Ethan Bull is the president and co-founder of ProAssisting, a fractional executive assistant firm he runs with his wife Stephanie, both former high-level EAs who supported CEOs at companies like J.Crew and USA Films. In this episode he explains how they built a two-sided marketplace connecting experienced assistants with clients, and why they cap each assistant at three clients so the support stays high-touch rather than spread thin.

Ethan also talks about how prospective clients are increasingly finding ProAssisting by asking Claude and ChatGPT who the best firm in their space is, and how that's pushed the business into answer engine and generative engine optimization, alongside the SEO work they'd already been doing for years. He explains why paid ads never moved the needle for them in a commoditized market, and why referrals and organic search have done more of the heavy lifting.

He also shares his take on where fractional work fits as AI reshapes how businesses hire, and why he thinks judgment and context are becoming more valuable, not less.

If you're thinking about how AI is changing the way your ideal clients find you, this one's worth a listen.

Guest: Ethan Bull, ProAssisting

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanbull/

Host: Leonard De Beer

Helping fractional executive firms get more clients through strategic outreach

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonard-de-beer/

Lucas Meadowcroft is the co-founder and CEO of CROFTI, an AI automation firm working mostly in construction and manufacturing. In this episode he talks about building one of the earliest AI platforms a decade ago, years before ChatGPT existed, raising capital, and eventually having to shut it down because the market simply wasn't ready.

He's now applying those lessons at CROFTI, including a project building a business from scratch designed to hit $10 million in revenue with zero employees, using AI to handle everything from site data capture to invoicing.

Lucas also shares how he built a Claude-powered LinkedIn agent that filters his messages and books meetings automatically, cutting out a lot of the noise that used to eat up his day.

This one's a good listen if you want to see what AI automation actually looks like inside a business, not just in theory.

Guest: Lucas Meadowcroft, CROFTI

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucasmeadowcroft/

Host: Leonard De Beer

Helping fractional executive firms get more clients through strategic outreach

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonard-de-beer/

Richard Triggs runs Arete Executive, a retained executive search firm based in Brisbane that headhunts white collar executives across Australia. In this episode he breaks down performance-based hiring, a method built on the idea that past performance predicts future performance, and walks through how his team maps a client's competitors, identifies people who are excelling but not job hunting, and pitches them the opportunity directly.

Richard also talks about assessing cultural fit before a candidate ever meets the client. His approach: put the hiring CEO on his podcast and let candidates hear directly from them what the business and the role are really like, rather than taking his word for it.

He shares how the business has weathered the GFC, a mining downturn, COVID, and a business partnership that didn't work out, and why staying industry agnostic has kept Arete steady through all of it. He also gets into how he's using Claude day to day, from summarising his inbox to running a virtual CFO function.

If you're building a firm around trust and relationships rather than job ads, there's a lot here worth taking note of.

Guest: Richard Triggs, Arete Executive

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardtriggs/

Host: Leonard De Beer

Helping fractional executive firms get more clients through strategic outreach

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonard-de-beer/

Ed Siragusa runs Succentrix Business Advisors, a CFO and tax planning firm that also handles accounting, bookkeeping, and payroll for small business owners. In this episode he walks through the structural mistakes he sees most often. Partners without an operating agreement. An LLC running payroll when it should be an S corp. Small oversights that turn into expensive problems two or three years down the line.

He also explains why he's targeting the cannabis industry this year. Federal tax law won't let dispensaries write off basic costs like payroll or rent, so cost accounting becomes critical, and most big firms won't go near that client base at all.

Ed talks about how Succentrix has grown almost entirely through referral partnerships with attorneys and financial advisors, why he's now adding educational content to that mix, and how he's using AI inside the firm for client emails and lead screening.

If you're a fractional CFO or advisor thinking about client structure, or where the next growth opportunity is, this one's worth a listen.

Guest: Ed Siragusa, Succentrix Business Advisors

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edgardosiragusa/

Host: Leonard De Beer

Helping fractional executive firms get more clients through strategic outreach

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonard-de-beer/

Most fractional firms live and die by referrals. Chelsie, VP of Business Development at CFO Share, flipped that ratio: about 75% of her clients now come from paid advertising, only 25% from referrals.

In this episode, she explains why that split happened. Being fully remote across the US made staying "top of mind" in a referral network hard, so she leaned into SEO, Google Ads, and targeted keywords instead, including using negative keywords to filter out people who were never going to convert (like anyone searching for "free funding"). She's also just started experimenting with ChatGPT's new advertising tools, one of the first cohorts of smaller businesses able to access it.

Chelsie also breaks down how she gets non-accounting clients to actually understand their own financials, using a mechanic's "green, yellow, red" diagnostic as the analogy, and why she's now investing more in referral relationships too, not because ads didn't work, but because a referred lead still closes easier than almost anything else.

Guest: Chelsie Kugler

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelsie-kugler/

Host: Leonard De Beer

Helping fractional executive firms get more clients through strategic outreach

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonard-de-beer/

Most business owners can tell you how many deals they closed. Very few can tell you where the money actually went. Christina Gutierrez, COO and CFO of Simple CFO Solutions, sees that gap constantly, especially with the real estate investors and house flippers who make up most of her client base.

In this episode, she breaks down the Profit First system Simple CFO Solutions runs on: separate bank accounts for income, expenses, taxes, owner pay, and profit, so a business owner can see exactly what they're keeping instead of guessing from one blended account. She also gets into why finances are one of the hardest topics to build trust around, and why that makes typical marketing (ads, quick pitches) fall flat for a business like hers. Her approach instead: teach for free inside coaching groups and give away real financial tools before ever asking for the sale.

She also shares how her team holds client retention around 90%, largely by having a client success manager check in before problems start, not after someone's already thinking about canceling.

Guest: Christina Gutierrez

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-gutierrez-macc-9486a770/

Host: Leonard De Beer

Helping fractional executive firms get more clients through strategic outreach

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonard-de-beer/

Most businesses think more sales means more money. Leandro, fractional CFO at Eightx, has seen plenty of proof that's not true.

In this episode, he walks through a client that was doing $5 million a year in revenue and still losing money. The following year, that same client brought in less, $4.2 million, but walked away with $500,000 in profit. His point: the top line number means nothing if nobody's looking at what it costs to get there.

Leandro also gets into how Eightx builds financial clarity for CPG and e-commerce clients through dashboards and scorecards, why employee retention often comes down to giving people a reason for the work they're doing, and how the firm is using AI agents to turn work that used to take days into minutes, without using it as a reason to cut headcount.

He closes with the lesson that took him the longest to learn: knowing when to say no.

Guest: Leandro

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/delialeandro/

Host: Leonard De Beer

Helping fractional executive firms get more clients through strategic outreach

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonard-de-beer/

Most fractional executive firms live and die by referrals. Melissa Franks, founder of OnCall COO, built hers the opposite way, and it's working.

In this episode, Melissa breaks down why fractional COO work is still so misunderstood, and why businesses often wait too long to bring one in. She shares the exact revenue range where a COO actually makes sense (hint: it's not day one), and the signs a business has outgrown its current operating structure.

She also gets into how OnCall COO went from $9,000 in its first year to $3 million this year, and why roughly 90% of that growth came from paid advertising instead of word of mouth. Her reasoning: when the service you offer isn't something people know to look for, referrals dry up fast, so she went looking for people who already knew they had a problem and were actively searching for a solution.

She also touches on something newer: a growing share of her sales calls are now coming from people who asked ChatGPT or Claude who to talk to.

Guest: Melissa Franks

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissafranks/

Website: melissafranks.com

Host: Leonard De Beer

Helping fractional executive firms get more clients through strategic outreach

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonard-de-beer/

In a high-touch service business, growth breaks when the owner has to remember every conversation, follow-up, and next step.

That problem shows up long before the firm runs out of demand. It shows up when client work, sales activity, contracts, invoicing, and relationship management all depend on the owner keeping the details straight.

Salvatore Tirabassi from CFO Pro and Analytics has built systems that preserve the personal touch without relying on memory. His CRM manages the operational workflow, while AI reviews active deals, summarizes recent conversations, and suggests the next follow-up.

The real value of AI implementation is not removing the human relationship. It is removing the administrative work that makes that relationship difficult to maintain at scale.

Guest: Salvatore Tirabassi

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stirabassi/

Website: https://cfoproanalytics.com

Host: Leonard De Beer

Helping fractional executive firms get more clients through strategic outreach

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonard-de-beer/

Most firms treat AI implementation as a software decision. The real constraint is governance.

Once AI starts influencing contracts, client work, internal decisions, or sensitive data, efficiency is no longer the only concern. The business also needs clear boundaries, accountability, and compliance built into the system from the start.

Adam Wardel from Black Hill Law has seen why this matters, particularly in legal and professional service environments where trust cannot be separated from automation. The firms that get ahead will not simply use more AI. They will know how it should operate inside the business before scaling it.

Guest: Adam Wardel

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamwardel/

Website: blackhill.law

Host: Leonard De Beer

Helping fractional executive firms get more clients through strategic outreach

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonard-de-beer/