Jim Roche - CPA, MBA, founder and principal of Robust Alternatives and MyCFO

WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:03.319
The topics and opinions expressed in the
following show are solely those of the hosts

2
00:00:03.319 --> 00:00:06.040
and their guests, and not those
of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are

3
00:00:06.080 --> 00:00:10.080
affiliates. We make no recommendations or
endorsements radio show, programs, services,

4
00:00:10.160 --> 00:00:14.160
or products mentioned on air or on
our web. No liability explicitor implies shall

5
00:00:14.160 --> 00:00:17.839
be extended to W four CY Radio
or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions

6
00:00:17.920 --> 00:00:21.120
or comments should be directed to those
show hosts. Thank you for choosing W

7
00:00:21.199 --> 00:00:33.920
FOURCY Radio. Churchill said, those
who failed to learn from history are condemned

8
00:00:33.960 --> 00:00:39.000
to repeat it. Kevin Helenan believes
that certainly applies to business. Welcome to

9
00:00:39.280 --> 00:00:45.200
Winning Business Radio here at W four
CY Radio. That's W four cy dot

10
00:00:45.200 --> 00:00:54.520
com and now your host, Kevin
Helenair. Thanks everybody for joining in today.

11
00:00:54.560 --> 00:00:58.719
I'm Kevin Hallanan and welcome back to
Winning Business TV and Radio. We're

12
00:00:58.759 --> 00:01:03.920
on W four C dot com.
We're streaming live on talkfor tv dot com

13
00:01:03.920 --> 00:01:07.920
in addition to Facebook and that's at
Winning Business Radio, and of course we're

14
00:01:07.920 --> 00:01:14.359
available in podcasts after the live show
on many other platforms including YouTube, iHeartRadio,

15
00:01:14.480 --> 00:01:18.480
Spotify app well pretty much wherever you
listen to your favorite podcasts were there.

16
00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:23.120
The mission of winning business radio and
TV, as regular viewers and listeners

17
00:01:23.159 --> 00:01:26.920
know, is to offer insights and
advice, really to help people avoid the

18
00:01:26.920 --> 00:01:30.760
mistakes of others. Right. That's
to learn best practices, the how tos,

19
00:01:30.920 --> 00:01:34.519
the what toos, the what not
tos, to be challenged and certainly

20
00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:38.079
and hopefully to be inspired by the
successes of others. But you know,

21
00:01:38.439 --> 00:01:41.920
virtually every successful person that I've ever
had a chance to talk to has had

22
00:01:41.959 --> 00:01:46.000
some form of failure in their lives
and careers. Right, So while we

23
00:01:46.040 --> 00:01:48.439
all have to get our knees skinned
once in a while, I'm driven to

24
00:01:48.519 --> 00:01:52.400
keep those scrapes from needing major surgery. Let's endeavor to learn from history so

25
00:01:52.400 --> 00:01:55.920
we don't repeat it today. My
guest is Jim Roach, CPA and MBA

26
00:01:56.040 --> 00:02:00.319
and founder and principle of Robust Alternatives. Here's Jim's bio in his thirty plus

27
00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:04.760
years of professional experience, Jim,
I just called you old. Jim Roach

28
00:02:04.799 --> 00:02:07.919
has seen many companies that are successful
within their industry, great products and great

29
00:02:07.960 --> 00:02:13.039
reputations. The founders are experts working
in their business. What he has also

30
00:02:13.080 --> 00:02:16.439
observed however, is that far too
many of those founders and leaders can't seem

31
00:02:16.479 --> 00:02:21.879
to find the time to work on
their business. Jim understands that every hour

32
00:02:21.919 --> 00:02:25.800
a business owner spends tracking their business
as an hour less spent growing and serving

33
00:02:25.840 --> 00:02:32.840
their customers. Robust Alternatives consults owners
and managers to discern key performance indicators and

34
00:02:32.960 --> 00:02:38.280
leading indicators for their specific business.
When a system consistently captures, tracks,

35
00:02:38.280 --> 00:02:43.639
and reports on financial and non financial
measures, owners and managers simply refer to

36
00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:47.080
a dashboard of activity and results to
discern the health and direction of current operations.

37
00:02:47.879 --> 00:02:54.360
Growing profitable companies are constantly looking for
creative ways to finance expanded working capital

38
00:02:54.400 --> 00:03:00.000
needs. Anticipating those needs and approaching
the bank at the idea time is more

39
00:03:00.120 --> 00:03:06.120
art than science. Robust alternatives determines
which lenders tend to lend to, which

40
00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:08.599
industries and key items to lenders need
to get a deal approved. Jim's a

41
00:03:08.599 --> 00:03:15.400
CPA principle of robust alternatives assisting companies
in designing and often redesigning their financial functions

42
00:03:15.719 --> 00:03:21.280
to discern, capture, and track
progress on key matrices both financial and non

43
00:03:21.319 --> 00:03:28.400
financial. Robust alternatives delivers exceptional value
as the chief financial officers, officer excuse

44
00:03:28.439 --> 00:03:31.240
me for companies and a growth or
turnaround wind down mode. Additionally, Jim

45
00:03:31.240 --> 00:03:35.319
has been involved in high level tax
planning and preparation for the last twenty years,

46
00:03:35.319 --> 00:03:40.520
where robust alternatives helped individuals and businesses
minimize taxes to advanced planning and proper

47
00:03:40.520 --> 00:03:46.400
structure. Jim's focus is on manufacturing, distribution, and service sector sectors where

48
00:03:46.439 --> 00:03:52.360
he analyzes the interrelation between company and
owner taxation. He received dis Bachelor of

49
00:03:52.680 --> 00:03:58.800
Business Administration in Accounting from the USS
from UMass Amherst and received as MBA from

50
00:03:58.879 --> 00:04:02.240
Babson Graduate School Business. He founded
his consulting and tax practice in ninety three.

51
00:04:03.039 --> 00:04:06.919
Prior to that, he has experience
with a local two partner CPA firm,

52
00:04:08.159 --> 00:04:13.000
where experiences gained working side by side
with a partner regional tax planning firm

53
00:04:13.199 --> 00:04:17.439
focusing on clients ranging from high income
individuals to average American wagejourners and estate and

54
00:04:17.519 --> 00:04:23.319
trust returns. Much time was spent
focusing on the tax impacts on business owners

55
00:04:23.360 --> 00:04:27.399
and their families, and a national
CPA firm where his focus was accounting and

56
00:04:27.480 --> 00:04:31.480
business advisory services. Typical assignments range
from serving as a permanent part time CFO,

57
00:04:31.600 --> 00:04:36.399
performing due diligence and acquisitions, implementing
a strategic shift of a troubled company,

58
00:04:36.800 --> 00:04:41.839
preventing an auction of fixed assets by
the secure lender while creating profitable operations.

59
00:04:42.040 --> 00:04:46.000
He's a long standing member of the
American Institute for Certified Public Accountants and

60
00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:51.560
the Massachusetts Society for Certified Public Accounants. He often delivers educational and entertaining speaking

61
00:04:51.600 --> 00:04:57.480
engagements on subjects like taxation, worker
retention, motivation, leadership development, growth

62
00:04:57.480 --> 00:05:00.519
strategies, change management, planning,
and goal achievement. And that's all the

63
00:05:00.519 --> 00:05:03.759
time we have today, just kidding. Jim's married to Wendy. They have

64
00:05:03.800 --> 00:05:08.879
twenty seven year old twin daughters,
Chloe and Sabrina, a twenty four year

65
00:05:08.879 --> 00:05:12.839
old son, Blaine, and they
resolve reside while in Franklin, mass Jim,

66
00:05:12.920 --> 00:05:15.160
welcome to Winning Business Radio and TV. Thanks for being here. Great,

67
00:05:15.160 --> 00:05:17.480
Thank you, Kevin. I appreciate
the opportunity. And yes, it

68
00:05:17.519 --> 00:05:21.519
does make me sound old with all
those you and me, both you and

69
00:05:21.519 --> 00:05:25.079
me, both brothers. All right, So first of all, let's get

70
00:05:25.079 --> 00:05:28.199
the important stuff out of the way. Tell us about Wendy. Yeah,

71
00:05:28.279 --> 00:05:30.399
so, so, Wendy is going
to be thirty five year anniversary in October,

72
00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:34.120
right, stated three years before that, because you got to be sure.

73
00:05:34.279 --> 00:05:38.959
She tells me not to state those
stats everybody, because she says it

74
00:05:39.040 --> 00:05:44.639
makes her as well. And does
she work? Does she does? She?

75
00:05:44.800 --> 00:05:46.839
Does she? Or does she have
a career? Yeah? Yeah,

76
00:05:46.879 --> 00:05:49.439
she does so right now she works
at the National Seating and Mobility, which

77
00:05:49.480 --> 00:05:54.639
is a national wheelchair company, and
she supports their number one sales guy who

78
00:05:57.439 --> 00:06:03.199
will designed wheelchairs to to various people
everywhere. That's very cool. And tell

79
00:06:03.240 --> 00:06:08.959
us about your kids. So the
kids we've got. My daughter Sabrina is

80
00:06:10.199 --> 00:06:14.439
an ICU Hot Surgical ICU nurse at
the Brigham Wow. Cool yep. My

81
00:06:14.560 --> 00:06:18.560
daughter Chloe is a yoga instructor of
personal trainer and nutritionist. And my son

82
00:06:18.639 --> 00:06:23.079
Blaine is looking for a job as
an engineer a New York City or the

83
00:06:23.120 --> 00:06:27.759
region my way, shameless plug.
Tell us a little bit more about that,

84
00:06:28.199 --> 00:06:30.879
maybe get lucky. So, so
Blaine is a Northeastern grad. His

85
00:06:30.959 --> 00:06:35.720
ideal job is a design engineer,
but he's looking for some kind of engineering

86
00:06:35.759 --> 00:06:40.120
that gets them close to New York
City. That's that's his key thing right

87
00:06:40.160 --> 00:06:43.240
now. All right, So if
you if you know of anybody who might

88
00:06:43.279 --> 00:06:46.439
be looking for a gentleman like that, young guy like that. Jim's information

89
00:06:46.519 --> 00:06:49.160
is coming across the crawl, and
you can reach out to me at kevinet

90
00:06:49.160 --> 00:06:53.639
Winning Business Radio dot com. Maybe
we get lucky, all right, tell

91
00:06:53.720 --> 00:06:56.480
us about your background. You grew
up in Foxboro, Massachusetts, home of

92
00:06:56.519 --> 00:06:59.680
the Patriots, now home of the
Patriots. You bet you, you bet

93
00:06:59.759 --> 00:07:03.000
you so yes. I'm a product
of public education Foxboro High it was a

94
00:07:03.040 --> 00:07:06.560
great place to grow up. We
actually had a pretty big class relatively speaking.

95
00:07:06.600 --> 00:07:12.959
There were three hundred and sixty five
kids in my graduating class from there.

96
00:07:13.319 --> 00:07:16.920
It was a typical blue collar upbringing
from my perspective. And I was

97
00:07:17.160 --> 00:07:20.720
betwixting between whether I was this close
to going into the Air Force. He

98
00:07:20.839 --> 00:07:25.040
was looking at truck driving school.
I was looking at auto mechanics school,

99
00:07:25.040 --> 00:07:28.439
and I figured U massy Amherst had
a lot to offer, so I'd find

100
00:07:28.439 --> 00:07:30.600
a major up there. And I
went up as an undeclared major to U

101
00:07:30.600 --> 00:07:34.920
mass Amherst. And it took me
two and a half years to actually get

102
00:07:34.920 --> 00:07:38.839
a major. I was a second
semester junior before they finally let me into

103
00:07:38.839 --> 00:07:43.720
the School of Business, and my
roommate was trying the same track and he

104
00:07:43.839 --> 00:07:47.160
had to go what's called bachelor's degree
with individual concentration, so he got an

105
00:07:47.199 --> 00:07:50.800
accounting slash finance degree out of the
College of Arts and Sciences. I got

106
00:07:50.839 --> 00:07:55.319
into the School of Business. His
first semester was a little less stellar than

107
00:07:55.360 --> 00:07:59.120
mine, so I think I made
the cut there and he did. Eisenberg.

108
00:07:59.199 --> 00:08:03.000
That's a good school. Eisenberg was
a very good school. And yeah,

109
00:08:03.079 --> 00:08:07.040
that was as you know, it's
a city up there, and it's

110
00:08:07.160 --> 00:08:09.879
quite a big school. And then, of course my graduate work was at

111
00:08:09.879 --> 00:08:15.399
Babson, which was a complete three
sixty and of course I had to go

112
00:08:15.600 --> 00:08:18.279
my first semester at Babson, I
was trying to wave out of a class,

113
00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:20.639
so I had to go talk to
the burs or the registrar or somebody.

114
00:08:20.639 --> 00:08:22.959
And my vision was, you mass, You're in a line for an

115
00:08:22.959 --> 00:08:26.439
hour and a half, tons of
other people. And I get there and

116
00:08:26.480 --> 00:08:28.639
the burser comes out and says,
oh, come into my office, and

117
00:08:28.680 --> 00:08:33.080
I sat down in a chair next
to the desk and had a regular conversation,

118
00:08:33.120 --> 00:08:37.639
which is I guess thirty grand a
year versus public school, it says

119
00:08:37.200 --> 00:08:41.000
that's all thirty grand back then,
but back then, yeah, back then.

120
00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:46.960
So what were your early interests and
what made you choose accounting? So

121
00:08:46.960 --> 00:08:52.720
so so it was actually I had
a bookkeeping teacher in high school, Missus

122
00:08:52.720 --> 00:08:56.759
Triacas. She was the typing teacher
first back when there was actually typewriters,

123
00:08:56.840 --> 00:09:03.600
and she also taught bookkeeping, and
so that just kind of clicked for me,

124
00:09:03.679 --> 00:09:05.960
and I said, you know,
I understand that, and it made

125
00:09:05.960 --> 00:09:09.919
sense. And then, like I
said, I got up to UMass and

126
00:09:09.960 --> 00:09:11.799
I wasn't sure where I was going, and I said, you know,

127
00:09:11.840 --> 00:09:16.879
that bookkeeping kind of enthralled me,
and I jumped in my first accounting class

128
00:09:16.960 --> 00:09:20.039
up there, and again it just
kind of clicked. So I started down

129
00:09:20.080 --> 00:09:22.840
that path. And then I quickly
realized, well, you know, they

130
00:09:22.840 --> 00:09:26.120
say accounting is the language of business, and so if you understand accounting,

131
00:09:26.440 --> 00:09:30.960
you can jump into different businesses.
And so I quickly got my mind set

132
00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:35.600
on taking the CPA track because I
saw it as an opportunity to jump into

133
00:09:35.639 --> 00:09:39.279
a bunch of different industries as opposed
to get pigeonholed into one industry and kind

134
00:09:39.279 --> 00:09:43.120
of, you know, living your
career there. So it was a unique

135
00:09:43.159 --> 00:09:48.480
opportunity to see, you know,
what people in different industries measure and how

136
00:09:48.600 --> 00:09:52.759
that can impact crossing industries, et
cetera. So that that was exciting for

137
00:09:52.840 --> 00:09:56.399
me. That's cool. When did
you know so right away CPA? My

138
00:09:56.480 --> 00:10:00.720
question was when did you know you
wanted to be in PubL accounting? Did

139
00:10:00.720 --> 00:10:05.080
you know what that meant? Yeah? Yeah, So I didn't know what

140
00:10:05.080 --> 00:10:09.759
that meant, and it turned out
to be exactly what I thought it meant.

141
00:10:09.799 --> 00:10:11.279
So it was a chance to look
at some taxes and like I said,

142
00:10:11.279 --> 00:10:16.039
a chance to look at a whole
bunch of different industries. And so

143
00:10:16.159 --> 00:10:20.399
I was in the CPA world for
I think it was about four and a

144
00:10:20.440 --> 00:10:22.960
half years, and then I jumped
ship and went to this private company.

145
00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:28.279
And it was interesting there because that
was my first view of the opportunity of

146
00:10:28.279 --> 00:10:31.759
a fractional CFO, which I didn't
know it was called that then, But

147
00:10:31.960 --> 00:10:35.360
I just saw these two guys that
were running this business for thirty years and

148
00:10:35.399 --> 00:10:39.320
had absolutely no systems in place.
Wow. I mean one of my first

149
00:10:39.360 --> 00:10:45.399
conversations was who's your top ten customers? And they couldn't produce a piece of

150
00:10:45.399 --> 00:10:48.519
paper that showed me the top ten
customers, and they knew off the top

151
00:10:48.559 --> 00:10:50.440
of the heads number one, two
or three, but they couldn't produce a

152
00:10:50.559 --> 00:10:56.679
document that showed me who their customers
were. The seventy year old. So

153
00:10:56.720 --> 00:10:58.399
there were two guys there. One
was the engineer, one was the accounting

154
00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:03.200
function, and the seventy two year
old accounting guy was involved in reconciling the

155
00:11:03.240 --> 00:11:09.000
bank statement every month. And these
guys made money for thirty years, and

156
00:11:09.159 --> 00:11:11.559
I just think, geez, how
much better would they have done if they

157
00:11:11.639 --> 00:11:16.840
had some numbers to guide them along
the way. And so that's kind of

158
00:11:16.840 --> 00:11:20.000
where that kind of gelled and took
place there. And during that time I

159
00:11:20.039 --> 00:11:24.559
also went back and got my graduate
degree while I was working as well,

160
00:11:24.639 --> 00:11:30.360
so knights at Babson, And that
was an invaluable experience because for a couple

161
00:11:30.399 --> 00:11:33.559
of reasons. One, you're working
with people I was. I was about

162
00:11:33.679 --> 00:11:37.120
by the time I graduated, I
was ten years of experience. But you're

163
00:11:37.480 --> 00:11:41.159
at school during the day learning theory, and then you can go I'm sorry,

164
00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:45.080
at school a night learning theory,
and you can go back during the

165
00:11:45.120 --> 00:11:48.320
day and practice that at the office
if you will, and figure out,

166
00:11:48.559 --> 00:11:52.639
you know, what's real and what's
what's just theoretical? So it was,

167
00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:56.759
and you're working with a bunch of
other folks that are in the same spot

168
00:11:56.799 --> 00:12:00.440
that you know, you're on a
project with somebody, and there the different

169
00:12:00.440 --> 00:12:03.639
industry and they're working full time as
well. So it's there was an entrepreneurial

170
00:12:03.679 --> 00:12:07.559
focus on that grad degree as well, right you it was it was yep,

171
00:12:07.639 --> 00:12:11.240
yep, it was. He was
entrepreneurial and entrepreneurial and entrepreneurial finance.

172
00:12:11.639 --> 00:12:16.840
So I took a lot of entrepreneurship
courses and there was some great professors there.

173
00:12:16.840 --> 00:12:20.159
And again even the professors, a
lot of them were adjunct professors that

174
00:12:20.200 --> 00:12:24.120
were running up business during the day, and some of them were full time

175
00:12:24.159 --> 00:12:28.639
professors that cashed out of their business
and so so it was great that a

176
00:12:28.679 --> 00:12:31.120
lot of them had contacts and brought
in people that were going through issues.

177
00:12:31.159 --> 00:12:35.120
I remember this one guy. One
course that was in was an entrepreneurial finance

178
00:12:35.159 --> 00:12:39.799
course, and the guy's name was
Mendez, and so it was Mondays and

179
00:12:39.879 --> 00:12:43.159
about Mendez. And so first he
came in and spoke to us about all

180
00:12:43.159 --> 00:12:46.559
the crappy was going through and he
had people chasing him because he was in

181
00:12:46.639 --> 00:12:50.799
debt here because this financing deal fell
through and uh. And so after he

182
00:12:50.840 --> 00:12:54.080
spoke to us every Monday, the
professor would give us an update on Okay,

183
00:12:54.080 --> 00:13:00.200
now the sheriff is now the decease
and desist on that. But it

184
00:12:58.919 --> 00:13:05.080
was it was quite interesting that you're
looking at real lifestyle. Yeah, so

185
00:13:05.120 --> 00:13:09.039
you've had experience at small companies and
large companies. I love your description of

186
00:13:09.879 --> 00:13:13.120
if I say this correctly, Leavehal
and horwont yep yep. Labnthal and Horoat

187
00:13:13.240 --> 00:13:16.840
was the number nine back when they
were a big eight back then. And

188
00:13:16.360 --> 00:13:20.159
yeah, so that that was the
national experience, and it was it was

189
00:13:20.360 --> 00:13:26.159
unique in that most of the big
firms, you're either a tax person or

190
00:13:26.200 --> 00:13:30.960
you're an accounting person. And they
had what they called their small Business Advisory

191
00:13:31.399 --> 00:13:35.559
Department, which kept both under that
same umbrella. My background before that,

192
00:13:35.679 --> 00:13:39.480
I was at a two person CPA
firm. Then I was at a regional

193
00:13:39.480 --> 00:13:41.799
tax planning firm, and so I
had a lot of good tax knowledge and

194
00:13:43.240 --> 00:13:46.360
to go the accounting route didn't make
sense, but I liked accounting, so

195
00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:50.200
to blend the two of them.
Labathal was perfect for that because you were

196
00:13:50.320 --> 00:13:54.720
doing both the corporate tax returns and
the individual tax returns. And certainly if

197
00:13:54.759 --> 00:13:58.720
there's a flow through it to be
like an escort for an LLC where the

198
00:13:58.759 --> 00:14:01.720
owner's taxes are impact by the business, it makes a whole lot of sense

199
00:14:01.759 --> 00:14:05.759
to keep them together. And that's
what labonbal did. But it was it

200
00:14:05.840 --> 00:14:09.720
was great because to go there and
see some of the resources that a national

201
00:14:09.759 --> 00:14:11.440
firm has, and you know,
the research departments and all that other kind

202
00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:16.240
of stuff, it was it was
a great experience. All right, we're

203
00:14:16.240 --> 00:14:18.919
gonna pause right here. We're gonna
take our first break. It's about a

204
00:14:18.960 --> 00:14:26.559
minute. We'll be right back with
Jim Roach. You're listening to Winning Business

205
00:14:26.639 --> 00:14:31.440
Radio with Kevin Helene on W four
CY Radio. That's W four cy dot

206
00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:35.399
com. Don't go away. More
helpful information is coming right up right here

207
00:14:35.519 --> 00:14:43.639
on Winning Business Radio. Have you
ever dreamt of being on the radio,

208
00:14:43.960 --> 00:14:46.360
Well, now it's your chance be
a radio show guest on the number one

209
00:14:46.519 --> 00:14:52.200
ranked internet radio station and promote you
and your business for free. Yes you

210
00:14:52.279 --> 00:14:56.240
heard it, free business advertising right
here on W four cy dot com.

211
00:14:56.600 --> 00:15:01.879
Call five six to one five zero
six four zero three to one now to

212
00:15:01.919 --> 00:15:05.320
get booked on one of our shows. That's five six one five zero six

213
00:15:05.559 --> 00:15:15.639
four zero three one. Get your
free advertising now and now back to Winning

214
00:15:15.679 --> 00:15:20.440
Business Radio with Kevin helenan presenting exciting
topics and expert guests with one goal in

215
00:15:20.519 --> 00:15:26.240
mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again is Kevin Helena.

216
00:15:35.399 --> 00:15:41.360
We're back with Jim Roach, founder
and CEO president all Things you Know,

217
00:15:41.440 --> 00:15:48.440
All Things Bossy of Robust Alternatives.
What drove your decision to get the NBA?

218
00:15:50.960 --> 00:15:54.240
What drove my decision to get the
NBA. I mean, I really

219
00:15:54.240 --> 00:15:58.720
liked Babson and I really liked entrepreneurship, So I think it was more it

220
00:15:58.759 --> 00:16:02.039
was more of the drive to BAPS
than it was for the NBA. You

221
00:16:02.080 --> 00:16:06.519
know, I small businesses and growing
small businesses and trying to figure out how

222
00:16:06.519 --> 00:16:11.080
to fund small businesses. That was
kind of all my background and Babson was

223
00:16:11.080 --> 00:16:14.000
a perfect fit for that, and
so I think it was more about Babson

224
00:16:14.039 --> 00:16:18.200
than it was the degree. And
I want you to tell folks with this

225
00:16:18.279 --> 00:16:22.600
being's finalists for the Douglas Prize,
given to the top three graduate business plans

226
00:16:22.039 --> 00:16:25.639
produced at BABS and during an academic
year, and tell us a little bit

227
00:16:25.639 --> 00:16:29.600
about the business plan. Noh,
yeah, so that was there's a course

228
00:16:29.639 --> 00:16:33.000
called Entrepreneurship and the whole focus of
the course is to write a business plan,

229
00:16:33.519 --> 00:16:37.519
and so it's a group of project. And so there were four people

230
00:16:37.519 --> 00:16:41.679
in our group, one of which
you may know Kevin. A woman named

231
00:16:41.759 --> 00:16:48.600
Lisa Leveck who is a group leader
of a provider's affinity group these days.

232
00:16:48.759 --> 00:16:52.240
Lisa and I were in that group
together, and actually I lost touch with

233
00:16:52.279 --> 00:16:55.480
her for probably ten years, and
we ran into each other at a different

234
00:16:55.480 --> 00:16:59.639
networking event. But anyways, so
the whole thing is you're submitting this this

235
00:17:00.240 --> 00:17:04.039
it's it's a class project, and
all of the instructors get together and they

236
00:17:04.440 --> 00:17:10.880
grade these plans not just for your
class grade, but to go into what

237
00:17:10.920 --> 00:17:15.559
they call the Douglas Prize. So
there was a guy Douglas who promotes this,

238
00:17:15.799 --> 00:17:21.119
who funded this prize, and so
all the graduate plans go in there,

239
00:17:21.200 --> 00:17:23.519
and then there are I forget how
many finalists there were, but we'll

240
00:17:23.519 --> 00:17:26.640
say there was a half a dozen. My wife as like exaggerate, so

241
00:17:26.720 --> 00:17:32.119
let's say that was twenty and we
were one hundreds, hundreds, hundreds,

242
00:17:30.839 --> 00:17:34.319
so so so it is everybody that
rode a business plan that year. But

243
00:17:34.359 --> 00:17:40.079
then there's there's X number that get
to present before a board of investors or

244
00:17:40.119 --> 00:17:44.680
whatnot, and and we made the
final cut there and our presentation ended up

245
00:17:44.680 --> 00:17:49.640
being the top so the third prize
there, and the feedback we got afterwards

246
00:17:49.759 --> 00:17:53.319
was it would have been better except
we didn't say we were going to take

247
00:17:53.319 --> 00:17:59.440
over the world and roll this thing
across the universe and yeah, yeah,

248
00:17:59.559 --> 00:18:03.079
so it was a whole lot of
fun. It was quite a stressful project,

249
00:18:03.079 --> 00:18:07.119
so as as we see in many
of our business projects. You know,

250
00:18:07.200 --> 00:18:14.160
you get to eighty five percent of
your of your time allotment and you've

251
00:18:14.160 --> 00:18:17.079
only got twenty percent of the work
done. You're like, oh, how

252
00:18:17.160 --> 00:18:18.480
is this going to come together?
And then magically at the end it all

253
00:18:18.480 --> 00:18:22.519
comes together. And apparently we had
a pretty good plan because yeah, we

254
00:18:22.880 --> 00:18:26.039
ended up getting I believe it was
three thousand I think it was ten to

255
00:18:26.119 --> 00:18:32.559
five and three one thousand dollars for
plan. Yeah, and well I have

256
00:18:32.640 --> 00:18:37.000
it actually right here, this lovely
little clock as well as Douglas Prize on

257
00:18:37.039 --> 00:18:40.640
the front there. But cool.
Yeah, yes, that was nineteen ninety

258
00:18:40.640 --> 00:18:42.480
five and its still sitting right there
on the shelf. Because it's kind of

259
00:18:42.480 --> 00:18:45.799
a cool thing. Love it all. Right, So in ninety three,

260
00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:52.440
you are currently working. You founded
Robust Alternatives and my CFO while you're working

261
00:18:52.440 --> 00:18:55.920
full time. Did I get that
right? Yeah? Yeah, And my

262
00:18:56.039 --> 00:19:00.240
CFO part came a little bit later, but yeah, okay, So tell

263
00:19:00.279 --> 00:19:04.880
us about Robust Alternatives and what was
behind the founding of that organization. And

264
00:19:06.200 --> 00:19:08.160
as I said, you did it
while you were working elsewhere. Yeah,

265
00:19:08.240 --> 00:19:11.400
yeah, So I was working elsewhere. I was. I was working in

266
00:19:11.519 --> 00:19:15.000
the company with the two gentlemen that
worked at thirty years and we're trying to

267
00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:18.200
sell the company, and so,
like I said, that was kind of

268
00:19:18.240 --> 00:19:22.640
the genesis. But it really started
out as tax and business advisory so as

269
00:19:22.680 --> 00:19:26.519
to not obviously compete with my current
employer. So I was doing some tax

270
00:19:26.559 --> 00:19:32.599
returns at night for business owners primarily, although business owners come along with a

271
00:19:32.599 --> 00:19:37.400
couple of owners and sometimes a mother
as well and maybe a daughter. Right,

272
00:19:36.680 --> 00:19:41.480
So yeah, I started doing some
tax returns because I had a whole

273
00:19:41.519 --> 00:19:44.640
lot of good tax experience and I
wasn't in a tax firm anymore, so

274
00:19:45.319 --> 00:19:48.960
it seemed like a natural fit there. And then, like I said,

275
00:19:48.119 --> 00:19:52.519
this one company I was at these
guys, after me being there and putting

276
00:19:52.599 --> 00:19:56.200
some systems in place for them,
decided that they were going to try to

277
00:19:56.240 --> 00:20:00.599
sell the company. And me and
the guy that I work for, who

278
00:20:00.720 --> 00:20:04.519
was technically the accounting manager, but
he was more like an operations guy.

279
00:20:04.599 --> 00:20:08.000
He really didn't know any accounting at
all. He was a finance background.

280
00:20:08.119 --> 00:20:11.160
He was a shop guy. So
he and I decided, Hey, let's

281
00:20:11.160 --> 00:20:15.359
put a bid in and try to
buy this company. And so actually back

282
00:20:15.440 --> 00:20:21.240
up, so the company was approached
by a Nasdaq traded It was an adhesive

283
00:20:21.279 --> 00:20:26.279
manufacturing company, and so there was
a company locktight down in Connecticut that was

284
00:20:26.319 --> 00:20:29.920
interested in us, and they went
down the path doing the due diligence and

285
00:20:30.319 --> 00:20:33.279
trying to buy us, and then
they had a reorg and so they prolled

286
00:20:33.319 --> 00:20:38.039
everything off the table and stopped doing
any acquisitions. And then me and like

287
00:20:38.079 --> 00:20:41.359
I said, my boss, decided, let's try to put this thing together.

288
00:20:41.400 --> 00:20:45.000
And we ended up getting Bank Boston
to give us a subordinated loan,

289
00:20:45.039 --> 00:20:49.640
and we were looking for a senior
lender and some other money. And the

290
00:20:49.759 --> 00:20:53.119
general manager, who was both of
our bosses at the time, was trying

291
00:20:53.119 --> 00:20:56.839
to do the deal himself, and
he ended up doing the deal before we

292
00:20:56.880 --> 00:21:00.559
did and made it clear he didn't
want to play with us. So it

293
00:21:00.599 --> 00:21:03.680
was a whole lot of good experience. But like I said, that was

294
00:21:03.759 --> 00:21:07.599
kind of the genesis of these guys
ran this company for thirty years with no

295
00:21:07.680 --> 00:21:12.400
information. Let's see what we're out
there about. Getting some part time CFO

296
00:21:12.599 --> 00:21:18.799
help into these companies on a fractional
basis. That's kind of the genesis of

297
00:21:18.839 --> 00:21:22.119
my CFO side of you know,
robust alternatives, like I said, started

298
00:21:22.119 --> 00:21:26.559
out more as a tax planning and
business advisory and morphed into the CFO.

299
00:21:27.039 --> 00:21:32.200
Also during that time, you became
an associate excuse me, assistant director for

300
00:21:32.279 --> 00:21:37.759
B and I Business Network International,
heavily involved in networking to grow business through

301
00:21:37.079 --> 00:21:41.079
word of mouth. Describe that describe
B and I for those that aren't familiar,

302
00:21:41.119 --> 00:21:45.880
and that assistant director role. Yeah, So B and I was a

303
00:21:45.920 --> 00:21:52.480
great spot for businesses to meet other
businesses, get referrals. Their whole tagline

304
00:21:52.559 --> 00:21:55.759
was no like and trust. So
of course you're going to know somebody if

305
00:21:55.799 --> 00:21:56.759
you're going to give them some business, and you're gonna like them if you're

306
00:21:56.759 --> 00:22:00.359
going to give them business. And
once you get that trust, thing going

307
00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:03.279
and you hear feedback from other people, it kind of really takes off.

308
00:22:03.839 --> 00:22:07.920
So at the time, the woman
that owned the franchise in the region,

309
00:22:07.720 --> 00:22:15.079
it was relatively small and there was
probably only maybe a dozen assistant directors on

310
00:22:15.119 --> 00:22:18.359
the team, and it grew tremendously
from there. So at the at the

311
00:22:18.559 --> 00:22:23.759
zenith, I had seven groups that
I was overseeing just as a very part

312
00:22:23.759 --> 00:22:27.240
time thing, and so it was
kind of crazy. But there are groups

313
00:22:27.279 --> 00:22:30.559
that get together once a week and
like I said, they get to know

314
00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:34.039
like and trust each other. They
give a little commercial every week and they

315
00:22:34.079 --> 00:22:38.480
passed business between each other, or
they listen for other people that made need

316
00:22:38.519 --> 00:22:44.319
businesses. And so for me it
was it was great as a as a

317
00:22:44.319 --> 00:22:47.400
as a CPA at the time,
I really had my tax practice more than

318
00:22:47.440 --> 00:22:52.079
the cfo's thing going in there,
and everybody needs a CPA, everybody that's

319
00:22:52.079 --> 00:22:56.119
getting in the business and business to
business was my focus, and so it

320
00:22:56.160 --> 00:22:59.359
was a great spot for a me
to get business and then b for me

321
00:22:59.440 --> 00:23:03.119
to meet other people like yourself.
You know, I might have clients that

322
00:23:03.279 --> 00:23:06.480
need help with their sales department and
I don't do any of that stuff.

323
00:23:06.519 --> 00:23:10.519
And if I know somebody that does
it, and we're both talking to the

324
00:23:10.559 --> 00:23:14.759
same prospects. It makes a whole
lot of sense for B and I to

325
00:23:14.799 --> 00:23:18.440
do that. And it was a
great business model because they didn't have any

326
00:23:18.480 --> 00:23:21.400
salespeople. The people in the chapter
were the salespeople. I'll look around and

327
00:23:21.440 --> 00:23:22.759
I'll say, all right, I
need a good lawyer, I need a

328
00:23:22.759 --> 00:23:26.039
good sales consultant, I need a
good HR And I go out and find

329
00:23:26.079 --> 00:23:29.960
those people, convince them to join
to give B and I money, which

330
00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:33.640
eventually gives me money. So it's
it was a great model because it's very

331
00:23:33.880 --> 00:23:37.799
circular in nations circuits and so so
yeah, it worked great. And I

332
00:23:37.880 --> 00:23:42.440
was on the regional team the way
I said, working for the woman that

333
00:23:42.799 --> 00:23:48.279
owns the owned if she's sold out, but owned the franchise for about six

334
00:23:48.319 --> 00:23:52.200
and a half years, and I
met a boatload of people, and I

335
00:23:52.279 --> 00:23:56.519
got some good exposure myself, and
it taught me a whole lot about speaking

336
00:23:56.240 --> 00:24:02.480
professionally and presentation skills as well as
networking skills. And that's where you and

337
00:24:02.559 --> 00:24:06.240
I met originally. That's where we
met originally, exactly exactly, Yeah,

338
00:24:06.319 --> 00:24:07.839
And because of that, I got
out to Chambers and you were pretty big

339
00:24:07.839 --> 00:24:12.079
in the Norwood Chamber at the time. Yeah, it got me some great

340
00:24:12.119 --> 00:24:19.839
exposure and invaluable experience. So you
also co founded a company as cfo amfonol

341
00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:25.359
Ardent Concepts. You were there for
I think you're LinkedIn showed about fifteen years.

342
00:24:25.359 --> 00:24:29.119
Tell us about that company and what
that process of starting that company look

343
00:24:29.240 --> 00:24:33.160
like. Yeah, absolutely, so
it was called and it was called the

344
00:24:33.240 --> 00:24:36.640
Ardent Concepts at the time, and
Anfanol the Sense bought them out. But

345
00:24:36.720 --> 00:24:41.079
yeah, we started this company.
It was the main guy. My favorite

346
00:24:41.079 --> 00:24:44.960
type of company. You get an
engineer and you get a salesperson together,

347
00:24:45.480 --> 00:24:48.720
and if they started a company,
they need me. They need those two

348
00:24:48.720 --> 00:24:53.440
guys know how to spend money and
don't know how to track it and how

349
00:24:53.440 --> 00:24:57.960
to control it. And so that's
exactly what happened. So there was the

350
00:24:59.000 --> 00:25:03.160
two guys there. Gordon was the
engineer, Steve was the sales guy.

351
00:25:03.440 --> 00:25:10.519
Steve actually side note went to Northeastern
Business School and me, Gordon and Steve

352
00:25:10.640 --> 00:25:12.839
did a business plan competition there and
I think he came in fourth or so

353
00:25:12.920 --> 00:25:17.920
there with his business plan. So
that was a completely different business. Wharton

354
00:25:18.039 --> 00:25:21.440
was a crazy engineer, that has
I don't know, ninety seven patents to

355
00:25:21.480 --> 00:25:25.640
his name these days, everything from
he had a buddy in high school that

356
00:25:25.920 --> 00:25:30.079
was, I believe, a quadriplegic, and so he developed this wheelchair that

357
00:25:30.119 --> 00:25:33.319
had a racket system so the guy
could recline and he can sit back up

358
00:25:33.359 --> 00:25:37.079
again. And that was his first
patent. And the company that we did

359
00:25:37.079 --> 00:25:45.440
the business plan for was a dental
flossing device that we almost sold to Gortech,

360
00:25:45.799 --> 00:25:49.200
which makes the glide floss, but
then nine to eleven hit just about

361
00:25:49.240 --> 00:25:53.720
then and they were anything so that. But so then Gordon went out to

362
00:25:53.759 --> 00:26:00.160
California and got into the semiconductor industry
out there, and he's literally tinkering in

363
00:26:00.200 --> 00:26:04.519
his basement. Came up with his
wire that had some properties, electrical properties

364
00:26:04.559 --> 00:26:08.440
that was needed in the industry.
And you know, this is a good

365
00:26:08.440 --> 00:26:12.039
part about being an account I can
talk about what this guy's talking about,

366
00:26:12.039 --> 00:26:15.359
but I have no idea if I'm
making any sense. But I can count

367
00:26:15.440 --> 00:26:18.559
the number of pins that we produce
and tell you how much they cous.

368
00:26:19.720 --> 00:26:23.240
So he came up with this wire
that he thought was the best things in

369
00:26:23.319 --> 00:26:27.519
sliced bread, and so he got
a patent on that and he decided to

370
00:26:27.559 --> 00:26:32.119
move back to the East coast here
because Steve and I were on the East

371
00:26:32.200 --> 00:26:37.359
coast and we launched this company and
we were in a one room office and

372
00:26:38.400 --> 00:26:44.119
it was a manufacturer. And so
we had this cycle tester, which is

373
00:26:44.200 --> 00:26:48.160
basically this thing that goes to all
day long to test how many revolutions you

374
00:26:48.200 --> 00:26:52.359
can get out of this pin.
So that's running in the corner over there,

375
00:26:52.599 --> 00:26:55.039
and Steve's in the corner over here
trying to make sales calls with this

376
00:26:55.119 --> 00:26:57.400
thing. In a way, we
had an air compressor down there. It

377
00:26:57.440 --> 00:27:02.440
was a nightmare that we convinced the
landlord to let us put the air compression

378
00:27:02.480 --> 00:27:04.480
of down in the basement, but
we had to run the hose out the

379
00:27:04.519 --> 00:27:11.440
window and around the fun It's your
classic entrepreneurial company and so and then of

380
00:27:11.480 --> 00:27:15.759
course, the first product we produced
didn't do anything that we wanted it to

381
00:27:15.759 --> 00:27:18.519
do, so we had to scrap
that and start all over again. And

382
00:27:18.799 --> 00:27:22.000
entrepreneurs, Yeah, yeah, We
convinced a bank to give us some money

383
00:27:22.039 --> 00:27:26.200
and we went to our first trade
show and worked it from the ile in

384
00:27:26.319 --> 00:27:30.319
as they say, and the people
that paid for their boots don't particularly like

385
00:27:30.359 --> 00:27:34.240
that. We had a gym bag
of product, and we actually got whisked

386
00:27:34.240 --> 00:27:37.079
into some pretty big boots there and
people were looking at our stuff saying,

387
00:27:37.079 --> 00:27:41.000
all right, this is pretty interesting, and we get some traction there.

388
00:27:41.039 --> 00:27:45.200
And so then we morphed and made
a different product and then started to sell,

389
00:27:45.240 --> 00:27:48.200
and then we made another product and
that started to sell. And that

390
00:27:48.319 --> 00:27:53.519
was my one of my classic CFO
roles is, you know, I started

391
00:27:53.559 --> 00:27:56.279
off as the guy that set up
the bookkeeping system because it was me,

392
00:27:56.359 --> 00:28:00.880
Steve and Gordon, and then slowly
I backfilled, and I move up the

393
00:28:00.960 --> 00:28:04.519
chain, and we hire people and
I helped train them, and I move

394
00:28:04.599 --> 00:28:07.640
up the chain until I move out
of a job. And so it got

395
00:28:07.680 --> 00:28:11.960
to the point where it grew they
needed their own full time CFO, and

396
00:28:11.039 --> 00:28:17.519
I helped them replace me, and
of course I was still a founding shareholder,

397
00:28:17.559 --> 00:28:18.519
so that did okay with me,
and I wanted to see the company

398
00:28:18.599 --> 00:28:22.400
succeed, and lo and behold,
we were in it too. Our game

399
00:28:22.400 --> 00:28:26.119
plan was, you know, we
think seven years and we'll right off into

400
00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:30.240
the sunset, and seven years into
it, we thinking, you seven years

401
00:28:30.279 --> 00:28:34.440
and we'll right off into the sunset. And then sun's still coming up though.

402
00:28:36.599 --> 00:28:37.920
Took us more than seven years right
off into the sunset. But yeah,

403
00:28:37.960 --> 00:28:41.039
we finally half and all came along
and said, hey, we like

404
00:28:41.119 --> 00:28:45.960
this technology and we want to buy
you guys. So they ended up buying

405
00:28:45.960 --> 00:28:48.279
the company. All right, that's
good timing right there. We're going to

406
00:28:48.319 --> 00:28:51.759
take our second break right here.
About another minute, we'll be back with

407
00:28:51.880 --> 00:29:00.960
Jim Roach. You're listening to Winning
Business Radio with Kevin Helena on W four

408
00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.480
CY Radio. That's W four cy
dot com. Don't go away. More

409
00:29:04.480 --> 00:29:11.400
helpful information is coming right up right
here on Winning Business Radio. The yp

410
00:29:11.519 --> 00:29:15.960
dot com website is your local search
engine. If you're looking for a good

411
00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:18.799
restaurant, it can help you find
the right one nearby with ratings and reviews.

412
00:29:19.200 --> 00:29:22.799
Or if your car breaks down,
you can use the YP app to

413
00:29:22.839 --> 00:29:26.440
find the closest repair shop. Or
maybe you're just looking for something to do

414
00:29:26.480 --> 00:29:29.880
on a Friday night. While it
has great local coupons for all sorts of

415
00:29:29.960 --> 00:29:33.279
things in your area, no matter
what, when or where. If you're

416
00:29:33.319 --> 00:29:36.599
looking for something, YP local search
can help you find it. So go

417
00:29:36.680 --> 00:29:40.319
to YP dot com or download the
app to search local, find local,

418
00:29:40.559 --> 00:29:49.039
and save local and Now back to
Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helenan presenting exciting

419
00:29:49.119 --> 00:29:55.519
topics and expert guests with one goal
in mind to help you succeed in business.

420
00:29:55.680 --> 00:30:07.279
Here once again is Kevin Helen Yeah, welcome back with Jim Roach.

421
00:30:07.400 --> 00:30:11.599
He is the founder, he's the
CPA MBA founder and principle of Robust Alternatives

422
00:30:11.680 --> 00:30:17.440
and my CFO Jim. Before we
move on to Robust Alternatives and a deeper

423
00:30:17.480 --> 00:30:21.079
dive there, what was your most
important lesson learned? Probably a lot of

424
00:30:21.079 --> 00:30:25.039
them, but something that sticks out
on your mind from ardent concepts, that

425
00:30:25.079 --> 00:30:30.680
whole experience. So I think the
most important lesson there was understand That's where

426
00:30:30.720 --> 00:30:34.599
I really understood that people outside their
lane don't understand what's outside their lane.

427
00:30:36.880 --> 00:30:38.839
You know, we ended up at
the time, we had probably about fifteen

428
00:30:38.880 --> 00:30:42.240
employees, and I said to one
of my co founders, I said,

429
00:30:42.279 --> 00:30:45.960
geez, you know, we really
need to get a retirement plan in here.

430
00:30:45.519 --> 00:30:48.880
And my co founder looked at me
and says, what are you talking

431
00:30:48.880 --> 00:30:52.640
about? This place is my retirement
plan? So I see other people over

432
00:30:52.640 --> 00:30:56.839
there, yeah, And so just
you know, I was so locked into

433
00:30:56.880 --> 00:31:02.640
that interested and they were so low
into their area of expertise, So yeah,

434
00:31:03.319 --> 00:31:04.799
figuring out that, Yeah, people
aren't always on the same page and

435
00:31:06.240 --> 00:31:08.319
sometimes I have to bring them along
slowly. That's good, that's good.

436
00:31:08.559 --> 00:31:12.920
All right, tell us about robust
alternatives and we'll get there. But my

437
00:31:14.039 --> 00:31:18.720
CFO also, Yeah, So right
now my practice is probably well fifty percent

438
00:31:18.839 --> 00:31:23.480
what I call traditional taxes, traditional
CPA taxes and financial statements and the other

439
00:31:23.519 --> 00:31:26.880
fifty percent. And the part I've
really been growing as of late is my

440
00:31:27.000 --> 00:31:32.880
CFO where I'll jump in and be
a CFO on a fractional basis, and

441
00:31:33.319 --> 00:31:37.720
that has a huge range of projects, if you will. I've got one

442
00:31:37.759 --> 00:31:42.160
client right now that I'm probably spending
ten to twelve hours a week with and

443
00:31:42.240 --> 00:31:45.680
probably will be for the next year, year and a half or so.

444
00:31:45.519 --> 00:31:49.200
I've got other projects where I'll jump
in and put a budget in place at

445
00:31:49.200 --> 00:31:52.400
the beginning of the year for a
company and then go away and maybe come

446
00:31:52.440 --> 00:31:59.440
back quarterly and review budget versus actuals. And I've got other companies where I'll

447
00:31:59.480 --> 00:32:04.200
set up their initial bookkeeping system and
they have either a spouse or a bookkeeper

448
00:32:04.200 --> 00:32:07.559
that are going to operate that on
a day to day basis, and I'll

449
00:32:07.559 --> 00:32:12.480
come back and tweak it as needed
basis, so it really can be just

450
00:32:12.519 --> 00:32:16.680
a small project based thing, or
it can be a full deep dive into

451
00:32:16.759 --> 00:32:22.720
completely realigning things. I have a
lot of companies that I show up to

452
00:32:22.079 --> 00:32:28.079
where they'll have maybe even an accounting
manager level person in place, but that

453
00:32:28.160 --> 00:32:31.160
person is spending ninety percent of the
time doing the lower level bookkeeping work.

454
00:32:31.640 --> 00:32:36.400
And I'll look at that and put
a proposal in place where we can replace

455
00:32:36.480 --> 00:32:39.200
that person with a little bit of
my time and some lower level clerks,

456
00:32:39.599 --> 00:32:45.920
and they'll have more full time,
full time people available to them at a

457
00:32:45.920 --> 00:32:49.960
lower overall cost. And that seems
to make a whole lot of sense,

458
00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:53.880
because that accounting manager can't scale up
for investor meetings or for bank presentations and

459
00:32:53.920 --> 00:32:58.000
that sort of thing, and like
I said, they're spending ninety percent of

460
00:32:58.079 --> 00:33:02.640
their time doing the wrong thing.
One of the one of the things that

461
00:33:02.759 --> 00:33:07.799
many of my companies haven't common is
they run what's called the EOS entrepreneurial operatings.

462
00:33:08.640 --> 00:33:12.200
And one of their big things is
you know, right people in the

463
00:33:12.240 --> 00:33:15.440
right seats and so in the and
when I've described you know, you might

464
00:33:15.480 --> 00:33:21.079
have a great person, but they're
just in way too high a seat relative

465
00:33:21.119 --> 00:33:24.400
to the needs of the company there, so so that that just doesn't make

466
00:33:24.440 --> 00:33:27.680
sense. I mean, no fault
of theirs. They don't have the skills

467
00:33:27.680 --> 00:33:31.480
and the experience to be strategic right, to make forward making decisions versus forward

468
00:33:31.599 --> 00:33:37.839
backward looking right exactly exactly the thing. And so yeah, so we'll replace

469
00:33:37.880 --> 00:33:39.680
some of those. On the other
hand, you know, I'll end up

470
00:33:39.720 --> 00:33:43.839
putting myself out of a job,
and in some companies that are successful,

471
00:33:43.839 --> 00:33:47.640
and that's kind of a win win, But then there's other companies that like

472
00:33:47.680 --> 00:33:52.160
this one gentleman that I actually just
saw this weekend. I worked with him

473
00:33:52.200 --> 00:33:58.759
for twenty five years. He at
one point ended up owning three Golds gyms

474
00:33:58.759 --> 00:34:01.519
franchises. And again he was kind
of a project based thing. You know,

475
00:34:01.799 --> 00:34:07.680
Hi'd or have a target that he
wants to acquire and jump in into

476
00:34:07.720 --> 00:34:09.280
a whole bunch of due diligence,
would run some modeling, would get him

477
00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:14.480
a new bank loan if that's needed, would set up the bookkeeping and help

478
00:34:14.559 --> 00:34:17.039
train a new bookkeeper. That's what
he needed, and then I back off

479
00:34:17.119 --> 00:34:21.360
until he decides now he's going to
double his footprint, and he gets into

480
00:34:21.400 --> 00:34:24.400
a big building project and then I
back off, and then he blows his

481
00:34:24.440 --> 00:34:30.440
budget and I got to jump back
in and do some work. So yeah,

482
00:34:30.599 --> 00:34:32.960
it's really can be project based for
an extended period of time. And

483
00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:36.360
like I said, it's been twenty
five years with this guy. He moved

484
00:34:36.400 --> 00:34:40.079
down to West Palm Beach area about
eighteen months or so ago, and he's

485
00:34:40.119 --> 00:34:44.960
got a new partner down there,
and he's largely focusing on that partner's business.

486
00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:47.639
So he finally found somebody local.
But he's been in three different businesses

487
00:34:47.719 --> 00:34:52.239
and he brought me along to each
of them. I'd help him buy in

488
00:34:52.280 --> 00:34:57.039
and I'll help him sell on the
way out and everything in between. Excellent

489
00:34:57.320 --> 00:35:00.000
talk about your team. Yeah,
so my team right now. So we

490
00:35:00.039 --> 00:35:05.400
do have a bookkeeping division as well, So we have Diane is kind of

491
00:35:05.440 --> 00:35:12.719
our office manager and our bookkeeper extraordinaire. She eight years ago was a retiring

492
00:35:12.719 --> 00:35:15.320
school teacher. She has a Mathew
teaching background, and she just needed to

493
00:35:15.320 --> 00:35:19.079
get out of the teaching profession because
of a whole lot of issues going on

494
00:35:19.199 --> 00:35:23.239
in that industry these days. And
she was very tended of eight years ago.

495
00:35:23.480 --> 00:35:28.760
And now she's like the chief cup
and battle washer she can pass off

496
00:35:28.800 --> 00:35:30.239
work and know which of our bookkeepers
are going to be able to handle it,

497
00:35:30.280 --> 00:35:35.199
help them figure it out, flag
us when there's issues that we need

498
00:35:35.199 --> 00:35:40.280
the clients input on, and so
she's great with that side of the division.

499
00:35:40.280 --> 00:35:45.440
We have one, two, we
have three. One is a work

500
00:35:45.480 --> 00:35:49.440
at home mom bookkeeper, and she's
trying to leave us, and I don't

501
00:35:49.480 --> 00:35:52.440
want her to leave us because she
again, she's not a bookkeeper, which

502
00:35:52.519 --> 00:35:55.239
I didn't realize until she worked for
me for about a year and a half,

503
00:35:55.280 --> 00:36:00.599
because she is meticulous. She's just
got that mind that she's I'll let

504
00:36:00.639 --> 00:36:02.679
go of this nickel and she'll find
it. And come to find out,

505
00:36:02.760 --> 00:36:08.280
she's a school adjustment counselor and her
youngest just turned six and he's in the

506
00:36:08.280 --> 00:36:10.519
school system and she's trying to get
back in there, and I don't want

507
00:36:10.519 --> 00:36:15.360
to let her go. So our
work from home a bookkeeper and she does

508
00:36:15.400 --> 00:36:21.679
a couple of quick books online projects
for so. So beyond that is myself

509
00:36:21.719 --> 00:36:27.559
and a partner, uh and then
there are two other tax specialists and and

510
00:36:27.639 --> 00:36:31.000
that's that's the whole crew. My
partner also has a payroll company which is

511
00:36:31.039 --> 00:36:37.079
out and I still call it Oxford. But the town that Treehouse Brewing is

512
00:36:37.079 --> 00:36:43.679
in Central Mass, Central Man,
Yeah, by wester exactly, Central Mass,

513
00:36:43.960 --> 00:36:47.800
up by the up by West.
Yeah, that's uh. And are

514
00:36:47.800 --> 00:36:51.119
there others that work with you on
the my c FO side or is that

515
00:36:51.199 --> 00:36:53.440
the same team? So that's the
same team. Yeah, same team.

516
00:36:54.239 --> 00:37:00.039
So who are your typical clients?
So? So I do like inventory a

517
00:37:00.119 --> 00:37:05.000
right, So I deal with manufacturers. I deal with distributors. I also

518
00:37:05.079 --> 00:37:08.079
deal in construction, which isn't really
inventory, but they're taking parts and making

519
00:37:08.079 --> 00:37:13.519
different parts. So the whole accounting
function is a little complicated. And that's

520
00:37:13.559 --> 00:37:15.079
what I love, you know,
that being set them all over the place.

521
00:37:15.079 --> 00:37:19.559
I've got the guy that I mentioned
that had the three Golds gym franchises.

522
00:37:19.679 --> 00:37:22.119
So so it's really everywhere in between. But if I had a dial

523
00:37:22.159 --> 00:37:24.159
in, I would say, yeah, give me some inventory, give me

524
00:37:24.199 --> 00:37:29.559
some construction. And that's where I
love to play. So how does your

525
00:37:29.599 --> 00:37:34.360
client know that they need you?
Well, I mean at what stage?

526
00:37:34.440 --> 00:37:37.559
You know, what, what's happening, what's going on? Yeah, So

527
00:37:37.559 --> 00:37:40.320
so oftentimes they'll come to me when
they realize they don't really understand their numbers,

528
00:37:42.079 --> 00:37:45.679
they don't have a regular set of
reporting, which getting back and talking

529
00:37:45.679 --> 00:37:49.119
about EOS, that's what I love
about EOS is they have a weekly check

530
00:37:49.199 --> 00:37:52.440
in and you kind of track numbers
over time, and if you pick the

531
00:37:52.519 --> 00:37:54.719
night right numbers to track, you'll
kind of understand where your business is going.

532
00:37:55.000 --> 00:38:00.119
Leading indicators talk about leading indicators exactly
exactly, and they're not always financial

533
00:38:00.159 --> 00:38:05.239
either. You know, they can
be number of down hours on a machine,

534
00:38:05.880 --> 00:38:10.159
which which can be a highlighted problem. So that's typically that that they

535
00:38:10.159 --> 00:38:14.159
don't know where they're going or something
new is coming up. You know,

536
00:38:14.199 --> 00:38:17.920
they try to buy a different business. And I had a new client come

537
00:38:19.000 --> 00:38:22.159
to me that their bank was about
to throw them out because they never revolved

538
00:38:22.199 --> 00:38:24.920
their line of credit, like,
well, I don't miss a payment.

539
00:38:25.079 --> 00:38:29.159
Well that's not what a line of
credit is for. That's more permanent financing

540
00:38:29.159 --> 00:38:32.199
and need a loan for that.
But so they don't understand that the difference

541
00:38:32.280 --> 00:38:38.159
is there of permanent financing versus temporary
financing. And you know, the receivables

542
00:38:38.159 --> 00:38:40.960
go out, the loan goes up, receivals paid, the loan goes down.

543
00:38:42.039 --> 00:38:44.400
That's what a bank likes to see. And a lot of people have

544
00:38:44.480 --> 00:38:47.280
the mentality that I haven't missed a
payment. Well that's that's not exactly what

545
00:38:47.280 --> 00:38:52.639
they're looking for. So so that's
certainly a cause for them to get me

546
00:38:52.719 --> 00:38:57.679
involved. I've got a lot of
clients that grow out of the tax side

547
00:38:57.679 --> 00:39:00.559
of things into the CMO side of
things. You know, things are going

548
00:39:00.559 --> 00:39:04.760
along swimmingly. Like I said,
maybe they need a new loan. Maybe

549
00:39:04.920 --> 00:39:07.760
they don't understand the way the bank
looks at their debt service coverage ratios and

550
00:39:08.599 --> 00:39:12.639
they think they're fat and happy.
But while they just pulled out a big

551
00:39:13.559 --> 00:39:16.039
distribution for the new boat that they
wanted to buy, it didn't realize that's

552
00:39:16.039 --> 00:39:20.480
going to impact the way the bank
looks at them. So all those kinds

553
00:39:20.480 --> 00:39:24.079
of things are reasons people want to
want to engage me. So they're going

554
00:39:24.119 --> 00:39:30.199
to acquire, they want to be
acquired. They have growth plans, specific

555
00:39:30.360 --> 00:39:37.840
instances like that where they need much
better what reporting story to tell exactly exactly.

556
00:39:37.920 --> 00:39:42.679
So I had one client that they
launched a business and for probably six

557
00:39:42.719 --> 00:39:45.880
to nine months it was not profitable, and they had a bank loan involved.

558
00:39:46.440 --> 00:39:50.840
They became profitable, and I'm looking
at the numbers and I'm thinking,

559
00:39:50.840 --> 00:39:52.480
all right, we need to double
this line of credit. And the owner

560
00:39:52.519 --> 00:39:54.440
comes to me and says, all
right, so we're profitable. Now we

561
00:39:54.480 --> 00:39:59.199
can tell the banker to go pound
sand right. No, what are you

562
00:39:59.320 --> 00:40:02.800
talking about. We're building inventory,
we're building receivables. No, we need

563
00:40:02.800 --> 00:40:06.760
the bank now more than ever.
And he just had no concept. And

564
00:40:06.840 --> 00:40:10.760
so you know, as as you
know, Kevin Cash is king and you

565
00:40:10.840 --> 00:40:14.440
tell the bank to pound sand just
as you need a whole lot of money.

566
00:40:14.519 --> 00:40:16.000
Yeah, that's gonna be a problem. That's gonna be a problem.

567
00:40:17.039 --> 00:40:22.239
So geography doesn't matter so much for
you anymore. It doesn't. It doesn't.

568
00:40:22.280 --> 00:40:24.119
Although I do like to be face
to face, you know, Like

569
00:40:24.159 --> 00:40:28.199
I said, even though I'm told
I have a face for radio, I

570
00:40:28.199 --> 00:40:31.119
think face to face, you know, there's something when you can go visit

571
00:40:31.159 --> 00:40:37.239
and see exactly how things flow.
But but it isn't a constraint, certainly

572
00:40:37.239 --> 00:40:39.559
as it has been in the past. But I'm guessing most of your clients

573
00:40:39.599 --> 00:40:44.719
are Massachusetts or New England. Yeah, yeah, it's so. When I

574
00:40:44.840 --> 00:40:49.000
started this in earnest to my CFO, my girls were three or four,

575
00:40:49.480 --> 00:40:52.079
and I was working for a company
in Natick that most of their clients were

576
00:40:52.079 --> 00:40:57.519
well their biggest group of clients was
in Salt Lake City, and then they

577
00:40:57.519 --> 00:40:59.679
had a bunch on the West coast, and I was jumping on a plane

578
00:40:59.719 --> 00:41:01.880
weights often. And yeah, when
my kids were little, I decided,

579
00:41:01.920 --> 00:41:05.760
you know what, an hour and
a half drive is the most I want

580
00:41:05.800 --> 00:41:08.159
to do. And so yeah,
I had some down in mash Pee,

581
00:41:08.239 --> 00:41:12.719
I had some up in Seabrook,
New Hampshire, and not a whole lot

582
00:41:12.760 --> 00:41:15.320
out west, surprisingly enough. But
but but yeah, that was kind of

583
00:41:15.320 --> 00:41:20.039
my my croux. I didn't want
to be on airplanes. And now my

584
00:41:20.119 --> 00:41:22.639
kids have grown and they're getting on
airplanes, and here I am still.

585
00:41:23.639 --> 00:41:27.559
I don't know how that happened.
I was I travel more now the kids

586
00:41:27.599 --> 00:41:30.679
are older, but I didn't want
to be a road warrior. I did

587
00:41:30.719 --> 00:41:34.360
some travel, but not so much
that it kept me away from stuff so

588
00:41:35.639 --> 00:41:37.440
good. I was able to find
a good balance there. What in your

589
00:41:37.480 --> 00:41:44.960
mind makes a good client, So
so ideally the best client they have to

590
00:41:44.960 --> 00:41:46.840
take advice. You know, if
I'm going to give you some advice,

591
00:41:46.880 --> 00:41:50.239
and you don't have to take it
all the time, you have to listen

592
00:41:50.239 --> 00:41:52.039
to it, you have to understand
it, and and you have to want

593
00:41:52.079 --> 00:41:57.280
it, so so if they take
advice. I actually have a checklist of

594
00:41:57.880 --> 00:42:00.440
all new clients I look at,
and the number one there is they gonna

595
00:42:00.440 --> 00:42:04.719
be nice people. You know,
life is just too short to be dealing

596
00:42:04.719 --> 00:42:07.639
with people that are miserable all the
time, and it's just it's just not

597
00:42:07.719 --> 00:42:12.400
what I want as so, so
it's somebody who's nice, it's somebody who

598
00:42:12.440 --> 00:42:15.880
takes advice. Is somebody really for
me who's building a team? You know,

599
00:42:15.920 --> 00:42:17.639
if I'm going to be your fractional
CFO, I mean you've got to

600
00:42:17.639 --> 00:42:21.920
have a team in there. You
know, if you're a solorepreneur, you

601
00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:24.199
might be a great tax client if
you're a higher earner and you need some

602
00:42:24.239 --> 00:42:28.280
of the tax advice, but you're
certainly not that CFO. You're not growing

603
00:42:28.280 --> 00:42:30.840
the team. You're trying to do
a lifestyle business or you know, you're

604
00:42:30.880 --> 00:42:34.760
you're you're fat and happy and it
figured out how to be a one man

605
00:42:34.880 --> 00:42:37.480
show that gives you what you need. But if you're building a team and

606
00:42:37.800 --> 00:42:42.159
if you're trying to go places with
your business, that's kind of where where

607
00:42:42.199 --> 00:42:45.760
I want to be. So a
typical engagement on the my CFO side looks

608
00:42:45.800 --> 00:42:52.519
like what. So it typically starts
off as a project based thing and and

609
00:42:52.599 --> 00:42:55.679
we figure out what somebody needs.
So so right now I'm dealing with a

610
00:42:55.760 --> 00:43:01.800
guy that they don't have much structure
in their whole in toy. They need

611
00:43:01.960 --> 00:43:06.119
different part numbers, they need kind
of a nested system. They kind of

612
00:43:06.119 --> 00:43:08.840
have one off part numbers all over
the place depending on what they buy,

613
00:43:09.480 --> 00:43:13.239
and it's hard to control. So
so for them, I'm going in and

614
00:43:13.280 --> 00:43:16.920
starting with this inventory project. I
can see that they've got a whole bunch

615
00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:20.320
of other things that they need a
whole lot of help with that they don't

616
00:43:20.320 --> 00:43:22.519
even know they need a whole lot
of help with. You know, this

617
00:43:22.599 --> 00:43:25.360
is going to help them get control
of the gross profit that grows. Profit

618
00:43:25.440 --> 00:43:29.639
is going to lead into the well, how can we plan future grows profit?

619
00:43:30.800 --> 00:43:31.800
You know, how can we do? They don't even have a budget

620
00:43:31.840 --> 00:43:36.920
in place for their business, which
a lot of I see a lot of

621
00:43:36.960 --> 00:43:39.039
times that that, you know,
your typical small business owner is just looking

622
00:43:39.079 --> 00:43:44.079
at my beating last year. That's
good, Well, you need a budget,

623
00:43:44.159 --> 00:43:46.360
especially if you're going in different directions. You know, what did you

624
00:43:46.400 --> 00:43:50.320
plan to do? Did you do
it? If not? Why not?

625
00:43:50.559 --> 00:43:53.000
Is you know, should we plan
to do that again next year. That's

626
00:43:53.000 --> 00:43:57.320
what a budget drives drives for me. So I do a whole lot of

627
00:43:57.320 --> 00:44:00.719
budgeting processes with my clients. And
then, like I said, it can

628
00:44:00.760 --> 00:44:04.360
either roll from there. They'll decide
all right, we're good for now,

629
00:44:04.480 --> 00:44:06.880
you know, we don't need you
for a while, and I'll go away

630
00:44:06.880 --> 00:44:08.639
and still do the tax returns and
still be in touch with them and jump

631
00:44:08.679 --> 00:44:12.880
back into the next project. Very
cool, all right, I switch gears

632
00:44:12.880 --> 00:44:15.199
a little bit. You spent eleven
years as a member of the finance committee

633
00:44:15.239 --> 00:44:21.880
for your town' that's service right.
Talk about that role and why you felt

634
00:44:21.880 --> 00:44:24.119
it was important to do that.
Yeah, Well, so at the time

635
00:44:24.199 --> 00:44:28.639
they were looking for people and I
had some financial abilities, so I decided,

636
00:44:28.679 --> 00:44:31.199
hey, let me jump in there. And it was the first couple

637
00:44:31.239 --> 00:44:36.000
of years were incredibly eye opening.
You know, coming at it from a

638
00:44:36.039 --> 00:44:39.119
business perspective, you can't do that
in a lot of cases. And I'll

639
00:44:39.119 --> 00:44:43.360
tell you why, because you know, I'm looking at the town's got a

640
00:44:43.400 --> 00:44:47.679
budget problem. With a business,
your revenue trails off, well, demand

641
00:44:47.679 --> 00:44:52.280
trails off. You let go of
some people you know in a town,

642
00:44:52.599 --> 00:44:57.280
and especially in Franklin. Our budget. We were lucky that for years over

643
00:44:57.360 --> 00:45:00.440
forty percent of our budget came directly
from the state because we were growing in

644
00:45:00.480 --> 00:45:05.000
the formulas they have all that kind
of stuff, And so the state has

645
00:45:05.039 --> 00:45:08.599
a slowdown, some of that revenue
goes away, but demand doesn't go away.

646
00:45:09.320 --> 00:45:12.599
The same number of kids to educate, you get the same number of

647
00:45:12.639 --> 00:45:15.800
ambulance calls. You probably have more
police calls because you're in a recession and

648
00:45:16.320 --> 00:45:22.039
guys get busy when things slow down. And it was just a total mind

649
00:45:22.039 --> 00:45:24.280
shift for me that I had no
idea how to look at this thing.

650
00:45:25.119 --> 00:45:29.679
And then the second thing was I
heard from a lot of people that haven't

651
00:45:29.679 --> 00:45:32.559
been involved in how can we be
needing more money? Look at all these

652
00:45:32.559 --> 00:45:37.599
big houses that we're building. And
if you do the math there, you

653
00:45:37.599 --> 00:45:40.239
know, let's say the average house
in Franklin pays eight grand in real estate

654
00:45:40.280 --> 00:45:44.800
taxes, and so let's talk about
a big house. Let's say they pay

655
00:45:44.840 --> 00:45:47.079
twelve thousand dollars in real estate taxes. Well, they're a big house.

656
00:45:47.119 --> 00:45:50.760
They probably have more than two kids
in there. But let's say they only

657
00:45:50.800 --> 00:45:53.760
have two kids in there. Each
kid costs fourteen thousand dollars a year to

658
00:45:53.880 --> 00:45:58.880
educate, So they're paying twelve grand. You got two kids at fourteen,

659
00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:02.280
we're already losing money. And it's
just mind And then you've got the you

660
00:46:02.320 --> 00:46:07.559
know, the roads and the DPW
and the police and the fire and so

661
00:46:07.760 --> 00:46:12.719
it was. It was absolutely mind
boggling. It was good because Franklin is

662
00:46:12.760 --> 00:46:15.280
technically a city, and cities don't
often have finance committees. They're more of

663
00:46:15.280 --> 00:46:19.760
a town type of thing. And
in a town, the finance committee gets

664
00:46:19.840 --> 00:46:22.800
very involved in town meeting and actually
presenting the finances, and people throw out

665
00:46:22.840 --> 00:46:27.719
different proposals and you got to run
and change things. In a city,

666
00:46:27.800 --> 00:46:30.920
you have a town administrator. And
we had this guy, Jeff Nutting for

667
00:46:30.960 --> 00:46:32.880
all the years I was there,
and he was here for probably twenty five

668
00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:37.960
years, and he knew he knew
state law incredibly well, he knew finance

669
00:46:38.039 --> 00:46:44.239
is pretty good, and he was
kind of principal in starting the whole budget

670
00:46:44.239 --> 00:46:46.840
process. I think the finance committee
was invaluable because there were a couple of

671
00:46:46.840 --> 00:46:50.159
times he tried to pull a fast
one on us and you know, throw

672
00:46:50.360 --> 00:46:52.559
throw a bone with somebody that he
needed to throw a bone to, and

673
00:46:52.599 --> 00:46:55.400
it just didn't make any financial sense, and so we called them on the

674
00:46:55.400 --> 00:46:58.519
carpet a couple of times. I
called them on the carpet a couple of

675
00:46:58.519 --> 00:47:04.280
times, and it's it's one of
those checks and balances in government that I

676
00:47:04.280 --> 00:47:07.400
think is needed. And like you
said, yeah it was service, and

677
00:47:07.480 --> 00:47:09.159
yeah it was. It was a
lot of work at times. In six

678
00:47:09.199 --> 00:47:13.599
of those eleven years I was chair
of the committee, and there's there's a

679
00:47:13.639 --> 00:47:16.639
whole lot of hard decisions to go
in there from from a people standpoint as

680
00:47:16.679 --> 00:47:21.719
well. So what it was,
I'm sure I didn't make friends with everybody

681
00:47:21.760 --> 00:47:23.440
in that role, but you know, it's my job to tell the truth

682
00:47:23.480 --> 00:47:27.800
there, and that's that's what I
do. Well done. Who in the

683
00:47:27.920 --> 00:47:30.280
viewing and listening audiences, Jim,
should reach out to you and why?

684
00:47:31.920 --> 00:47:35.880
Well, so, certainly I think
people that are trying to get connected.

685
00:47:36.239 --> 00:47:39.840
You know, I think you and
I are involved in a networking group Provisors,

686
00:47:39.880 --> 00:47:45.920
that has senior level advisors, and
if you're looking to meet people in

687
00:47:45.280 --> 00:47:49.360
that realm to help you grow your
business, I mean, I think that's

688
00:47:49.360 --> 00:47:52.079
that's key, which going back to
as you mentioned, might be and I

689
00:47:52.199 --> 00:47:54.599
d's I try to let all my
clients know that. You know, I'm

690
00:47:54.639 --> 00:47:59.280
connected with everybody, and so if
you need something, you know, call

691
00:47:59.360 --> 00:48:01.559
me first. And so I actually
had this little old lady call me.

692
00:48:01.920 --> 00:48:06.639
She was going to her fiftieth class
reunion, and the conversation was like this.

693
00:48:06.719 --> 00:48:08.239
She called me up and says,
Hey, I know you know everybody,

694
00:48:08.280 --> 00:48:10.800
and you told me to call you
first. So I'm looking for somebody

695
00:48:10.800 --> 00:48:16.199
that does wine glass etching and some
photography for my fiftieth reunion. And I

696
00:48:16.280 --> 00:48:21.000
knew both those people, and the
time lead time is too short for the

697
00:48:21.039 --> 00:48:25.039
etching guy, but the photographer made
some money at her fiftieth nice reunion.

698
00:48:25.079 --> 00:48:28.719
But that's how it works, right
Yeah. And for me, I mean,

699
00:48:28.920 --> 00:48:31.079
they're calling me when I don't have
my handout. I'm just trying to

700
00:48:31.079 --> 00:48:35.199
do them a favor, and so
it makes me more valuable from that perspective.

701
00:48:35.760 --> 00:48:38.199
That's so so yeah, anybody that
wants to get connected and anybody that

702
00:48:38.239 --> 00:48:40.719
needs your services too. Jim,
thank you so much. I know you're

703
00:48:40.760 --> 00:48:45.159
really busy. You made it through
the most one of the busiest times of

704
00:48:45.199 --> 00:48:46.760
yr year, so good for you. But I know you're busy. I

705
00:48:46.760 --> 00:48:51.360
really appreciate the time. Fantastic thank
you for having me on Kevin you bet,

706
00:48:51.400 --> 00:48:53.880
and thanks everybody for watching and listening. This is a show about business

707
00:48:53.880 --> 00:48:58.760
and often business challenges. If you've
got concerns about the growth of your company,

708
00:48:58.840 --> 00:49:01.599
feel free to reach out to me
on Facebook or LinkedIn at Winning Business

709
00:49:01.679 --> 00:49:04.800
Radio. You can drop me a
note. I always say. One of

710
00:49:04.840 --> 00:49:08.679
my many email addresses is Kevin at
Winning Business Radio dot com. We are

711
00:49:08.760 --> 00:49:15.519
here every Monday. Stay tuned for
next week will be Monday, May sixth.

712
00:49:15.719 --> 00:49:17.320
We'll do it all again. Until
then, this is Kevin Helenan.

713
00:49:20.199 --> 00:49:23.400
You've been listening to Winning Business Radio
with your host, Kevin Helenan. If

714
00:49:23.400 --> 00:49:28.239
you missed any part of this episode, the podcast is available on Talk for

715
00:49:28.480 --> 00:49:34.599
Podcasting and iHeartRadio. For more information
and questions, go to Winning Business Radio

716
00:49:34.719 --> 00:49:37.599
dot com or check us out on
social media. Tune in again next week

717
00:49:37.599 --> 00:49:43.000
and every Monday at four pm Eastern
Time to listen live to Winning Business Radio

718
00:49:43.320 --> 00:49:47.559
on W four CY Radio W four
cy dot com. Until then, let's

719
00:49:47.559 --> 00:49:54.880
succeed where others have failed and win
in business with Kevin Helenan and Winning Business Radio.