S2 I EP.12 David King - The CFO Center I Cemoh Fractional Marketing Podcast

Simon Dell (00:00)

Welcome to the Fractional CMO ⁓ podcast. My name is Simon Dell. I am the CEO of CMO. This is somewhere I feel like we're approaching the 150th podcast I've done here, but I'll have to check the numbers, ⁓ which is quite handy when you're checking numbers, given the fact that I've got David King with me today, who is probably much better with numbers than I am. ⁓

David King (00:23)

I know.

Simon Dell (00:25)

Just a little bit about us before we start. If you're interested in anything from a fractional marketing perspective, whether you want to become a fractional marketer, fractional CMO, whether you're looking to recruit one, check us out at cmo.com, c-e-m-o-h.com. If you want to reach out to me, you can find me at simonatcmo.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn. ⁓ And if you like to listen to this and you enjoy this podcast, please rate and review us.

on whatever platform it is that you are listening to or viewing this on. Be that Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, wherever it is, we appreciate a like, a review, a comment, whatever it is. So with that all out of the way, I'm gonna introduce, welcome to the show, David King, who is the, I'm gonna get this right, the CEO for...

There we go. I got it completely wrong. The CEO of Eastern Australia and New Zealand for the CFO Centre Australia. Did I get that right eventually?

David King (01:27)

bit of a mouthful isn't it? That's right, there's a of C words in there and that's exactly right.

Simon Dell (01:36)

Okay, cool, right, well we've got that. So ⁓ I think first of all, the CFO Center, ⁓ it's a global brand, but let's tell people, ⁓ despite the fact that it probably gives it away in the name, but let's just give everybody the overview as to what the CFO Center does.

David King (01:57)

Well, I guess in a nutshell, Simon, our bread and butter for the last 25 years has been primarily helping SMEs, so small to medium sized businesses and their owners, at a stage of their growth path ⁓ to accelerate that growth further or to help them stabilize or indeed even recover. ⁓ It's bringing in fractional or we used to call them part-time chief financial officers, CFOs.

on this fractional basis, whether it's a day or two a week or only a day or two a month or anything in between, ⁓ primarily working on site, but also remotely where necessary or where appropriate or a bit of both to really help the management team of that business get around financial performance in terms of what's working for them, what's not, what they should do more of, what they should do less of.

really helped them get clear on the strategy longer term for their business and why that's important to them as the owner and putting pathways in to help drive that as quickly as possible for them. And we do that around the world with very carefully selected CFOs that join our brand who are eventually CFOs from past lives in bigger businesses like in-house CFOs that have that real corporate

big business commercial experience that can really hit the ground running with smaller businesses ⁓ to, as I say, if it's around profitability and improving that, whether it's around better cashflow and working capital management, being more financially literate, building a best of breed finance function ⁓ for the business as it continues to grow and being able to do it on a cost effective basis whereby they only pay for

for what they need from a CFO at this point in time. So most of them, obviously at that point, they don't need a full-time CFO, but they do need some form of senior finance support because the business has got to a point where they've outgrown what their, say, bookkeeper can do for them, and also outgrown what maybe their external accountant can do for them. ⁓

Simon Dell (04:21)

Yeah.

David King (04:25)

We need the external accountant very much in place. We need a good external accountant to do all their tax and compliance type of work. That's really important. So we want to partner with their accountant. And we also need a good bookkeeper in place to do the day-to-day transactional stuff. But we can tie it together and then really take the numbers and add that insightful commentary and help the business strategize as to what to do next.

Simon Dell (04:53)

It's and it's a, mean, you mentioned there, it's a global business. You've got CFOs around the world. Correct me if I'm wrong. It was born out of the UK, wasn't it? And there's how many CFOs are there sort of within that network now globally?

David King (05:10)

So globally, we have about 800 spread over about 19 countries. So it's come a long way over its 25 years, of which we've got about 50 of those across Australia and New Zealand. And we've been going in Australia and New Zealand for about, let's say, 17 of those 25 years. And every...

Simon Dell (05:14)

Okay.

Okay.

David King (05:36)

Every team that we've got in most, they're based in most capital cities. ⁓ They're headed up by a regional director who not only recruits and leads their team of CFOs, but also is the second point of contact for our clients. So like the client relationship manager in the background to make sure the CFOs, you know, the right match, because it's not just about the technical skills, it's also about the cultural fit and the personality.

Simon Dell (06:06)

You touched on something when you sort of gave us that opening description. ⁓ You know, we've come to this period where everything is fractional. Everyone's this, fractional is the new buzzword. And you sort of mentioned, you know, beforehand, they used to be called part-time. ⁓ And I think there's a difference between part-time and fractional.

But why do you think this being this kind of shift is this just sort of a, you think this is, it's followed a trend and you guys just happened to be sort of well ahead of the trend 25 years ago, but didn't necessarily call it what it was being called now. What do you think the attraction is all of a sudden, you know, with this fractional model and that's CMOs with us and CFOs with you.

David King (07:03)

Yeah, good question. We know a lot of it's been driven out of the US where this type of fractional model has been going a long time. It's very well understood by the business community or the wider community in the US. Certainly in other countries, including Australia, it's still an emerging concept. I think we're all finding our way. For us, you know,

I guess because fractional was gaining so much traction as a term, it's something that we felt we needed to be obviously aligned with because if people were gaining an understanding of what fractional is all about, you've got to be calling yourself that term. So guess it's part of our learning curve. It's part of a global ⁓ move. ⁓

The one thing we still are aware of is that fractional can mean different things to different people. what we're saying here, it's not a fraction of a person's brain that you're getting or a fraction of their attention. ⁓ It's just that it's a fraction of what a full-time person would be giving you because you don't need a full-time person. ⁓ with, I think in Australia, we've still got a way to go in terms of breaking down the mindset that we've got around

Simon Dell (08:10)

Yeah.

David King (08:27)

employment and business owners thinking that they've got to go and put somebody on their payroll in some sort of permanent capacity in order to get someone who's committed and fully engaged when you can get a fractional person like a CFO at the CFO Center or a CMO at CMO and ⁓ still get that level of commitment.

and engagement, ⁓ but you're only using them as much as you need them to keep it cost effective.

Simon Dell (09:06)

Yeah, I think for me the difference between, and I've had this conversation a fair few times, the difference between fractional and part-time. Part-time still feels like you are a member of the team and you're a salaried person. ⁓ There's a permanency there. And I don't want to sort of negate that fractional CFOs or CMOs should not feel like they're part of the team.

And they should also not feel that there's not a permanency in what they're doing. But I think the idea for me is the fractional is a little bit outside, is a little bit more objective potentially than ⁓ the actual employed person. I always feel a fractional CFO for the ones that I've met.

and I've met a fair few of them over the time from your organisation and a few independents. And I also, from a fractional CMO perspective, I feel there's a little bit more objectivity from those people. And I also feel that they're perhaps a little bit more willing to challenge the status quo of what's being done in the business because they are slightly outside. Is that something you feel?

David King (10:26)

Definitely, definitely. We talk about this internally a bit actually. Our CFOs tell us, and I've experienced it as a fractional CFO myself, ⁓ this empowerment of being not a direct employee and therefore having this direct line of, I guess, management up to the CEO and being able to, it's almost,

freeing us up to be truly independent, give them unbiased support, telling them sometimes the bad news and not being afraid to do that. Not just the good stuff. I think it's a lot easier with this type of model for that reason, because you're not afraid of losing your full-time job or what it...

Simon Dell (11:00)

Yeah.

David King (11:25)

whatever it might be. So ⁓ it's really important. We have a long-term focus for every new client that we go into. ⁓ And we really work hard on building the relationship with all different layers of that organization. ⁓ And talking in, like using the language and positioning ourselves in those conversations around the longer term, their strategy, their personal goals.

Simon Dell (11:26)

Mm.

David King (11:53)

looking for ways that we can play a valuable part in that journey, rather than them seeing us as some sort of project person just coming in to fix something and then saying goodbye, which we happily do project work, but I think they really miss out on what can happen over that longer term where our CFO builds a deeper relationship, a deeper understanding of their business.

and can really add that strategic value and insight as opposed to maybe just some of the operational improvement stuff that needs to be done as well. So we certainly try and build the relationship so they see us as part of that long term journey. And we've done that with clients that we've got, know, some of our longer clients that we've got in Australia, we've been working with for six, seven, 10 years.

Simon Dell (12:26)

Mm.

Yeah.

David King (12:51)

Others we've worked with for like a few years and got them to the point quite rapidly where they do need a full-time CFO now, like they've got to the size and complexity. And we've helped recruit the full-time CFO and done the handover. And it's like job done. If we can have an ongoing relationship, if they need us periodically for things, that's great. But otherwise, we're pleased and they're pleased and everybody wins.

Simon Dell (13:19)

I've said that in a discussion on LinkedIn once, is that I think a good fractional operator should eventually do themselves out of a job. And I think that's the case, whether it's finance, whether it's marketing, whether it's sales, whether it's operations, if you can get your client to the position where they need you full time, and that's not something you wanna do, ⁓ you're happy being that fractional, then I think you've done an exceptional job.

I think that's the ultimate win is losing your job, which obviously sounds counterintuitive, but I think that's where you need to be thinking, this is an 18 month to two year project to grow this company, and then I'm gone.

David King (13:52)

Yeah

Yeah, I think we just take every client, you know, at face value and look at where are they, what's their ambitions. If their growth ambitions are a bit slower and it's more of a lifestyle or income play, we can add a lot of value there for a longer period of time. If they want to scale it really fast and then sell it or list it or, you know, whatever it is, then we help them get to that point fast and then help them with that transaction.

Simon Dell (14:13)

Yeah.

David King (14:34)

So there's lots of different scenarios that can play out, but being there for as long as we feel like we can add the value and just educating them along the way about what a fractional CFO really is all about. And as I say, not just some really short term fix it person that comes in, like does a three way forecast and then has to disappear because that's only a small piece of the puzzle. So it's just putting our best foot forward and.

Simon Dell (14:41)

Hmm.

David King (15:02)

That all comes down to the relationship that you're building with them.

Simon Dell (15:06)

What are the sort of biggest challenges you find walking in and that sort of day one into the, ⁓ you know, into the client? I think, you know, I'd imagine they're the same, ⁓ you know, certainly from a CMO perspective, you're walking into an extremely large number of unknowns. ⁓ But I wonder whether the unknowns for a CFO are...

David King (15:24)

Yes.

Simon Dell (15:32)

more black and white in terms of discovering them than the potentially they are for a fractional CMO.

David King (15:41)

Potentially, I mean, the black and white will come from the fact that we do a deep dive call a discovery session to kickstart every engagement and we'll quickly, by looking at their financials in detail, we'll quickly come to a realization if potentially their financial state is a lot worse than we were led to believe and then we'll respond accordingly with that. ⁓ The numbers will also tell us where

maybe the business overall is not too bad, but where there's parts of the business that certainly need attention, whether it's certain product or service streams that are underperforming or whether it's a very heavy overhead structure, whatever it might be, right? So, or if they're carrying inventory, they're carrying too much of the wrong type of stock or, you know, there's a myriad of things that we can come up to speed on nice and quickly.

There are some unknowns as well though. One of them, which you probably appreciate is it's the personalities that you're working with, whether it's the CEO and the other leadership or management team members and whether they're all on board for the journey, willing to take advice, ⁓ knowing the changes.

Simon Dell (17:03)

Because I

guess in day one, you could be going in there telling, see, this is where I think there's difference. Cause you could be going in telling a lot of people or a number of people that they've been doing something wrong for quite some time. And there's gotta be a sensitivity around that. Whereas when a CMO walks in, a fractional CMO, it isn't so much that the company's been doing something wrong.

David King (17:18)

Yeah

Simon Dell (17:29)

I think they're more willing to acknowledge that they, hey, we don't know anything about marketing. We've got this way because we've grown through good service and sales and all those kinds of things. And often when a fractional CMO is walking in, it's like, now we know we need to go to the next level. And there's not this insinuation they've been doing something horrifically wrong. Whereas I guess you guys could be walking in.

and opening up a Xero account or whatever it is and just going, Jesus Christ, what's been happening here? And I guess you could be exposing a lot of people's mistakes. Does it feel like that sometimes?

David King (18:09)

Yeah, you get a mixed reaction and you walk in to a new client and they've got an existing finance team of some shape and form. Some of them are like, thank God you guys are here. I've got someone now that can help me. I can ask questions, maybe even be mentored, which we love doing, all that sort of stuff. They really embrace it. But then there's other members of finance teams you walk in and they're like a bit horrified and they're really guarded.

Simon Dell (18:21)

Yeah.

David King (18:38)

because of what you've just said. Are you going to pick up any mistakes? Am I going to lose my job? And so we have to try and really make sure we build relationships and put them at ease and say, look, we find what we find. We'll always deliver any message with full transparency and respect. It's all about we all learn from what we've done and being open to maybe doing things a bit differently in the future.

If we're not open to doing things differently, potentially, then why would you have us in there and spend money and time on us? And why would we want to be involved if people aren't willing to sort of take good advice and, you know, improve things where we've all agreed that things haven't been working to this point? So it comes down to different personalities and how willing they are to want to embrace this. know, the old adage of

you know, do they appreciate or know what they don't know and also appreciate what they don't know they don't know and be open to learning something new and maybe doing things a bit differently. It's not just the finance team. Like if the sales team, for instance, has been under quoting just to win business and therefore the jobs aren't making any money. Or if you're a manufacturer on the shop floor, there's, you know, there's

Simon Dell (19:48)

No.

Yeah.

David King (20:04)

bottlenecks and there's lots of downtime and expensive mistakes and stuff going on or whatever, we'll see that we'll draw all of those stories out of the numbers by inquiring and asking the right questions. That's gonna put some people on edge a little bit until we can just say, guys, this is just to make the business stronger and that's gonna make everybody here that much happier, your jobs will be more secure, this business can...

grow, therefore you can grow with the business. I'm sure no one wants to work for a business that's financially hamstrung.

Simon Dell (20:41)

No,

no. Let's look at this now from the actual fractional consultant's perspective. The purpose of being part of a group like the CFO Center and CMO is that you have the support of the brand, have potentially lead generation coming from a central point, ⁓ et cetera, et cetera. But if you're starting off on this journey,

as a fractional consultant, be that in marketing, be that in finance, whatever it is, there's still an onus on yourself to grow your own network, to grow your, you know, to grow your own connections, find your own clients, all those kinds of things. So when you sort of set out in this world or when someone approaches you and go, hey, this is what I want to do. I want to be a fractional CFO.

What's the sort of, perhaps a couple of key pieces of advice that you give them in saying, okay, you've got, over here you've got the nice, the comfort of an accountancy firm, or you might be working in an internally and a CFO role, you're go out on your own. What's those key pieces of advice?

David King (21:54)

There's a couple of things that come to mind. First of all, is your own mindset. ⁓ I felt when I went from being an in-house corporate CFO into this fractional world with the CFO Center, I certainly had to shift my mindset in terms of say comfort zones and really stretch those because when you're an internal ⁓ corporate CFO, don't really, in most cases anyway, you don't really have to...

⁓ brand yourself or market yourself, you don't really sort of have to have much of a network to be honest because you you're really focused on the internal organization to an extent that is. So when you become a fractional executive and that includes CFOs, you know it's being prepared to put yourself out there and get yourself a bit uncomfortable whether that's

Simon Dell (22:30)

Mm.

David King (22:49)

You might have always been against networking and now you might have to go to some networking events and rub shoulders with people. You might now have to practice your own little elevator pitch so you can talk about why you exist and what you do in an effective way when you've only got 30 seconds to do so. I think also what I say to them

Simon Dell (22:57)

Yeah.

David King (23:17)

It's being prepared financially for this because you haven't got the nice secure paycheck coming in. so you financially, you need to be okay with not just the runway that it's going to take to build up your client book, but secondly, ongoing clients will come and go and then you've got to get back out there and, you know, shake the shingle and

do some more marketing to win some new work so your income can be also a bit more up and down as well. So from an income perspective, from a comfort zones perspective, ⁓ I think from a network perspective, have been prepared to actually go out there. It's all about relationships at the end of the day as you know. And I think for some people it comes naturally, they'll go out there and just build some new relationships, whether they're referral partners.

Simon Dell (24:05)

Absolutely.

David King (24:13)

or what have you, and others probably need to work on that because they might be, especially in CFO land, there are a healthy number of introverts in that field.

Simon Dell (24:23)

⁓ Yeah,

yeah, look, it's, I mean, look, it's interesting that you say that in the CFO field. I think one of the things that I hear so much in the CMO field, you would think marketers would be good at selling themselves, but they're absolutely terrible. ⁓ And a lot of them, the ones I like are the very acknowledged ones where they go, hey, I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna do the sales. I don't wanna do my own marketing. I just wanna go and do the work and work for the clients.

⁓ they're the, they're the best ones for us because they recognize the benefit of being part of our network and they're happy to sacrifice, ⁓ you know, a small slice of that income in order to, ⁓ you know, to, do that work. I think your financial point there is just so, so, so true. I almost say to people, if you're going to decide to go out, let's say we're in January now, 2026, if you're going to go out.

decide to become a fractional ⁓ CFO, CMO, you should go out on your own in perhaps January, 2027, right? And spend the next 12 months building that network of people that you think you can get work from so that when you go, you do potentially have one ⁓ or two contracts ⁓ and you can move straight into work. your point about being financially...

safe, know, stable to sort of go, Hey, consulting work isn't that constant like that. goes like this.

David King (26:00)

Yeah, well, it all comes

down to personal drivers, which we dig into a lot when we're recruiting our CFOs. It's like, what's really important to you at this stage of your career and your life? ⁓ If money is still, well, maybe it never was, but if money is at the top of the list, you know, that's going to be a potential issue. if at this stage, money is obviously important, makes the world go round. But at this stage of life, it's more things like variety,

Simon Dell (26:04)

Yeah.

David King (26:30)

flexibility, autonomy, maybe the feeling of giving back to the smaller business owner, doing something tangible for smaller businesses rather than for some big, you know, corporate. If those things are popping up for the person, then that's where we're like, okay, this could work. ⁓ So yeah, it comes down to personal drivers a lot of the time and their preparedness. ⁓ The other thing is, I think you're right.

Simon Dell (26:42)

Yeah.

David King (26:59)

We love CFOs that are really client orientated, like have a what we call a CX flag. It's all about the client experience. They want to get outcomes for clients. They might want a bit of freedom and flexibility. They don't want to be handcuffed to some corporate 70 hour a week job anymore. They've got a bit of money behind them. They still want to earn some decent money, which they can.

but it's just not the biggest driver for them anymore. ⁓ That's going to work quite nicely. mean, the reason they'll join us rather than go out on their own is what further to what you were saying, Simon is they don't really believe whether that's true or not that they're going to be any good at actually winning clients or attracting them and winning them. Or they don't really want to do it. They just want to do the delivery piece.

⁓ So they look at the CFO center and look at, you know, their marketing function that we've got at our regional directors that do the local BD in those regions. We still ask our CFOs to assist, like go out to key meetings with referral partners, go to some networking events with their regional director, you know, do a little bits and pieces ⁓ because it's the sum of all those little things that add up to where the next client might come from. So.

Simon Dell (28:27)

Yeah. Yeah.

David King (28:27)

It's not like we want

a CFO that's going to come in and sit by saying, you know, we don't want them to be baby birds sitting in the nest going, you know, feed me, feed me. You know, we want them to be proactive, but they know they don't want to do all of that on their own.

Simon Dell (28:43)

It's funny that, so you know, through what you said and what I've said, we've described a very sort of typical fractional mindset and the type of person. And I think there is a particular fractional mindset. There is a particular type of fractional person. It's interesting that I think, and I guess you must have seen this as well. I've seen some really good corporate people.

that want to become fractional CMOs and don't do well. And it's almost like, yeah, the money thing is a challenge for them, but they feel that sometimes if they've been in a, I feel sometimes people that have been in a corporate environment for a long time lack the, and I hate using this word, that kind of hustle.

that you perhaps need to do right at the start, right? That you do need to go and have coffee with a lot of people, even if you don't like them or don't really wanna have coffee with them and all that sort of thing. Do you find that sometimes you get those CFOs approaching you from the corporate background and you just look at them and just go, you're not suited to this lifestyle and this framework?

David King (30:03)

Oh, totally. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've interviewed hundreds and hundreds and you know, we only recruit a reasonably small proportion of those that we interviewed for lots of reasons. But I think one of them, if our sense is that the person's got still very much an employee mindset that, you know, just leave me, I don't really want to learn your IP, just give me the work and lead me to it.

Simon Dell (30:22)

Mm.

David King (30:30)

And then when you give them the work, your sense is that they're just going to go through the motions and actually wait for the client to tell them what to do next because they were quite conditioned in corporate land to be told by the CEO and the board what the strategy is and what the finance function needs to do first, second and third. When in this space,

Simon Dell (30:35)

Yeah.

David King (30:54)

Most of our new clients have never used a fractional CFO before. So they're looking at us to show them the way for them to get the biggest bang for buck from our involvement. So the CFO does need to have some hustle. They need to show their initiative and be on the front foot. They've got to be confident, you know, in terms of the communication. If you sort of take almost a step back and you're just waiting for the client to...

communicate with you or tell you what to do next, it's not going to work. So you do need those ones that really are, I call them go-getters.

Simon Dell (31:33)

Yeah, hunt, yeah, hunters or what? Yeah, go get it, whatever. Yeah, look, I, I, ⁓ I, 100%, 100 % agree with you. And which kind of leads nicely to sort of my, my next question was more about, you know, when we, had this, we had a podcast the other week where we, beat up an accountant for 45 minutes, which was great. ⁓ but there's, to me, there's a, there's an opportunity here for the CMOs, fractional CMOs.

David King (31:36)

Yeah.

Simon Dell (32:01)

to be working closely with fractional CFOs. And this is obviously the reason you and I have been speaking for such a long time is that there's an opportunity where fractional CMOs can be looking at businesses and going, well, look, I've got the marketing in order, but the money's disappearing, disappearing down a drain here and nobody knows where it's going. So I think, you know,

My advice to all of those fractional CMOs out there is go and find your local fractional CFOs. Have a beer with them, have a coffee with them, have lunch with them once a month, once a quarter, whatever it is, and start building those relationships. There is very little crossover and a good business who, I think this is the key.

The good businesses that recognizes the benefit of a fractional CFO will recognize the benefit of a fractional CMO and vice versa.

David King (33:01)

I agree. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, really, and I'd really encourage that too. I that's why we've got that relationship with you. We know fractional HR executives, we know fractional IT CIOs. ⁓ So they're the probably the main pillars in the background behind any business is, know, it's a finance, it's your marketing, it's your people or HR and it's your IT. ⁓

which also includes cyber and AI and everything else these days. So, you know, if you can build a best of breed network, ⁓ can really, it helps you in terms of, you you might be able to get some cross referrals happening, but it also really helps your clients because, you know, you are going to spot opportunities for the other. And if you've got people that you know and trust that you've built that trust up with over time.

Simon Dell (33:32)

Yeah. Yeah.

David King (33:57)

that do a good job for your client. It's only gonna make your relationship with your client stickier as well, because it sort of shows that you're thinking outside of just what you do as well. You're actually taking a wider view, a more strategic view of the business and of the business owner, as opposed to having a narrow focus. I'm just gonna do this piece. If you're just gonna be like task orientated, I find that those people don't find opportunities.

for others in their network and they don't even find opportunities for themselves potentially longer term with that client.

Simon Dell (34:35)

Yeah.

You and I discussed this last time we met was the idea of almost a panel of experts that you pay a flat rate for and you have access to them and you can use whichever ones that you want ⁓ every month. And I think you sum it up nicely, marketing, finance, IT, HR, my fifth one in that, the fifth horseman of the apocalypse, if it were, ⁓ would be legal because...

David King (35:04)

course, yeah that's me.

Simon Dell (35:05)

I think certainly the way my partner's a lawyer and she's been on the show a couple of times and ⁓ that actually, ⁓ interestingly enough, the legal fractional model I think is potentially older than anything else. Maybe not the finance one, but the idea, the concept of legal in-house counsel, ⁓ that a law firm is supplying you a lawyer in your office a day a week, two days a week.

to deal with the shitty legal things that occur. That's been around for long, long time. And again, it's just never been framed in this kind of trendy fractional, you know, in terms. So.

David King (35:42)

Yes.

Simon Dell (35:54)

People, when you go in-house council, it's like, that sounds kind of heavy and serious. know, whereas you go fractional lawyer, you're like, that sounds a lot more, you know, essentially doing the same thing, but just, you know, different jargon to kind of make things more attractive. But I think any sensible business needs to sit there and go, okay, a panel of those people, whether I use them or not, would be, would,

David King (36:02)

Yes.

Simon Dell (36:21)

for a growing business at a certain revenue and upwards would be a huge benefit to them.

David King (36:27)

I mean, you're getting this access to these skill sets that in the past were only reserved for the big end of town. So if you're a smaller business with ambition, you know, you should be looking at how did those bigger businesses get to that point? And part of it is because at some point on their journey, they got access to the C-suite as we call them. ⁓ Why not get them even earlier than ever before on this cost effective model to add rocket fuel?

Simon Dell (36:44)

Mm.

David King (36:57)

to your plans. you know, I think for me it's going back to...

The fractional executive has a responsibility to not load themselves up with so many clients that they then can't give any one client what they truly need. So like with our model, we make sure we don't load up any one CFO too much beyond a certain point of capacity.

because we always want that CFO to have some spare capacity or wriggle room in their diary or pull under because some clients need a bit more of their CFO at different stages or they might want to reschedule a meeting or whatever. So the fractional executive needs to make sure that, you know, if they've really got a true CX lens and they really want every client to feel like...

that's the only client they have, they've got to make sure that they balance their workloads and capacity levels effectively. And that's what we do as part of our model.

Simon Dell (38:14)

Yeah, yeah. Look, I was gonna sort of give an example. You kind of flagged, think, and you've said it a couple of times today, that the reason for this fractional model is offers supreme benefit, in my opinion, to the customer, to the client, right? And that they can get access to knowledge, skills, time from people that they would never ever be able to touch in the real world.

And the example I was going to give you to sort of wrap up the conversation today was that we had a client come to us, a food production business based in Melbourne producing this funky little health food, distribution in more worse with one of their products, et cetera, et cetera. So early on the growth curve, turning over less than a million. And they said, look, we need some marketing direction. We think we've got a great opportunity.

you know, and I looked at it and I just went, you these guys are absolutely prime for explosion. They could be, you know, doubling their revenue every year if they play their cards right. And we went out there to our network and said, wants to work with these guys? We said, budget's limited, they're not gonna be huge. Two of the people that applied that wanted to work with these guys, one was an ex-COMS director of Woolworths.

One was the former CMO of a very large fast food chain, national international fast food chain. There is no way that that company, if they'd gone out there and put an advert on Seekor, wherever they put, would have had access to that kind of people, right? And I think certainly from what we're doing at CMO, being able to have those people with those experiences and with you guys with the CFO Center going,

David King (40:01)

Exactly.

Simon Dell (40:11)

Hey, look at the pedigree of the people that we have. You can have these people advising in your business. I think that's what sets apart this fractional model than any other approach in any other model that's out there.

David King (40:27)

I totally agree. Yeah, the caliber of people is fantastic. you know, what we do is match the best CFO for that new client, whether that's industry experience with, you know, sector specific experience, whether that's location, whether that's personality, cultural, or all of the above.

really build that rapport from which trust can flow once you start delivering on the things you said that you were going to deliver on and then the magic flows from there.

Simon Dell (41:00)

Yeah, yeah. Look, thank you very much for your time today. I think there's some great insights out there. Perhaps just one sort of last gem. And I say this, maybe a piece of advice, we talked about it a bit data, but a piece of advice to that consultant out there that's starting off in that journey as a fractional CFR or fractional CMO, like.

David King (41:05)

question.

Simon Dell (41:27)

What's that one thing that you think that they should be out there, that they should be doing in order to grow their business and grow their suite of clients?

David King (41:39)

Look, if they've decided to make the jump and they've gone out there and they're starting to do it, I think, like I was saying, just putting yourself out there, opening yourself up to any fears or barriers that you might have, ⁓ remembering that it is just about relationships. It's not just about... I took the word selling out of my vocab.

in the early days, someone gave me that advice because I felt that was putting too much pressure on me. And I didn't see myself as a salesperson. I just saw myself as a financial guy that's got something to offer. And if you've got a need, you know, in my sweet spot, then I can help you. And it's just about having conversations and building relationships and

Simon Dell (42:09)

Yeah.

Mm.

David King (42:32)

You know, you're going to win some, you're going to lose some, like in anything in life, you'll have some setbacks. So you've got to be resilient as well. Things can take a bit longer than you might expect. So if you're really committed to it, then stick to it ⁓ and just be prepared for those little knockbacks. ⁓ But also just keep learning the trade, speak to other people and just keep working on your own pitch, your own language.

Simon Dell (42:56)

Yeah.

David King (43:02)

and you, you, you'll get there.

Simon Dell (43:06)

I love the word resilience. think that's an absolutely hugely valuable word for people starting off in this space. People starting off in this space, people five years into this space. think that's, you know.

David King (43:18)

Yeah, that's right.

Simon Dell (43:19)

that resilience and that confidence. And we've got a guy in Sydney who, when he goes in, is just, it's so confident. And he says, for me to work with you, it's going to be $20,000, right? But he says it was such a way that people are like, my God, we're getting a bargain. know, so it's whether it's presenting yourself in that way, ⁓ where you're pitching yourself in a way that you almost feel like you're giving them a discount. ⁓

you know, irrespective of actually how much you're charging. And further to your point, because what you've said is a hundred percent correct. And me being the marketer in me, come up with the, you know, I come up with the fancy expressions and way of saying it that perhaps the finance people don't. And I've always kind of been talking to people in the last year or so about this idea of... ⁓

BBFFs, so everyone in their, you know, people in their life have BFFs, you know, best friends forever. But it's about you going out there and having business best friends forever. Because I think if you're gonna build a good network, that roller decks of closely aligned people, that might only be 20 or 30 of them, those people that are out there singing your praises, those people that are out there are talking about you, that those people that are out there that might be at a breakfast that you're not and they're going,

Hey, you really need to speak to David. Let me do an introduction when I get back to the office, right? If you nurture those BBFFs, it takes time, but you will find that there will be so much more coming back from them because they're thinking about you, because you're front of mind to them, because they like you. And I think that's one of the realities. And I don't want to put people off.

David King (45:03)

it's massive. Yeah.

Simon Dell (45:09)

who are perhaps introvert like you sort of mentioned earlier, but forget referrals. The stark reality is people need to like you. And you can do that by buying them lunch. You could do that by playing golf with them. You could do that by simply picking up the phone and saying thank you sometimes.

David King (45:28)

Exactly right.

Simon Dell (45:29)

You know, so I think there's a lot, there's a lot to learn there from both the CFO center and hopefully from CMO. Mate, last question for you, where can people find you? What's the easiest way to get, reach out to you and get in contact with you?

David King (45:47)

website, cfocentre.com. We've got all the details are on there. You can look me up on LinkedIn. I'm active on LinkedIn. My email address is david.king at cfocentre.com. So drop me a line there. So there's a few different ways, even if it's just for initial chat, I can then introduce whether it's a

Simon Dell (46:06)

cool

David King (46:14)

a CMO that would now like to start up a relationship with a fractional CFO, then we can make that happen depending on where they're located around the country. Or if it's a business owner that just wants to have a confidential chat about where they are in life. We love having those initial conversations just to see if we can help because we're not going to try and be all things to all people, that's for sure.

Simon Dell (46:35)

Yep. Yep.

I would, and I would heartily recommend that to any business owners that are out there. If, if, if nothing else, go and have that 30 minute chat. If nothing comes out of it, if you don't feel that you need them now, I guarantee at some point, six months down the line, a year down the line, you'll be picking back the phone, picking up the phone again today and going, Hey, now, now I'm ready. Now I, now I need somebody. I've got to a position where I can afford it. I I'm comfortable spending that money and I need someone.

to help me on that journey. even if you don't need somebody now, at least reach out and make that contact, have that conversation now, and then park that in your head for when you do need it.

David King (47:11)

Yeah, timing.

Yeah, I've got to say, timings, everything. We've had some leagues that we nurtured for a few years before they finally went, I'm now ready.

Simon Dell (47:30)

yeah, yeah. Look, and we're the same as well. Some people, I'm one of those people. I want to do the research now, but I don't necessarily want to make the purchase now. But that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm not going to use you, but it just might take six months. And those people that make the effort now are the ones that I remember in six months.

Thank you very much for your time today. It's always a pleasure chatting with you. Next time obviously, back up here we'll have lunch again. Appreciate that, mate. Thank you very much.

David King (47:59)

Sounds great, so I'll text you the opportunity.

on here.