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Why a Virtual CFO May Be Just What You Need
Jody Grunden - Anders CPA
On Working Together: "It's only going to help everybody if we can all learn how to get better and faster."
Every business owner needs to watch their money. You watch it come in, go out and hopefully end up with some leftover to make sure you are doing more than just moving money.
But not every business is large enough to justify a full-time chief financial officer. Which leads to a conundrum, how do you get the talented person to help you with the financial end of your business when you don't have enough financial paperwork for them to poke at full time?
Jody Grunden saw this need years ago and has built a virtual CFO business that he then sold to Anders CPA. Jody discusses what a virtual CFO can do and why it is important.
Listen as Jody details how the use of a virtual CFO has helped grow many business. Plus he details the value of standing out. In his case, with a Hawaiian shirt.
Enjoy!
Visit Jody at: https://anderscpa.com/
Podcast Overview:
00:00 "Virtual Beginnings and Success"
03:57 "Next Year Finally Paid Off"
06:50 "Interactive Pricing Strategy Breakdown"
11:40 "Finding Success Beyond Accounting"
12:40 "Pivoting Amid Layoffs and Guilt"
18:45 "Educating for Success, Not Selling"
19:42 "Productizing Services with Subscriptions"
24:58 "Dynamic Forecasting Explained"
26:33 Truck Repair Business Insights
31:20 "Flexible Client Collaboration Process"
35:07 "Building Connections and Growth"
38:29 "Rethinking Strategy for Success"
42:01 "Thought Leadership Eased Hiring"
44:26 "Expanding Connections Beyond Remote Teams"
47:32 "Scaling Processes for Sustainability"
Sponsors:
Live Video chat with our customers here with LiveSwitch: https://join.liveswitch.com/gfj3m6hnmguz
Some videos have been recorded with Riverside: https://www.riverside.fm/?utm_campaign=campaign_5&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=rewardful&via=james-kademan
Podcast Transcription:
Jody Grundon [00:00:00]:
I realized real quick that, you know, hey, I wasn't an accountant, I was an entrepreneur and I just didn't realize it. I didn't enjoy accounting and I still don't today. I don't enjoy accounting, but I love the entrepreneur part of it and growing a business and seeing how successful I can get that business and then even more so helping other people be successful running their business, which is, which is even a bigger joy.
James Kademan [00:00:27]:
You have found Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found in the podcast link [email protected] we are locally interwritten by the bank of Sun Prairie Calls On Call Extraordinary Answering Service as well as the Bold Business Book and Live Switch. Today we are welcoming slash preparing to learn from Jody Grundon of Anders cpa. Which I feel like this is right about the time to start talking taxes. Jody, is that safe to say?
Jody Grundon [00:01:00]:
I. I guess so. But man, you don't ask me to ask tax questions, that's for sure.
James Kademan [00:01:04]:
No, so let's just break it down. What is Andrew cpa?
Jody Grundon [00:01:09]:
Yeah, so Andrew cpa. They're, they're a, one of the largest CPA firms in the nation. They're pretty large. They do a lot of different things, audit, tax. But the, the special that I run is on in what we call the Client Advisory Service Group, which is virtual CFO services. So that's something that, that I founded way back when. It was about 20 some years ago. A lot of CPA firms now you use that type of a service.
Jody Grundon [00:01:31]:
I actually founded it back, you know, 20 plus years ago. So it's been a great ride. Before it was, before it was even a thing. Yeah, it was one of those, one of those things that there was something called outsourced CFO or outsourced CPA service, which was outsourcing it to a foreign country type of thing. And I'm like, well, that's not what I meant. So I'm trying to figure out how, what can I call it? And I, and so I did. I got the big, the thesaurus, if you remember one of those things. I got one of those things out.
Jody Grundon [00:01:55]:
I'm like, what could I, what could I name this thing? I thought virtual sounds kind of cool. And, and then my partner's like, well, no one will think you're real. And I'm like, ah, they will. It'll catch on. And back then we had the yellow pages and so we, we did the yellow page Thing didn't really get a whole lot of traction. And then we decided, hey, we're going to go this, do this on the Internet. And so when we did on the Internet, it was kind of cool because nobody else was doing it. So it was one of those things that we are right away number one in the rankings.
Jody Grundon [00:02:21]:
No, yeah, we.
James Kademan [00:02:22]:
Back 20 years ago, man, that's.
Jody Grundon [00:02:24]:
Yeah, yeah. And we have, we, we. We haven't gone far from that. So we're still number one in the rankings today, which is kind of cool.
James Kademan [00:02:31]:
Be interesting to go back and just visit if you had a time machine or something like that and just visit. What was the Internet like 20 years ago?
Jody Grundon [00:02:38]:
It was brutal.
James Kademan [00:02:39]:
No YouTube. I don't even know if Google was around back then. I mean, yeah, totally different world.
Jody Grundon [00:02:45]:
It was. And it's kind of funny because everybody thought, well, that was. That's a big waste of money. Don't put money in there. Because we, we got out of the yellow page. Yellow page is what accounting firms are always in. Accounting firms, law firms, you name it. You had these big ads, you spent tons of money, and then you just kind of hope people called you.
Jody Grundon [00:03:00]:
And I didn't have the money back then, so it's like I bootstrapped my own company. So it was one of those things that I just couldn't compete with the big boys. And so the only, only thing we could do is try something different. I thought, hey, this Internet thing sounds great. Let's try it. And yeah. And everybody thought, hey, you're wasting your money. No one's going to call.
Jody Grundon [00:03:19]:
And the funny part is, nobody called. It took a long time to actually get going and figure it out and get people to realize what virtual CFO even was. It took about, I'd say, probably five to 10 years, really, to. To get a lot of traction for it.
James Kademan [00:03:38]:
Stick with it for a while.
Jody Grundon [00:03:39]:
Oh, yeah. It wasn't one of those things. Overnight successes. It was, hey, we started it. And they, they always say, you know, building the plane as it's flying in the air type of thing. That's exactly what we did. It was like, okay, what can we do to make this better? Improve this? And we were not profitable at all for probably eight, eight, nine, ten years of that. It was, it was one of those things.
Jody Grundon [00:03:57]:
My wife kept asking me, hey, when are we going to do something? You need to get a job? I'm like, no, no, no. Next year's gonna be the perfect year. And then next year coming, there'd be all these obstacles that we we didn't overcome. And then it's like, oh, well, next year will be the best year. And then finally next year ended up being the right year, and it just, it just blew up from there and became super profitable, super high growth. And, you know, we grew it to Gez, probably 10 million bucks or so before we actually sold it to Anders and became part of the, the larger accounting firm.
James Kademan [00:04:25]:
Gotcha. The irony of the CFO not making money.
Jody Grundon [00:04:28]:
Right. Yeah, I know. I tell everybody that too. The other irony is I can't, I can't add in my head, oh, wow, you got a CFO that has to use a calculator. Yeah. Which is kind of funny. And, and, and the funny part about that was on my, the very first. So I, I, I speak at a lot of conferences, and the very first conference I was invited to, I was super unprepared.
Jody Grundon [00:04:47]:
You know, it was one of those things. I just didn't know what to talk about. Here I'm supposed to talk about. Talk to 30 at that time, agency owners and, and teach them how to be profitable and all that kind of stuff. And the guy's like, do not, whatever you do, do not bring a PowerPoint. I'm like, okay, okay, I won't bring a PowerPoint. And I'm thinking, okay, now what do I do? What do I do? And, you know, the funny part about it was my luggage got stuck, got routed to the wrong airport. So I came in.
Jody Grundon [00:05:13]:
No, no, no luggage. I didn't have anything really to wear other than I had a T shirt. I had shorts and, and, and, and gym. Gym shoes. And I was like, what do I do? And I went to the local mall, bought some stuff, and, and at the time, my credit cards kept getting denied. And I was like, what's going on here? Why are my credit cards getting denied? This is weird. And, and so eventually, I, I, I, I looked across the mall. There was a Tommy Bahama store there.
Jody Grundon [00:05:37]:
And I thought, oh, that's kind of cool. That's a little different. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll get some Tommy Bahama stuff, because he, he said, do not be the traditional accountant. I'm like, okay, that's kind of cool. And, but by the time I got, I got done, I was like, the only thing I had left was my debit card, because nothing was working. And so I went to this dinner after the fact and that. And you can imagine, here the finance guy comes in. You know, at that time, I was wearing an Italian Bahama shirt and like, hey, find this guy wearing Italian Bahama shirt.
Jody Grundon [00:06:03]:
I'm like, hey, I'll get the hors d' oeuvres for 30 business owners here. I'm thinking, this is kind of cool. And I go to pay with my debit card, and guess what? It got denied. I'm like, what the heck?
View all episodes
By Draw In Customers Business Coach James Kademan
5
44 ratings
Jody Grunden - Anders CPA
On Working Together: "It's only going to help everybody if we can all learn how to get better and faster."
Every business owner needs to watch their money. You watch it come in, go out and hopefully end up with some leftover to make sure you are doing more than just moving money.
But not every business is large enough to justify a full-time chief financial officer. Which leads to a conundrum, how do you get the talented person to help you with the financial end of your business when you don't have enough financial paperwork for them to poke at full time?
Jody Grunden saw this need years ago and has built a virtual CFO business that he then sold to Anders CPA. Jody discusses what a virtual CFO can do and why it is important.
Listen as Jody details how the use of a virtual CFO has helped grow many business. Plus he details the value of standing out. In his case, with a Hawaiian shirt.
Enjoy!
Visit Jody at: https://anderscpa.com/
Podcast Overview:
00:00 "Virtual Beginnings and Success"
03:57 "Next Year Finally Paid Off"
06:50 "Interactive Pricing Strategy Breakdown"
11:40 "Finding Success Beyond Accounting"
12:40 "Pivoting Amid Layoffs and Guilt"
18:45 "Educating for Success, Not Selling"
19:42 "Productizing Services with Subscriptions"
24:58 "Dynamic Forecasting Explained"
26:33 Truck Repair Business Insights
31:20 "Flexible Client Collaboration Process"
35:07 "Building Connections and Growth"
38:29 "Rethinking Strategy for Success"
42:01 "Thought Leadership Eased Hiring"
44:26 "Expanding Connections Beyond Remote Teams"
47:32 "Scaling Processes for Sustainability"
Sponsors:
Live Video chat with our customers here with LiveSwitch: https://join.liveswitch.com/gfj3m6hnmguz
Some videos have been recorded with Riverside: https://www.riverside.fm/?utm_campaign=campaign_5&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=rewardful&via=james-kademan
Podcast Transcription:
Jody Grundon [00:00:00]:
I realized real quick that, you know, hey, I wasn't an accountant, I was an entrepreneur and I just didn't realize it. I didn't enjoy accounting and I still don't today. I don't enjoy accounting, but I love the entrepreneur part of it and growing a business and seeing how successful I can get that business and then even more so helping other people be successful running their business, which is, which is even a bigger joy.
James Kademan [00:00:27]:
You have found Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found in the podcast link [email protected] we are locally interwritten by the bank of Sun Prairie Calls On Call Extraordinary Answering Service as well as the Bold Business Book and Live Switch. Today we are welcoming slash preparing to learn from Jody Grundon of Anders cpa. Which I feel like this is right about the time to start talking taxes. Jody, is that safe to say?
Jody Grundon [00:01:00]:
I. I guess so. But man, you don't ask me to ask tax questions, that's for sure.
James Kademan [00:01:04]:
No, so let's just break it down. What is Andrew cpa?
Jody Grundon [00:01:09]:
Yeah, so Andrew cpa. They're, they're a, one of the largest CPA firms in the nation. They're pretty large. They do a lot of different things, audit, tax. But the, the special that I run is on in what we call the Client Advisory Service Group, which is virtual CFO services. So that's something that, that I founded way back when. It was about 20 some years ago. A lot of CPA firms now you use that type of a service.
Jody Grundon [00:01:31]:
I actually founded it back, you know, 20 plus years ago. So it's been a great ride. Before it was, before it was even a thing. Yeah, it was one of those, one of those things that there was something called outsourced CFO or outsourced CPA service, which was outsourcing it to a foreign country type of thing. And I'm like, well, that's not what I meant. So I'm trying to figure out how, what can I call it? And I, and so I did. I got the big, the thesaurus, if you remember one of those things. I got one of those things out.
Jody Grundon [00:01:55]:
I'm like, what could I, what could I name this thing? I thought virtual sounds kind of cool. And, and then my partner's like, well, no one will think you're real. And I'm like, ah, they will. It'll catch on. And back then we had the yellow pages and so we, we did the yellow page Thing didn't really get a whole lot of traction. And then we decided, hey, we're going to go this, do this on the Internet. And so when we did on the Internet, it was kind of cool because nobody else was doing it. So it was one of those things that we are right away number one in the rankings.
Jody Grundon [00:02:21]:
No, yeah, we.
James Kademan [00:02:22]:
Back 20 years ago, man, that's.
Jody Grundon [00:02:24]:
Yeah, yeah. And we have, we, we. We haven't gone far from that. So we're still number one in the rankings today, which is kind of cool.
James Kademan [00:02:31]:
Be interesting to go back and just visit if you had a time machine or something like that and just visit. What was the Internet like 20 years ago?
Jody Grundon [00:02:38]:
It was brutal.
James Kademan [00:02:39]:
No YouTube. I don't even know if Google was around back then. I mean, yeah, totally different world.
Jody Grundon [00:02:45]:
It was. And it's kind of funny because everybody thought, well, that was. That's a big waste of money. Don't put money in there. Because we, we got out of the yellow page. Yellow page is what accounting firms are always in. Accounting firms, law firms, you name it. You had these big ads, you spent tons of money, and then you just kind of hope people called you.
Jody Grundon [00:03:00]:
And I didn't have the money back then, so it's like I bootstrapped my own company. So it was one of those things that I just couldn't compete with the big boys. And so the only, only thing we could do is try something different. I thought, hey, this Internet thing sounds great. Let's try it. And yeah. And everybody thought, hey, you're wasting your money. No one's going to call.
Jody Grundon [00:03:19]:
And the funny part is, nobody called. It took a long time to actually get going and figure it out and get people to realize what virtual CFO even was. It took about, I'd say, probably five to 10 years, really, to. To get a lot of traction for it.
James Kademan [00:03:38]:
Stick with it for a while.
Jody Grundon [00:03:39]:
Oh, yeah. It wasn't one of those things. Overnight successes. It was, hey, we started it. And they, they always say, you know, building the plane as it's flying in the air type of thing. That's exactly what we did. It was like, okay, what can we do to make this better? Improve this? And we were not profitable at all for probably eight, eight, nine, ten years of that. It was, it was one of those things.
Jody Grundon [00:03:57]:
My wife kept asking me, hey, when are we going to do something? You need to get a job? I'm like, no, no, no. Next year's gonna be the perfect year. And then next year coming, there'd be all these obstacles that we we didn't overcome. And then it's like, oh, well, next year will be the best year. And then finally next year ended up being the right year, and it just, it just blew up from there and became super profitable, super high growth. And, you know, we grew it to Gez, probably 10 million bucks or so before we actually sold it to Anders and became part of the, the larger accounting firm.
James Kademan [00:04:25]:
Gotcha. The irony of the CFO not making money.
Jody Grundon [00:04:28]:
Right. Yeah, I know. I tell everybody that too. The other irony is I can't, I can't add in my head, oh, wow, you got a CFO that has to use a calculator. Yeah. Which is kind of funny. And, and, and the funny part about that was on my, the very first. So I, I, I speak at a lot of conferences, and the very first conference I was invited to, I was super unprepared.
Jody Grundon [00:04:47]:
You know, it was one of those things. I just didn't know what to talk about. Here I'm supposed to talk about. Talk to 30 at that time, agency owners and, and teach them how to be profitable and all that kind of stuff. And the guy's like, do not, whatever you do, do not bring a PowerPoint. I'm like, okay, okay, I won't bring a PowerPoint. And I'm thinking, okay, now what do I do? What do I do? And, you know, the funny part about it was my luggage got stuck, got routed to the wrong airport. So I came in.
Jody Grundon [00:05:13]:
No, no, no luggage. I didn't have anything really to wear other than I had a T shirt. I had shorts and, and, and, and gym. Gym shoes. And I was like, what do I do? And I went to the local mall, bought some stuff, and, and at the time, my credit cards kept getting denied. And I was like, what's going on here? Why are my credit cards getting denied? This is weird. And, and so eventually, I, I, I, I looked across the mall. There was a Tommy Bahama store there.
Jody Grundon [00:05:37]:
And I thought, oh, that's kind of cool. That's a little different. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll get some Tommy Bahama stuff, because he, he said, do not be the traditional accountant. I'm like, okay, that's kind of cool. And, but by the time I got, I got done, I was like, the only thing I had left was my debit card, because nothing was working. And so I went to this dinner after the fact and that. And you can imagine, here the finance guy comes in. You know, at that time, I was wearing an Italian Bahama shirt and like, hey, find this guy wearing Italian Bahama shirt.
Jody Grundon [00:06:03]:
I'm like, hey, I'll get the hors d' oeuvres for 30 business owners here. I'm thinking, this is kind of cool. And I go to pay with my debit card, and guess what? It got denied. I'm like, what the heck?