Nobody grows a business by guessing

Thanks, Mick. I appreciate you having me.

Yeah. It almost sounds like I got struck by lightning and then all of a sudden I started doing something very different. I I I I actually grew up around numbers. So my dad was in finance and it was a common language, you know, for me to understand math and everything. I got the creative music bug and went to Nashville, Tennessee, which is known as Music City. And I got to write songs for a living and that was really fun for a season and then

Brittany and I started having kids, and diapers are really expensive. So I had to figure out, okay, maybe I need to go back to some of the numbers roots that I grew up with. And I I went to grad school, got an MBA, and then transitioned into helping companies, you know, look at their numbers and and grow. So it was a it was a kind of a coming back to math and finance in some ways. but Like a lot of business owners, you may be listening right now and you're you've gone through a lot of pivots in your own business. And that's, you know, it's it's a common thing. And I think I'm grateful for that. So even as I have focused on building Amplify, it's been neat to see how some of the songwriting and recording experiences I had actually play into the work that we get to do now, especially with where AI is going. It's been really fun to to come up with ideas and concepts and then quickly be able to present them, you know, to a client or to a to a business owner out there. So it's been a fun journey.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we provide fractional CFO services, a relationship to business owners who are kind of alone in guessing as they're making big growth decisions. So there's a stage that you hit as you are growing your business where guessing maybe got you this far, but now there are too many employees who are gonna be affected if you get it wrong. And you have maybe big growth aspirations, but if you don't have A forecast or a way of looking at the future, it's almost like driving your car and only looking at the rearview mirror. You know, you might be able to see where we were last month or the month before. but really you almost need more like a GPS if you're really grow growing and heading a direction in your business that is new. So the work we do is we get to come alongside and kind of be that GPS for the businesses. And I started Amplify a decade ago. after grad school, I had a chance to work with some investors and sit down with businesses who are growing. And I was leading the due diligence conversation. So as companies wanted to sell part of their business maybe and get investors, I would get into the numbers with them and look at how they were growing, what they were hoping to achieve, what their margins were, all of these big components. And have you seen Shark Tank before? It's It's a common thing that causes a lot of business owners to believe that, you know, the right next step for your business when you don't know what to do next is you need to go sell something to investors, right? And my desire was as I looked at the numbers with these founders, I want you to see your numbers the way an investor might see your numbers. And I think you can make great decisions as a business owner if I just show you the right information and I create the right visual and help you understand. Should we go left or should we go right? and so that was the opportunity 10 years ago that was the starting point of Amplify. instead of, you know, these businesses getting investors, they hired me on to help them every month stay on track as they grew. so it's been a fun ride to be able to help help them begin to be able to answer some of those hard questions that may keep them awake at night because they're thinking. What if we raise prices? Are we going to lose some customers? What if we hire that next person? Should we open a a new location or buy the warehouse or buy the truck? Like there are just so many things at play that if you don't have a a really objective mathematical way to tie all those variables together, then you're you're having to cross your fingers a lot.

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's usually one of two things. There's there's companies that are afraid to make big decisions because they don't know what will happen. So it's almost like they are playing it really safe and just almost doing what they did last month because it that didn't crash the business. So they're they're hesitating to maybe make a a good next decision that would help them grow. because they just don't know what will happen if they invest more in marketing, for instance, or you know, hire a new team member. So I think there's a fear there. And then on the other end of the spectrum, sometimes there are founders who are are swinging for the fence and they just think, if I want to grow, I need to do something different than I have been doing. And so I'm just gonna do something drastic. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go all in, I'm gonna, I'm gonna really Put all my chips on the table almost and I'm gonna I'm gonna really push toward growth. But they're also guessing. You know, they don't know what's going to happen either. And so there's a there's a path in between where you can see clearly how, you know, the with the trajectory that you've been on, you you can make some decisions that will start to move revenue or profit in a really good direction. and you don't have to just stay where you've been. So it's You know, they're you're either plateaued or you're really just almost reckless making fast decisions without knowing, still operating almost from the gut as you make decisions. So we like to bring people toward the middle where there's a balance of yes, we want to make really good growth decisions, but we also want to be clear on what that might mean. And if things that's where not just one forecast, but multiple forecasts where you have. A better scenario, a worse scenario, an expected scenario. And that allows for a a window, almost like a range of here's how things could play out. And there's no guarantee that it's gonna go according to plan. I mean, anytime I make a plan, it's always turned out slightly different than I expected, not worse or better necessarily, but just being open to the reality of trying to make good decisions based on everything we know today. so it's usually one of those. Two afraid to make a decision or making too many big decisions without knowing what they're doing.

Yeah, we have found a wonderful group of businesses who kind of just stumbled into entrepreneurship. And what I mean by that is they may be really good at something like a specialty trade, like you know, building houses or putting a roof on the house or HVAC or plumbing, electrical. They're all these amazing business owners who, because they were really good at a craft, a trade. They started getting calls to do their work and they would hire their friends and then buy another truck. And they didn't start a business necessarily because they went to business school, right? It's more there's a need and they are good at what they do, and then they just start it starts kind of snowballing. And we find that there's a a a great need in the finance seat with these businesses to maybe for the first time put together a a future-facing picture of where the business is going. and and I say we we love we love these business owners because they care deeply about what they're building and the people that they're hiring and and the way they're able to care for and provide for so many families through the work that they're doing. And they just they also recognize that they're not experts at building spreadsheets or financial models or you know, and and so they are very appreciative of the expertise that we get to bring to that relationship as well.

Yeah, I it there are a lot of metaphors that I it's part of part of the creative brain that I have, you know, come into life. another metaphor I like to use is within the finance function, a finance seat for a business, there are a lot of traditional accounting roles, like bookkeeper, controller, tax expert, CPA. and then CFO is a little bit.

More like an investor looking at the future. It's a little bit more strategy. So the because I have a music background, I like to kind of describe those two different buckets as classical musicians, where there's a right note and there's a right way to interpret things and it's very organized. That's like traditional accounting. And then you have jazz over here. So you might look at it and say it's the same instrument, same numbers, but just a very different style and approach to look at how is the future going to play out? So That's one of my other favorite metaphors to just to think about. But I I say GPS because a lot of times what we see with businesses is they're stuck in just reacting to the present. And, you know, I use the metaphor of it's like driving, only seeing the rear view mirror. if you only have past numbers, in between a rear view mirror and a GPS is like a clear windshield, right? So that's like I can see where I currently am. I know this person owes me money. I know that person I'm supposed to pay them. And you can understand kind of where things are at and what current customers you have and current projects. But usually there's a desire that these entrepreneurs have to, you know, work towards some meaningful future in the business, right? And it's it has to be beyond what they're currently seeing because there's so many things. Running a business is so chaotic sometimes. And so if we only stop with a good clear windshield, we don't actually know that we're on track to a destination that's way in the distance. You know, so when it comes down to it, I want every business owner to know that the decisions they're making today are actually putting them on the right course to Grow their business to a place that they'll be happy either running it and enjoying good profits from it or selling the business at some point. but what's required there is something that is not always in people's minds as they grow the business. They might think, well, I can see the financials, I can see where transactions are currently. That's enough, right? Well, If if you know, it's like if you and I were going on a road trip, it it would be enough if we didn't care where we ended up. Right. It's sort of like if you don't have an end goal, like we're gonna end up in three days, we're gonna stop at that place, then you don't need a GPS. But I think most business owners, the cost of pouring so much into growing a business, you want to know that it's going to pay off in the long run, that it's worth it. So there's so much sacrifice that I I don't want people to drive without a GPS.

Yeah, it's interesting. I yeah, continuing, I would start actually with the GPS metaphor because I was in Austin, Texas, last week and I had a chance to actually ride in a fully autonomous Tesla cyber cat taxi, right? Where there's actually not a rear view mirror, and there's also not side mirrors and I put in the destination and it drove me all the way to the destination. And that the reason I bring that up is when we think about traditional accounting and CFO and the and the roles that are part of building a really good foundation, similar shifts are already happening in in you know the the world of finance. And what Is going to be left at the end of however good AI gets, is you know, the the destination that you're trying to go to and and where you're trying to grow your business. It will handle like there. I saw a new AI bookkeeping platform kind of launched today. Every day it seems like there's something like that. And what that means is There's a lot of the traditional classical music accounting work that is going to get gobbled up by what AI is good at. And what it what will be left is the more conceptual jazz. And that can be intimidating sometimes. I think the shift that we're going to see can be a really positive one in the sense that there are going to be a lot of really amazing. Financially capable, smart people who are able to start playing jazz and can elevate their relationships that they are currently in with business owners, where maybe historically they were only providing bookkeeping, controller, like solving, checking the box that says, are the numbers organized correctly? And they're able to, because AI is making things more efficient, they're able to actually step up into the next level of questions about. Does this mean I can go ahead and hire this person? Or what's the break even on this decision? You know, when is the ROI gonna happen if we did X, Y, or Z? That's moving beyond just are the numbers organized? That's like data, but we wanna transition level up to insight and action. And if that's the opportunity, it means that there are gonna be lot more businesses who can actually get support in new ways than they have Ever gotten before. The origin of Amplify was I want business owners to see their numbers like investors see their numbers. So democratize the playing field, level the playing field, like bring the fences down, like let everybody see their numbers. So AI, in my opinion, is a furthering of that. It's it's making it even easier for everyone when they pull out their phone, they have a CFO in their pocket or a You know, they can see things up to date. it's changing quickly, so it means that there's going to be a lot of upheaval in the near term, where at first it might feel like good news to somebody who does traditional accounting work. my goodness, you know, I have so many efficient processes now. Our team of five people can now work with twice as many clients. Isn't that awesome? Let's go, let's go find the clients. But the the other accounting firm down the road is feeling the same thing and they get to also look for those new clients. And there's going to be a little bit of a battle over, you know, filling the capacity. because it's it's a little bit awkward because do we need as big of a team as we have then if we can only work with so many clients? Or how do we find more clients and do we need to charge less to get those new clients? And there's a little bit of a it's gonna be confusing. So what we are hopeful of though is that all businesses are going to be able to benefit from a relationship with somebody who is willing to start trying to play jazz for them. We launched finance seat.com recently as a as a set of tools and you know set like to basically define what healthy looks like for a finance function within a business. So we want every business to just get clear on what is what is what should a finance seat look like, you know, from rear view mirror up to GPS. And do I have the right people helping me do it? And how can I get better? And how can I start getting my biggest, hardest questions answered? And maybe it's from people you already know, or maybe it's from working with new folks, but I think that is the big shift that's happening. Now, I'll say for us internally, we're able to automate really exciting things with our conversations with clients because the highest value that we have is like you and I are doing right now. We're in a conversation and we get to respond to each other and ask questions and learn things together. That's our best. value that we can bring to someone. It's we're gonna look at your numbers together and we're gonna sit and talk about it. And we're gonna be a sounding board and we're gonna be in your corner and we're gonna support you. The more we can be efficient behind the scenes and creating models with, you know, using Claude to do that or the best tool that we don't even know about six months from now it's gonna exist. It just means that we're going to be able to spend more and more time with our client relationships and That's exciting to me. It's the thing that what do you hope out of your business? Like what do you hope it can provide you? And how are we gonna chart a path to get there from here? That's a human component. That's a human ingredient that AI will only do an okay job at trying to answer, you know, as a thought partner. It's never gonna tell you what you want or what you hope for. So the more we can help draw that out and Help business owners make good decisions that are in line with that. I see that being our primary role. But it's been amazing because it eliminates some of the behind the scenes typing in formulas that our clients never really cared about anyway. They don't care how many hours it takes us to, you know, what they want to know is, so what should I do? Like what are my options? Should I hire this person or should I wait? It's those sorts of deliverables anyway. It's the actionable insights.

Yeah, it it has been actually the finance seat website has a diagnostic, just a health checkup, so that you know, someone can in five minutes see where they have the biggest gaps in their finance function. So do I need actually support in a bookkeeper role or do I need a controller? So just as a first easy way for someone to just spend a few minutes and then be able to get insights, you know, that allows us to then if somebody wants to talk. And get support, we're able to be there to help them. We have a lot of relationships with folks business coaches and people who are leading and advising from different areas. So not the finance side, but they are providing general growth advice to these companies. and they like how we are talking about you know, the financial basics and trying to simplify the complex. We have a website also called CashflowMountain.com. And it's like water flowing down a mountain. How do dollars flow through a business? So just a simple visual that helps non-financial people like my wife Brittany start to get a feel for that's what direct costs are, or that's where the balance sheet connects to the profit and loss. That's what capital expenditures are. Reinvesting back into the business, you know, so those types of things have been very fun for me because like I said earlier, I was a songwriter in Nashville. And what I did was write songs and then go into the recording studio and make them professional, right? And and shareable. So with AI, what I'm enjoying is taking learnings and concepts and ideas and frameworks that I'm seeing Through the work that we do. And I'm able to capture them very quickly with a tool like Claude or GPT and make them live and shareable and help businesses who I may never ever talk to, but I can share something I'm learning and create something that brings, you know, a team together around a big decision in a way that they otherwise would be just. Talking past each other or not agreeing for some reason. So that's what we've seen work well. And we speak at if you're familiar with EOS or the book Traction, we sponsor that conference every year and are speaking at that as well. It's a common framework that a lot of businesses run on. So finance seat is is one of the roles that a company running on EOS would would look to have somebody own. And so We're trying to help just give first is always a fun way to approach, you know, the marketing or awareness because it it's less transactional and we care more about relationships than just saying, you know, how can we spend X number of dollars and get this conversion rate and how many leads and all that stuff? It's, you know, we want to look beyond and bigger than just you know, it's more like how can we add value and then know that some businesses who were are benefiting are starting to ask better questions that we are in a good position to help answer.

Yeah, I think we are recognizing that we are never going to be able to help every business out there. One of the things that we are thinking about is how can we take the learnings that we are having with our clients and create good tools that we can use first, but then might also be useful for other folks who are already in the finance role within their business. And they are definitely the right person to be in that role, but maybe they don't have all the background or all the experience that the business needs them to have. So, like I said earlier, you know, how how can we help a classical musician learn how to play jazz and serve their the company that they're already in really well? I think we're in a position to be able to provide that playbook and you know be able to help. You know, the person who has been a controller level up to be a good CFO through the finance seat resources. And so I don't know if that's a certification process or something that we're able to just say, hey, we're gonna teach you how to do this and we're gonna create a community of finance leaders who are able to add more and more value to. the company through the role that you're currently in. So instead of trying to replace everybody who's in the finance seat or a CFO, it's more how can we just help everybody do it better.

Yeah, so the Amplify website is amplified.business. So you can check that out, connect with me on LinkedIn if you'd like. FinanceSeat.com is the set of tools that we are creating. and then Cashflow Mountain is that visual that I was telling you about. CashflowMountain.com is where you can interact with the visual and there's a free course and even deep diving into what is eBITDA? What is it useful for? How how does that play into selling your business? Or what is it not useful for? And what is the balance sheet? All these big questions that might seem we we hear a lot, Mick, that business owners who are doing multiple millions of dollars a year in revenue are embarrassed to admit sometimes that I don't know how to look at the financials. And everybody in on my team thinks I know what I'm doing, but can you help answer some of these basic questions? So we wanted to create something that helps support you know, the financial literacy side of things. So those three websites are good places to connect.

Thanks Mick, appreciate it.