Hey, now welcome to another edition of the inside BS show. Today we're talking to Britt Sumrall and he's going to share with us why you need a CFO. That's right.

Even if you think you're too small, even if you think you can't afford one, even if you think, well, I just got some spreadsheets and I send them to the bookkeeper and the bookkeeper sends them to the accountant. This show is going to enlighten you. It's going to open your eyes.

So please join me in welcoming Britt Sumrall to the inside BS show. Hello. All right, Britt, welcome to the show.

Thanks for joining us. Oh, thanks for having me today. All right.

So everybody needs a CFO true or false. I wouldn't say true, but you need a strong accounting. So there is a point where you might be too small and not be growing enough that it might not make sense, but you may need a portion of a CFO.

Okay. So how big do you have to be to need somebody to look at your numbers from a strategic standpoint? I think when you start getting over, I know with a lot of the companies we deal with when they start getting around 10 million, that's when they need to start thinking a little more strategic. It can also happen too when it's a startup and they're planning on moving fast.

If you're looking at funding, if you're looking at expansion, rapid growth, that's the time to call on a CFO. If you're just looking to live day to day, it may not be the most important thing, but you may be missing out on the visibility that they can bring you. All right.

So explain to us what now CFO is, what you guys do and how you help business owners. And then I want to circle back to that, you know, getting funding part. And I really want to hone in on that because I think there's a big miss there because that funding can go very quickly.

Start with what, who you are, what you do and how you help business owners. Yeah. So now CFO has been around for, I believe 17 years now.

We have 41 offices in 17 States. We actually do everything from bookkeeping to CFO. We like to tell everyone, you know, we do the dirty work.

We roll up our sleeves. That's how we do it. We get in there.

We help companies get visibility. The people that work for us are actually full-time individuals. They're W2ed.

That's really different than a lot of the groups that you'll run into. And the reason why we do that is that gives continuity to both our customers. It lets us test out what their capabilities are and really hone in on the specialties and make sure that our clients are getting the best of the best.

That's a little bit about us as far as I'm concerned, you know, from my background, I joined now CFO, I believe nine years ago now. And you know, I started out as a consultant. I started out doing, you know, this type of consulting work.

And then I grew into a partner after I think it was like two or three years after they moved me from our headquarters in Salt Lake City out to the Bay area to run that practice. And now I'm branching out also into Chicago. So it's been a fun ride where we're growing rapidly and we're always looking for good people to bring in so we can give the highest level of quality work to our clients.

So who's the type of person that you generally hire? Do you hire staff accountants or do you hire people who have experience in running the finance operations of a business? Yeah. I mean, we do have staff accounts. I would say we don't just hire the regular staff account you might get.

Most of our staff accounts are more senior. And so they've been in, they've done industry. They've most likely been in an auditor or a tax situation before they went into industry.

They have a degree in accounting. Those are the types that we're hiring. And then, you know, with CFOs, I mean, obviously it's people that are tried and true, been out there 10, 20 years doing it or more just kind of depending on their scenario.

But those are the types that we bring in. We typically bring in people that get bored in regular jobs because they don't like the mundane part. They like to fix messes.

They like to improve things. And there's a point where, you know, you just start doing, you know, the same thing day to day and they get bored, they move on. Those are the type of people we bring in and, and, you know, thank God for it because on our side it does make it better for the clients because those are the situations they thrive in.

All right. So talk to us about the telltale signs that you need to start looking more strategically at your finance function, right? So you mentioned like the $10 million threshold, but I'm a, let's say I'm a CEO and I run, I run a pretty good ship, but I'm an operator. I'm an operations person, right? And I've got a good sales function.

My cashflow has always been good. I have, you know, a couple of people in an accounting department, one of them pays the bills, the other handles the receivables and puts together like a, you know, uh, the financial statements every month. And I look at the financial statements and I think they look good.

And then I have an outside firm that does my taxes. When do I need someone to help me strategically? Is it a funding event? You mentioned that. Is it, if I'm looking at acquiring another business, what are the telltale signs that I need somebody to help me think about this from a more strategic perspective? So definitely on the, on both of those situations, you need a CFO.

You're not going to get away with not having a CFO in that situation. Uh, but I would say this, like, look, you know, we've all seen the uncertain happen, right? Uh, we've all ran into the, you know, with, with COVID and the way the current market's going, um, that it's, it's, you know, things have changed, right? And so where people used to sit back and say, you know what, I can do what I've been doing. I've been doing it the same way for 10 years and the wheels haven't come off yet.

Uh, although that's not a good strategy, a lot of people run off of that strategy. The problem that you're running into is like, look, if you've been doing the same thing for 10 years, things have changed. Technology, uh, technology has changed.

Uh, staffing requirements have changed. Uh, you know, there, there's other regulatory, uh, changes that have happened. So really bringing in someone like that that can help build out your, your internal controls, your procedures, uh, give you more than just a, Hey, I got my financials that they prepare me and they hand them to me.

I think they're good in that scenario. They're most likely not because you don't know what you're looking at. Right.

Uh, you know, so having that CFO to be able to explain, this is why these things are here and this is good. This is bad. Running dashboarding, looking at KPIs, key performance indicators to make sure your business is doing well, not only internally, but compared to your competitors.

Right. Uh, because otherwise, I mean, it doesn't take much for a company to 180 and start going down. Typically when that's already happened, it's a, it's a hard climb back up, but if you can try and encounter those things looking forward, that's going to be priceless to you to be able to grow your business.

Uh, I would say typically when you have somebody that's actually having a business that is taking off and accelerating, that's definitely a time to have a CFO, but if you haven't had somebody come in and actually look at stuff and it's been 10 years, it's been five years, heck it, you know, even one year out and things have changed, it's probably a good time to bring them in to help you, you know, get that visibility you're actually looking for and explain what you need to know. Okay. Let's go.

Let's do a couple of scenarios here and you tell me if this is a good opportunity for now CFO. Cause as you're talking, I'm thinking of a bunch of, a bunch of different scenarios, right? Regardless of revenue size, let's say I am bidding on government contracts and I need to show from a compliance perspective, all kinds of financial stuff, right? Regardless of what size I am. So let's say I'm doing, I have an ongoing, I have a going concern.

So I, you know, I I'm, I'm doing five, $6 million, whatever, but I'm going to go, I'm going to, I'm a contender for government contracts that could take me to $20 million, but the government wants to see all kinds of stuff. And I got to make sure my taxes are on point and everything. Is that a good opportunity to call you? Yes.

Very good opportunity to call us. Although we don't do taxes, we don't do audits, reviews, compilation. We're, we're purely an operational accounting company.

Having said that we do help get the information. And so having the information clean and concise and in a timely manner, that's when I would throw in a controller versus a CFO to make sure the chip's running right. Or it could be just a lower level, depending on, on your size, you may be able to get away with like an assistant controller, accounting manager.

But typically when you're trying to go out for grants, you want to bring in somebody that understands grant writing and the requirements around it to make sure that you don't slip out of compliance. And that's where we can put controls in place. We can put reporting in place and it could be, you know, we're coming in monthly to help you with that.

Or it could be a weekly thing. We're really flexible on how we, on how we structure. We don't have long-term engagements.

It's really a month a month, no minimums. So if you just needed somebody to sift through things for four or five hours, we could come in and just do a small project like that. But what people tend to see is they want us for more because they'll figure out that, wow, we could do this on a monthly basis.

Or, you know, I could get this type of reporting. This is something that's special to us and this could really help our business. All right, great.

So Britt, scenario number two now. Scenario number two, we're doing a joint venture and we're going to share the profits with somebody else, right? Right. What, I don't like, how do I stay on top of all the financials to make sure these people aren't, you know, taking advantage of us? Is that a good time to call you? Definitely.

You know, we could be that third party that's sitting outside. We don't have a vested interest in, in the company, right? We don't take ownership in any company that we go into. We're purely trying to be somewhat of an independent that works for you.

Although we're not, you know, given reports like an auditor would, it is good to have an outside source come in and look that you both have no interest in, right? So if, if both parties are looking, I would say for both sides, that's a good idea. Also, if you are going into a joint venture, you're probably going to run into the fact that they want to see some financials, see that they're clean. They're probably going to want to see possibly valuations.

We don't do valuations, but we can bring in our networking partners to help with that. And then, but you know, part of that is being able to tell the tale and having those conversations with the potential joint venture individuals that are coming in and defend the numbers that you have. So, you know, they can see that it's a strong company.

Okay. I like that too. Let's talk about an unforeseen event that happens and my CFO dies or my CFO goes to jail or for whatever reason, my CFO is just gone and I don't want to rush into just hiring a new CFO.

There's going to be a gap there. It's going to be, it could be three months, could be six months, maybe even be a year while we do a search. Cause maybe my business is in Wichita and it's not easy to recruit people into Wichita.

So it could take a year to get a CFO in there. Is that a good time to give you a call? That's a perfect time. And I'll tell you why it's not just the fact that we can come in, you know, depending on where they're at, we could have boots on the ground or it could be a scenario where we work remote to help.

But a lot of times what happens is people rush into those deals, right? And they get somebody that necessarily isn't good. Well, let me tell you something. We can also help with that interview process, right? So let us have some of those conversations.

I interview CFOs all day, right? I do interviews every week. I do three to five interviews every week because not only do we do the consulting side, but we can also help with the placement. So if you were looking at potentially doing attempt to hire, or you're looking at, you know, having somebody help with the search, we have a national search that we do.

Like I said, we're in 17 States and 41 offices. So we have a pretty wide range and we'll come in. We have competitive rates on that.

It's all success driven. So we could also help on that side while we're implementing. So that's typically what will happen is they'll say we need to get someone in here, but we need someone to keep steering the ship, whether that's a controller or a CFO, depending on what they're looking to do.

That's where we'll sit down. We do what we call a whiteboarding session, find out all of the things that they're looking for, all the risks that are out there, all the opportunities, and then try and hone in on a schedule of this is what we think we need to do. This is the amount of time that we'll need to do it.

So we can set a cadence. That way it's not just a random, we're going to come in the door whenever. So totally the perfect scenario for us.

All right. So explain to us the difference between a controller and a CFO. How do we, how do we know the difference between the two? If I, if I'm just the average business owner and I make widgets and I've been making widgets for years and I'm really good at making widgets.

And I always had Joe down in accounting and he did everything and now I'm huge. So in my mind I'm huge, but you know, I'm doing maybe $7 million, $8 million in annual revenue. How do I know if I need a controller, if I need a CFO and what's the difference between a controller and a CFO? Yeah.

That the easiest way to think about it is a controller looks back, a CFO looks forward. So if you're looking at stuff to make sure that things are going right and they're happening correctly, that's a controller. If you're looking at, Hey, we need to expand.

We need to, you know, we're looking to a merger. We're looking at software that we might need. Things like that, budgeting, forecasting, you know, running KPIs, dashboards, that's something that you're going to want a CFO to come in and at least implement and then possibly have the controller update on a monthly basis.

But typically your controller is going to come in. He's going to make sure that things are coming in. There's a reason why they call them controller, right? They're putting controls in place to make sure the information comes through, that we're getting the right information and it's timely and it's accurate.

So if you're just looking, you know, for reporting, things like that, that could be your controller coming in. But if you're really looking for that more strategic forward thinking, new markets, new vendors, things like that, that's where you want to talk to a CFO. Okay.

So talk to me a little bit about some of the project work you guys do. What types of projects could somebody who's running a business call you for help with? Yeah. Some of the typical projects that we get into.

So usually I would say we typically do more project work for those companies that are kind of over that 50 million mark that are a little larger, that actually have accounting staff. And typically those engagements are usually running anywhere from four to six months as a pretty normal engagement. But I would say system implementation is a big one.

First year audits, if you need audit support, that's a good one for us to come into. It could be somewhat of a restructuring situation where maybe you're shutting down a branch or you're opening a branch and you just need to make sure that there's some integration activities that are going on. That could be a good one.

We've been called in just to be second eyes on things. If they're running through revenue recognition is a hot button item right now. So helping them with white papers for their auditors, looking at and being able to take it from a technical side on the US GAAP side and running it through and categorizing it the way it should be and how it should be recorded and giving that back up to the auditors.

That's something we do on a regular basis. Same with lease accounting or tough debt and equity transactions. Any of those really, it's typically those one-offs where it's not an ongoing thing that comes in or somebody gets sick.

We don't like to say someone dies, by the way, in my office. We like to say someone won the lottery. It softens the blow for the owner.

That's much better. Yeah, I like that. They won the lottery and they just suddenly don't show up for work.

Let's face it, if someone's a lottery, they might check out pretty fast, right? All right. So now let's get into a little bit about how you found this business, right? Because you didn't, you weren't playing on the playground or playing baseball with your buddies. And then one day you said, you know, I know you want to be a fireman.

I know you want to be a police officer. I want to be a temporary outplaced CFO. Right.

How did how did Britt get into this business in the first place? I'll tell you this, I'm not your average accountant by any means. You know, I was back in high school. I was a class clown.

I was my high school's class clown. I played sports. I was, you know, I was in student government, everything.

I actually thought I wanted to be a lawyer when I grew up. And, you know, and then I got into school and then I was like, I really don't want to be a lawyer. And then I was like, well, I want to be somewhere that makes money and actually, you know, is legitimate.

Right. And so I ended up in the business program and I've always been good at math. I'm good at figuring out problems and working them backwards.

And so it was just kind of this natural gravity towards like, hey, this is interesting to me, even though it isn't to most people. You know, this is probably the most boring thing to an owner, but it's something that's so important. And then so I really got my start by being an auditor for, I believe, seven or eight years at a local firm out of out of Utah.

And I started out working with, you know, non-profits and government assisted entities, a lot of HUD projects, things like that. And actually became like I was our resident expert when it came to mortgage companies and then the collapse happened. Right.

And so it kind of changed the view. And at that point, I was like, look, I as much as I like driving up to, you know, the middle of Idaho or, you know, central Utah, places like that, I'd really want to switch over to our public because I thought the public was more interesting than the type of work I was doing. So not only do I have I worked in, you know, that nonprofit private sector, but I also really cut my teeth in the public sector and working with companies with tough debt and equity transactions, doing reverse mergers, interesting, you know, like things like that, where a lot of the companies were coming over from China and they had to buy a U.S. shell.

So I know how to do derivatives. I know how to do a lot of things that most accounts don't really have the expertise in. I also got my master's in taxation, which is weird because I was an auditor.

I just wanted to be a well-rounded person to be able to come in and at some point hopefully be a CFO. Right. And then I left my firm.

My firm was kind of on a pivot and it was turning into four different entities. And at that point, I was like, you know what, I want to go in the private sector and and not be an auditor anymore. And this just kind of fell in my lap, to be honest with you.

I met Jim Bennett, our owner. I went to go to lunch with one of my friends and he had joined now CFO. And I did not know it was a interview at the time.

I just thought I was meeting my friend. So I showed up in shorts. And, you know, and then I met I was like, what's going on here? And this is somewhat at the infancy of of now CFO, you know, about the halfway mark kind of and nowhere near as big as it is now.

And he interviewed me and then he said, I want you to come back later. And I, you know, I'd taken the day off kind of thing. I was just going to run into my office later, went into the office.

And then I went across the freeway. It was literally I could see it out out of my window and and did another interview. And honestly, I didn't even talk to my wife about potentially moving companies.

And I had an offer on the table. And so I'll be honest with you, there's been nothing but good. I have I have been able to be in just about every industry known to man.

I've got to see some pretty nasty stuff, worked on some pretty interesting clients. And, you know, then they moved me into this partner role and I moved out to the Bay Area. And so it's you know, it's all rainbows and roses for me.

All right. So let's let's tell some more stories here without let's protect the innocent. Change the names.

Tell us about something that was that you saw that you could not even believe a business was operating like this. What's that? What's a crazy thing you've seen from a financial standpoint? You know, we run into a lot of companies where a spouse, family member, somebody not not educated in accounting, doing the accounting a lot of times, especially on the smaller scale, that always surprises me. But it really surprises me when you get into a billion dollar company and, you know, they have three people in the accounting department.

Wow. And it's just lean as pie, you know, without saying names. We we've worked with companies like that where they bring us in and it's quiet.

And and we have to come in and do some of these things. And you would think that a company that size would have the type of accounting program or accounting department that you read about in the books when you're in school. Right.

They typically find in a smaller company. But it's so surprising to me that you run into it all the time, that companies that are really taking off, public companies don't have their stuff together. And it's just simply in the age of like even in the age of post Sarbanes-Oxley, they like they're they're not they're not buttoned up.

Like I thought everybody's signing their life away on these documents like the CEO is signing his life away like he's going to go to jail. Yeah, you would think, right? I don't know. I look at risk in a different way than I would scare the hell out of me.

But, you know, we've seen things where we've we've walked in and uncovered fraud they had no idea about. I you know, without going into detail, we've had to call in forensic accounts and attorneys and, you know, people get carded off sometimes when you find that. And then it's like, you know, we had a theory, but we couldn't ever prove it.

That always you know, that's always a weird situation to come into because we're just trying to help. And then it's like, oh, something isn't working out here. What's off? Oh, so.

Yeah, this is. So, yeah, let's let's talk about let's talk about this for a minute. So it makes me probably makes more sense.

Like you're in a big company, right? You're running a big company and you think something's going on and you don't know if it's if it might be in the accounting department. It might make might make more sense to call you than to call, you know, a forensic accountant on your own first, because you as the CEO can say, listen, we're going to bring in I met this guy, Britt, nice guy, works for this company now. CFO, he's going to come in, take a look around and just give us some guidance on what we're doing.

Look at our KPIs. Maybe, you know, he's going to write up a report afterwards. Just give us a quick overview.

We do this in all of our departments. Britt's going to do it in accounting. And then, you know, the I'm the CEO.

I pull you aside and I go, Britt, I think something funny is going on. I don't know who's involved. I need you to sniff it out.

And if it's really bad, you know, you'll you'll help us and we'll call in forensic accountants. It seems to me that makes more sense because you don't want to tip off the people who are in the role, right? Yeah, I mean, it comes off a little more less confrontational, like they know that something's going on. So we've walked in and we're we're really good at dealing with with with that because a lot of times, you know, anytime you bring in somebody from the outside, people are going to worry about their jobs.

Right. So we've gotten really good at making them feel comfortable, like, hey, I'm just here to help you and make you look like a superstar. Right.

So if we can if we can pull that off in there, it makes it a little bit easier and less confrontational to where they don't you know, they let their guard down a bit. So we've we've had those situations happening. Yes, it is good because, you know, just getting that second set of eyes, maybe that person's actually doing a good job and you just have, you know, a bad feeling for no reason.

So, you know, that's where I would say, yes, that's a great opportunity to bring us in if something's not right or heck, you know, if you're having if you're having those problems or you think that you're having those problems, let's work on your internal controls and process and procedures so we can build them up to where, you know, you have safeguards in place. So if it has happened in the past, it potentially won't happen in the future. And that that's kind of what, you know, it's all in.

You don't want the person writing the checks to be, you know, to also be paying the bills and and doing all the other stuff at once and reconciling because it's very easy for them to come in and hide it from you. Yeah, it's all a matter of time. It all comes out, but you're never going to get back what you lost.

Sure, sure. But you can but you can stop it from going on and you can keep it from just completely blowing up. All right, Britt.

So let's let's talk now about you. You get a lot of business by referrals, right? Talk to me about what a great referral is for you and talk about who usually delivers those referrals to you. Yeah, so that that one to 10 million range is typically where we're going to put in or even start up with no revenue.

That's where we're going to probably put in our bookkeeper or our assistant controller accounting manager type. You know, a lot of places where people go wrong is they train bootstrap for too long or they bring in somebody that doesn't know what they're doing. I'll tell you what, that cleanup costs a lot more than just bringing in someone that could do the job that that person's doing one day a week or once a month, depending on the amount of transactions are running into.

So I would say those are good referrals for us. And really, it's like I was mentioning, just good referral partners. I rely heavily on my referral partners.

I am somebody that believes heavily in reciprocity and giving back even to my, you know, potentially my competitors. If something isn't a fit for us and it doesn't work in our structure, is there someone I know that can give me stuff? So I do some stuff on a regular basis with with other people in in my networking groups because it may not be a fit for us, but, you know, it could be for them. And long run, I typically get something back for them as well.

So that's why for me. Yeah, it's it always the more you give, the more you get back. It always it always works out that way.

Talk about some of the groups and organizations that you belong to. So we found each other in a group called Provisors, which is a networking group for professionals. It's fantastic.

What other groups do you do you belong to? What do you participate in? Yeah, so we're you know, we're typically in the Chamber of Commerce as well as we're in. You know, I have several people in Provisors, there's there's quite a few of us. I've spread the word because it's worked out so well for me.

But, you know, we're also in ACG. What is ACG? ACG is more of a it's a national. It kind of does more of a mid-tier, mid-tier clients, I would say, as opposed to some of the smaller ones that you might run into in Provisors.

What is what is ACG stand for? Oh, geez, you would have to ask me that. Oh, no, you don't have to. But is it is it like a networking group or is it just for accountants? What is it for? It's something very similar that it's it's more in that mid-level C-suite type scenario.

You'll have a lot of auditors. Oh, OK. Bankers in it.

So it's a nationwide thing. I know they're big up in Chicago, one of the bigger offices in Chicago. You know, they have them in some of our other locations.

We typically all fall into some of the local groups, too. You know, out in the Bay Area where where I started, I could go to a networking meeting every day, every hour, you know, pre-pandemic. So now now more things are online.

But those those are the typical ones we run into. All right. Speaking of that, what are you seeing out in the market right now? You know, as we record this where I'm crossing my fingers and saying where we're coming off of the Omicron peak, I mean, some places in the country may not have hit the peak yet, but I'm sitting in South Florida and everybody, everybody here in South Florida has had Omicron at this point.

What are you seeing in the business world now? Are things you know, are things moving? Are things happening? How is it? Is it tough to find good accountants these days for your company? How how are you finding things? Yeah, I would say from a business side, it's very busy on our end. There there's more need now than ever. It's it's kind of that double edged sword.

Right. The great resignation everybody talks about. Well, you know, part of it is a lot of the baby boomers are finally retiring.

It's something we knew was was going to happen anyway. You also have parents that have chose to leave the marketplace, especially women that have not come back because, you know, they're they you know, kids got forced into online studies and now it's just something they haven't decided they wanted to go back. So overall, it's just, you know, the job market's really tight.

And that that's why I do three to five interviews a week out of my market alone. And all of our markets really do that because the job market is tight and finding that diamond in the rough is is a little bit harder than it used to be. And I'll tell you this rates are going up left and right.

What you used to pay for a bookkeeper probably up a good 20, 30 percent from just two years back. So, you know, from that side, it's it's a little bit tougher because you're paying a lot more for individuals to get those people that we used to get a little bit cheaper. But, you know, that's happening not only to us, that's happening to everybody who has an accountant in their office or any type of professional.

All right, Brett. So if people want to reach out to you, what's the best way for people to get ahold of you or for people to find out more about temporary CFO services? Yeah, so, you know, if you want to go onto our website, there's a portal to reach out directly there. That's www.nowcfo.com. If not, you know, reaching out to me directly.

If you go on the website, you'll be able to pull up phone number, email addresses. But I mean, if you needed to reach out to me directly, my email is B-S-U-M-M-E-R-I-L-L. That's my last name.

So bsumrill at nowcfo.com. That's a good way to get ahold of me. I answer all my emails. I might be a little lagging, but I'll usually get to everyone within the same day unless I'm out of the office.

Then it might take me two. All right. So we're going to put all that stuff in the show notes.

You'll have all the ways that you need to get a hold of Brett. What is the if there was one piece of advice you could give? So there's a there's a CEO listening to this right now and he's thinking to himself, I just don't know what the hell's going on with my accounting. What if there was one piece of advice you could give him? What would be what would be that that piece of advice? What's the best best thing you can give? You know, what should he be doing right now when he's trying to decide whether to bring you in, whether he's going to put an ad, you know, online or hire a headhunter? What's the piece of advice you could give him or her to to get control of their accounting? Well, I would say this, if you're not getting the visibility that you're looking for, if you feel like, you know, the accounting department really doesn't bring in anything to the table, that's a good time to, you know, bring us in.

If you're looking at hiring and you are talking about bringing in a headhunter or you're trying to do it on your own, you're not an accountant. And so sometimes it's harder for you to ask the questions that an accountant would ask. Same thing as if you go to a headhunter, a lot of those people aren't accountants either.

They're doing executive searches for multiple things and they've never been in accounting. The difference here is we've been in accounting. I can have those conversations.

I can have my staff have those conversations before they even get to you if you are looking for a placement. So we'll weed out, we're not going to throw 40 resumes at you. We might throw three at you, but they're the three that are the ones that you should be looking at out of that 40 versus, you know, some of these firms just try and bury you and say, look at all the resumes we gave you.

So, yeah, let me let me ask you real quick about that before we go. So so if somebody is doing a search, regardless of the size of the company, they're looking for a controller. They can they can call you up and they can pay you and say, here's the project.

We're going to hire a controller. I'm going to have the headhunter send the resumes to you directly and then you weed them out, send me the three finalists. You guys do that? We'll we'll typically do it if we're if we're doing the if we're actually doing the headhunting.

Right. Oh, so you'll you'll actually do the headhunting for them. Yeah.

Yeah. We we have like I was saying, we have a whole side that does placement. So it's not only you know, it's not only that, but like I have been in there where they've wanted to do it on their own.

But they're like, hey, can you guys just sit in and have those conversations and tell me what you think about those people? So when we do interviews, we'll actually record them through Zoom and send you the interview that we had so you can hear exactly what we're asking. So that's something that's really different than a lot of people. And, you know, here's another thing that people need to think about.

If you're going to bring in somebody, you don't want them to walk in and say, forget this. This is a mess. I could go find something else.

I didn't sign up for this. That's a good time to have us come in and spot check and see where you're at and clean it up. So when you do bring in that person, they don't you know, they don't just turn around with the job market the way it is.

They have their choice. So if you don't have your ducks in a row, it could really backfire on you. I love that.

I think that is that is a great, great idea. I think that's fantastic. All right.

So whoops. All right, folks, that'll do it for this episode of the Inside BS show. You just got the inside BS on hiring a CFO on taking control of your finance function.

If you need any assistance with that at all, Britt Summerill is your guy. His information is down in the show notes. If you happen to be watching this on YouTube, we put his information up on the screen.

If you're listening to this as a podcast, you should have been watching it on YouTube. So you're going to want to see it. Go to YouTube and watch it there.

Britt, thank you so much for joining us. It was a pleasure having you here today. That'll do it, folks.

We'll see you back here again tomorrow for another show. Until then, here's hoping you make a great living and live a great life.