interesting. It's really difficult when you're running a small business to fully separate the business and the personal, but it's a very, very helpful exercise to do so. In terms of you should have, you know, separate accounts, separate accounting for each, the business should be paying for personal expenses and you personally should be paying for the business expenses. And, you know, so kind of an exercise that I found very helpful is just putting together a personal budget. What do you need personally on a monthly basis? Can the business pay you that consistently each month? If the answer is yes, that's either set you up on payroll or an automatic distribution. And so that way, you know, personally, the business will be able to pay for your rent, your food, your utilities, et cetera. And then the business has to worry about making that salary payment or dividend payment consistently each month. So how does the business do that? If the business can't do that, then you're going to have problems, right? Because the business just can't, you know, give you enough money to pay for your living expenses. And so some problems will come of that. So if it can, then we want to make sure that the company does that consistently. And then by not having any personal expenses in the business accounts, we can truly understand what is spent, where we can get, you know, good ratios and metrics. And then we can build a plan to increase and grow the company and increase the cash to you as the owner. The other thing is, you know, while we really like to separate the cash and have two separate silos and act as if there's two separate hats, the personal and the business is so interwined, in a sense of, if the business owner needs a lot of cash, the business will need a lot of cash, business owner stressed out, the business will be stressed out. And so by separating them and putting a plan together for each in a separate way, this often have found calms both the business owner and the business, but also allows both to grow.

Megan - 00:23:43: And you've mentioned your commitment to continuous improvement and flexibility in your client relationships, including not locking them into contracts. So talk to us about how this approach fosters trust and collaboration with your clients and what benefits you've observed from this partnership-oriented mindset.

Hurley - 00:24:01: Yeah. So again, we only want to bring value to our clients and we always want to be solving problems for them and we always want to be providing value. And so our agreements are set up in that manner. We first have an onboarding retainer just so we can kind of get a sense of the lay of the land. The client understands the cost. We understand the amount of work that's going to be included. Either of those goes up, we can have a conversation about that. Once we've onboarded, we shift to a fixed monthly agreement that stays the same unless the scope of work changes dramatically. For example, you go from a $5 million company to a $15 million company or something like that. So unless it changes dramatically. Then the price will stay the same so they can budget accordingly. And that doesn't matter if you call me twice a month or four times a month or we have one hour conversation or five hour conversation, the price is going to stay the same. We're just here to solve a specific set of problems. And if we ever are not solving those problems or somebody can ever do it better or somebody can provide you more value, then we want the best for our clients. And so we don't want to lock them into anything. And so any time, all of our contracts are just month to month. And so if a client, if a client wants to either stop working with us or go in a different direction or shut down or whatever, they absolutely can do so. So we don't lock anybody in. We always want to be providing value every month. We want to have to earn our keep every month. And we want to say upfront to our clients, hey, look, we're putting our money where our mouth is. We believe we will provide you more value than any other firm. And if we ever don't, you can leave at any time.

Megan - 00:25:35: Yeah, that's amazing. I guess that's the way business really should be done.

Hurley - 00:25:38: Yeah, it's hard at first because you think, oh my gosh, this is kind of crazy. But then you realize that by doing that, you do develop a really good sense of not only trust, but you develop a partnership with them because you're not holding them, you're not putting a gun to their heads. You're doing it in a very holistic, loving way. And also, I'm a big believer in having correct incentive structures. And so we're incentivized in the way our contracts are structured to go all out for our clients on a monthly basis. If we're ever not providing that value, then the client should and can let us go. Thankfully, that has not happened. But I think part of that is because of how we're going about thinking through the relationships we have with our clients.

Megan - 00:26:21: And beyond traditional financial services, you've been actively involved in nonprofit organizations and value-driven initiatives. So tell us about these experiences and how they inform your approach to financial leadership and then how you integrate these values and purpose into your client engagements.

Hurley - 00:26:40: And so I'm on the board of a couple of nonprofits. I'm on the board of my church, which is a Russian Orthodox Christian church, part of the OCA. I'm the financial secretary there. And then I'm also part of the financial committee and board of the Orthodox Volunteer Corps. And my faith and my involvement in these two organizations play a large role in my life. And the first is just, again, it brings about a sense of calm and just understanding that there's a deeper reality here. Everything's, I mean, at the end of the day, if you have your health and you're okay, you know, the minor financial problems that come up seem much less dramatic than they can if you kind of get wrapped up in it. Understanding that, you know, there's a really good quote that Maya Angelou will use, you know, I'm a human being, nothing human can be alien to me. Right. And so just having that sense of, hey, if I was in that position, I had those same set of occurrences, that person could be me. And so we have an immense amount of empathy for all of our clients. So if they're dealing with stress and if they're going through, we understand that we want to help them in whatever way we can. And understanding that, you know, at the end of the day, accounting and a certain business is not the end all be all. And, you know, there's deeper stuff at play and giving respect to that and just going through our relationships with clients from a very human and loving perspective that uses accounting to help them solve their problems and reduce their stress. But the accounting is not the end, right? The accounting is the means to, help the client get to where they want to go.

Megan - 00:28:12: I mean, just listening to you, I can tell relationships are a big deal for you.

Hurley - 00:28:16: That's what it's all built on. And that's how we've been able to grow so quickly over such a short amount of time is because our clients are great. Our team is great. And by doing good work for good people, they tell other people about that.

Megan - 00:28:31: Yeah.

Hurley - 00:28:32: And our best sales is just doing good work consistently for good people. And if we didn't have that, we wouldn't be not only where we are today, but we wouldn't have been in business very long. And so the team and the clients are the most important thing. And the relationships that we all have amongst each other is what keeps us going month to month.

Megan - 00:28:51: And last question, but looking ahead, how do you envision the future of financial management for small businesses evolving? And what role do you see firms like Fox and Partners playing in shaping this landscape?

Hurley - 00:29:05: Well, we're seeing it a little bit already in the sense of technology is certainly changing. So, you know, just a few years ago would have been really difficult or not done or thought to be impossible. It's now done on a daily basis. And so, for example, you know, I have clients all over the country and we do all of our work remotely because all the accounting is in the cloud, all the documentation is in the cloud, all the meetings are done virtually. People are used to that. You know, it's just we can do it on a monthly basis because the technology has enabled that to be so. There's also, you know, every month it seems like the software is getting better and better regarding being able to automate certain things. So, for example, you know, we use QuickBooks Online often and then we use other softwares like Bill.com or Bill.com has a credit card called Divi. And so we've helped clients roll those cards out. Just an example of, you know, kind of how different this is than just a few years ago is the, you know, you give the card to the employees, you can set up budgets and how they can spend the money. They swipe the card immediately, their phone gets pinged to take a picture of the receipt. They take a picture of their receipt. They categorize the expense. So not only do you have all the documentation there, but then the expense is already added on the accounting side. And that was done by the person who actually was there. So the person swiping for gas, they know it's for gas and they're categorizing it instead of, you know, what typically happens is either there's no receipt or, you know, the team has to email the people in the field for the receipts or the people in the field have to put together, these expense reports submitted in a couple of weeks goes by. We have to categorize all those things in the accounting. You have to ask the field guys, hey, what was this expense for? The expense gets reimbursed either late or the categorizations are done late. Instead, all of this can be done in a second using some of the technology that's available. So technology, allowing people to do more work remotely technology, allowing for automation. Those are some of the big changes that we see happening, but I hope for the future in the terms of small businesses, that there's just more priority. Of clean and proper accounting and understanding and valuing cashflow to ownership and every business can cashflow to ownership, but we just want to make sure that that structure and the plan is in place to do so. Because if you're in small business world, we're taking a lot of risk. You should be paid accordingly. And, you know, it's always amazing to me that, you know, some of the hardest working people are small business owners and entrepreneurs, and yet they're, you know, either making, you know, much less money than they should be making, or they're actually losing money and putting it onto the business. And so my hope would be for the future is every small business owner has clean accounting on a monthly basis with the understanding of how do we increase the free cashflow to ownership.

Megan - 00:31:47: Hurley, thank you so much for being my guest today.

Hurley - 00:31:49: Thank you so much for having me.

Megan - 00:31:51: Yeah, I really enjoyed speaking with you. And thanks for finding the time to be here with us today. I wish you and Fox Partners all the best.

Hurley - 00:31:59: Thank you so much, Megan. Have a great day.

Megan - 00:32:01: And to all of our listeners, please tune in next week. And until then, take care.