Inside a Fractional CFO Career: Flexibility, Reality, and Impact with Rachel Smith, CFO at RLS Finance

Rachel Smith: Foreign.

James Roach: Welcome to the Finance Seat. Practical podcast for finance leaders who want to know what actually works. I'm your host, James Roach, managing director of the specialist finance recruitment consultancy Head Start, and a former finance director myself. Each episode I'll be sitting down with a different CFO or fd, to discuss how they build strong M teams, manage uncertainty, uh, and deliver change so that you can do the same.

Co-host: Welcome to the Finance Seat. Thanks for joining us today. I'm with Rachel Smith. Rachel, thank you for coming on. Um, do you want to just give us a quick intro who you are, what you do?

Rachel Smith: Yeah. Uh, my name's Rachel Smith. I'm a fractional fd. So I've been doing fractional work for about eight years in a variety of forms. Um, but prior to that I had a kind of corporate career. So I worked for PwC, Asda, Arlo Foods, big companies. And I moved into Fractional eight years ago and I've really enjoyed it ever since.

Co-host: Great. You, uh, referenced your career previously as a bit standard. And being in large corporate, you mentioned as well, in the past, you perhaps didn't see this as the future that you had for yourself. Where do you think the key moments were, though, if you look back, that led you down this route?

Rachel Smith: I think I always quite liked the idea of working in small businesses, but I joined PwC. I didn't quite know what I was doing and then I'm not sure there were much conscious decisions in the next moves. I just moved to the next place that looked interesting and it was actually, wow. I mean, there was a real. There was a push and a pull for fractional work for me. And the pull was I really quite like the look of working in small businesses, getting involved in everything, but knew that I was going to have children, like, brutally. And actually that might not be the easiest route. So I was in the kind of big corporate. So there was a real drive while I was working in Alstair and places like that to maybe work for small companies, but later on, and then I guess the push is trying to manage those kind of corporate careers while having children. And I thought, I wonder whether a fractional route that was just starting to become fashionable. It wasn't called fractional then, it was called portfolio. I think that probably almost explains it more, but everyone else says fractional right now, so I had to change it. But that looked like it might work better with family life. So those two things made me think, well, I'll try it. So when I have my third child, I thought, well, I'm not going to go back and I'll give it a go and see what happens. So I didn't expect to be there. I thought maybe I'd work in a small company but actually it really works for me to do it and I'm really enjoying it.

Co-host: Do you think the corporate ladder then or the larger businesses, does it make it prohibitive to someone in your position, for instance, three kids? Did you feel like there was a bit of a ceiling for you then?

Rachel Smith: I think it was less a ceiling, more. I couldn't do what I wanted to do because I had the outside commitment so I could do the job and I could do it fine. But I didn't feel like I was ever massively excelling in it because I had a pull from home, the whole tie and it just made me, I guess being off on maternity leave, thinking about what I wanted to do, it did give me a bit of time. You don't always have time in a corporate career to think about what you might want to do next. But because I had those gaps it made me think about it. Um, so I'm sure I could have done perfectly fine in a corporate career. I had the opportunity to do it and I haven't really looked back.

Co-host: You mentioned it was portfolio back then. Fractional. It's very de rigueur, isn't it? There's lots of talk about it. So when you started out, uh, 2018.

Rachel Smith: Yes it was.

Co-host: It would have been a bit of a brave jump then, wouldn't it? It wasn't as known.

Rachel Smith: No, it wasn't as known and um, I don't think I was really doing fractional FD work at that point because I hadn't actually been an FD anywhere. So I'm not entirely sure I would have been a very credible. I've suddenly decided I'm an fd. Like what do you want me to do? So I think what I was really doing was project accountant sort of work. So I didn't go back to ASDA where I was, knew that I wanted to do something. Had a real kind of idea that the sort of stuff that you learn in big companies would be really good in a small company. They wouldn't need very much of it. I think ASDA in particular was such a fast paced place to work. You did a lot of getting big ideas and complicated bits of information and having five minutes to talk to someone about it and get it in a really kind of punchy format. And I thought actually I'm m quite good at that now. That would be Brilliant in a small business. But I'm not sure I'd have been able to go out and just tell anybody. That's what I wanted to do. So I was really doing accounting projects and, um, with people that I knew. So I did some work for a friend of mine who just needed to come in and have a look. Someone that I knew that was good at what I did, come in and have a look at this problem for me. I then went and actually used my network quite heavily right at the start to talk to people about it. And there were some people doing fractional portfolio work at that point, not many. One of those people asked me to come and do a piece of work for her in her organisation where she was fracturing Lefty. And then as soon as I was in the door, she was out.

Co-host: Did you force her out?

Rachel Smith: I didn't force her out. She just, uh, saw the opportunity to move on to the next thing, saw that I was there. Uh, so it was a little bit fortuitous, actually, that first one, but I ended up in a FD seat there. But again, I'm not sure it was fractional or portfolio the way that I do it now. It was an interim FD role. I wasn't really working anywhere else, I was working for myself. But it was a kind of more like an interim FD kind of role. I enjoyed that. I used that to, um, sort of start to shape what I wanted to do, because once I'd sorted quite a lot of stuff out in there, I realized it didn't necessarily mean to be in there the whole time. Actually, this is where one of our, um, arrangements where UK brought an FC in for me there because they could then run that. And that started to feel like quite a good model to go in, sort some stuff out, find a team that might be able to run that and then move on to the next thing. So that kind of where it started to become more what I'm doing now. Um, so I did a couple of bits of work around that time and then I actually took on a permanent FD role and part of that was it would look like a good role, but also there was a bit of kind of credibility in that. I think if you're going to go out and be a. An FD to small businesses is helpful if you've done it properly in a longer term. So I did two and a half years, uh, data consultancy, doing a real FD role where I did funding and new offices and high growth, and that was brilliant. Um, but again, got to the Point where I felt like that was in quite good shape. I recruited a team and then thought, actually, do you know what? I'm going to really focus now on doing proper fractional work in multiple businesses, where I focus on the bit that I think I'm good at and the bit that I like.

Co-host: Okay, so it's like a series of springboards, by the sound of it, going in, doing a bit grunt work, dare we say accounting work, that then kind of got you up to FD level, got you then the perm job and then now do you just do fractional CFO stuff now, or do you find yourself getting dragged into the accounting?

Rachel Smith: I'm getting much better at just doing the fractional CFO work. Partly, though, because I work with fractional FCS as well and that, uh, you know, I have a kind of group, uh, there's a few groups, I guess, because the one thing about doing fractional work is you're on your own and you need people. And so I've got groups of FDs that I work with, share work with, share ideas and, um, contacts and that kind of thing. But also I work with FCS because I do think, and I'm sure we'll kind of go on to this, the fractional model is brilliant, but it isn't necessarily always an FD that businesses want or need or all the time. So I work with FCS when I can to make sure that I'm not doing that work, because it's quite difficult to do both. If you're doing that grunt work, you're not doing VFD work. It's really difficult. So I think I do do that now, but with quite hard boundaries of what I will do and what I won't. But that's taken quite a long time to kind of finesse. Doesn't always work still, but I think I'm much better now at doing the sort of best value work and the work that I like.

Co-host: Okay, so, yeah, let's talk about that bit. A day in the life, if you like, what is the reality? Or a week in the life, because there's no such thing as a day. So what's a week in the life for you?

Rachel Smith: So it's massively varied, which I really like. So I really like that I might be doing a kind of bit of work for a business that is getting a new bank or wants some money, and then I might be doing a kind of health check, going into a new business to understand. I do quite a lot of kind of reviews, very short reviews to Say, look what you actually need. Do you need an fd? Do you need an fc? Do you need to recruit somebody? So I really like the mix. Um, and you have to, you know, you have to really like that because it is a lot of context shifting. I might have three or four things going on in a week on totally different clients that are totally different work. I love that. But it's not easy and it's, you've got to really like doing that. So this week I think I've got, I've got a report that I'm writing on a business that I went in to see last week that are uh, looking for some kind of pre transaction readiness. I don't think that that's going to be me. So I'm looking at how I can help them find somebody. I've got a long term client that are in budget zone at the moment. So I'm helping them build a plan. I've got a new client where they're looking at their finance function and kind of starting to bring in more forward looking finance which they've never done before. So there's a huge variety. Every week's totally different. Um, bit busier at the moment than maybe I would ideally be. Um, but it's not always like that and that really suits me as well because what I don't particularly want with my life and personal life is three days a week steady. I'd rather have busy periods when I've got more time, take more time off in the summer. I'm trying to build. I remember we had a conversation once that it's quite difficult to just choose the bits of finance that you like and just do those. But that is what I'm trying to do.

Co-host: Okay, we're getting there. Well, this is why I wanted you on this actually because I think a lot of people think fractional is right, great, I'll just have a couple of clients and nice and steady. And I just switch from one one day and the other the next day. You're kind of the epitome of a successful fractional cfo. And you there about new client, another new client, existing client. Got this one. I've got to go see. Um, that juggling bit is the bit that perhaps people don't.

Rachel Smith: Yeah.

Co-host: Or they underestimate really. The fact that actually you've got to go out and get stuff. Um, because it's a bit of a moving feast. Have you found that? Has it changed in the eight years?

Rachel Smith: I think it has. I think and it, it has. But I don't know if that'll ever go away because like I said, the whole real value I think of fractional work to a small business is that they can pull on it when they want it and they can drop it when they don't. And they might want NFT at uh, the start to get things set up, but then they don't need or probably shouldn't have an FD to run it. So you've got to be prepared that it's in and out. I don't tie anybody, any clients in because I really want them to get to the point where they don't need me, they can use someone else. So because it's moving all the time, I do think it's really hard. It's very hard to get it to be level and it's very hard not to have too much one week and then be panicked that you're not going to have anything. And where that manifests is making sure that you were taking on the right clients. Because when you're in the I don't know what's coming next, your boundaries are a bit lower on what you might do and then you can end up doing something that is not what you want. Um, being able to say no when you're busy to something that is perfect is also really hard. I think they're the kind of hardest things and you can't, you have to be able to accept a bit of a lack of control. You can control it to a degree but you can't control it completely. I do some, I've got better again and uh, making sure that I have the right mix. I don't have too many clients doing the same thing at the same time. I don't want to have five businesses where I sit on their board and review their month end. But all of that is in the same week or day. That's a nightmare. I don't want to have everybody new where you're just trying to get on top of it. It's nice to have some new clients, some steady clients, some that you're kind of coming out of. And I think more and more I really enjoy the short term work where and every time I do a short term work I think, oh, I wonder whether I could do that because it's exciting and interesting. I'm getting better at going, do you know what? I'm too stretched. That's not what I'm good at. I will find someone else to do that and I'll help them and just kind of have the faith that more of that stuff Comes in the more you do it. But it's hard, like it's. It's a bit of a roller coaster.

Co-host: It's been really iterative then by the sounds of it, of learning quite a bit of self awareness there as well, of what is it that I really enjoy? Maybe in the early days just taking the stuff that was there.

Rachel Smith: Yes.

Co-host: Um, right. Okay. And how do you. How do you balance the priorities though? Like when you've got this week, for instance, your manicure. Thanks for squeezing us in by the way.

Rachel Smith: This is the thing you were in before it got manic because I've got

Co-host: good note to self. Um, but how do you balance the priorities? Because presumably they're all going, right, we need it now, we need it now.

Rachel Smith: I think again, getting better at doing that right from the start. So not over promising. You can really over promise when you're doing this sort of work. And I think there's a sweet. Well, there's a danger spot of being in clients where you do too much, where you in there enough that they think that you're responsible for everything, but you haven't got enough time to do it. So I, uh. More towards a. Quite a high level that I'm really clear about right at the start because otherwise you're going to get in trouble and you're going to do a bad job. So I might dip down and do things, but I'm not promising that I'll do that at the start. So my, my kind of relationship will be. It's a day or two a month and this is what I'm going to do. If there's some extra work that comes up, then we'll have to talk about that. And I have to be honest about it because the last thing I want having started this is I'm working weekends and evenings and working harder than I was. Um, m. I probably work harder in some ways in kind of intense bursts. Uh, but the whole point is balance and doing stuff that I enjoy that and I'm in control of. So it's trying to set it up at the start. It doesn't always work.

Co-host: Yeah. And where you say to them a day or two is that, do you work on fixed days? I'm going to come that day. Or are you at the end of the phone hitting the button every time you pick it up? How does that work in reality?

Rachel Smith: It's much more. Because I want it to be like that. It's not really fixed days, but there's usually a fixed point depending on what I'm doing. So if it's a kind of. There's usually a board meeting fixed point that I will do, but I will be on the phone, I will do more. I tend to work on a retainer now. That's changed. It used to be a little bit more kind of totten up what I've done. But I work with businesses that don't have massive funding because if they had massive funding they'd probably just bring in a full time fd. They don't and I don't want them to overspend. So I will tend to work on a retainer and I don't mind if that flexes up or down a little bit. Um, I track it. But um, that works better and that's more the reality of how businesses work, that they need to be able to talk to you. I try and do as little doing as possible for that reason. That's why I would recruit an NFC or help them structure the team because actually what they want from me is advice, guidance, you know, a kind of an eye over things. Not, I try not to do, to take on big bits of doing unless it's a project that I'm like, right, I'll do that this week because I think that's when it starts to get very unmanageable.

Co-host: Okay. And you manage, you mentioned you do track it. The, I guess the um, trap that some fall into, and you mentioned it there a little bit, is that you'll over service. Do you, do you monitor that? Who am I over servicing? Who am I under servicing? Yeah. What do I do about it?

Rachel Smith: Yeah, absolutely. And I change it again. So I had a client that I did quite a lot of work for. But once we've done, once we've got a lot of stuff set up and we're going to go into some of the tech tools that are around now. There's a lot of stuff that you know, previously I might have spent time doing that you can automate and use technology to do. So if I've set that up, I'm not going to continue to charge them for that. So I will quite often bring it down. But that also works personally for me because I've usually got new stuff come in. So I used to do a day a week for that company. It got to the point where actually I think we're ready. I can drop that down again now and if we need to move it up again, we can talk about the time. So I do move them around, uh, and try and keep it balanced.

Co-host: And is it working?

Rachel Smith: I think it Is working. Yeah. And I'm really enjoying it and excited about it at the moment. But you can get me on a day when I'm like. And I still struggle with saying no to things. Um, but I think it is working. But it suits me. It's how I like to work. What doesn't suit me is long term kind of compliance. Same thing every month. I don't really like doing that. So I'm just trying to shape the job to what I'm good at and what I like doing.

Co-host: And so you can see the kids. See the kids, yeah.

Rachel Smith: Yeah.

Co-host: Great. So for the business, from the business's point of view, um, when does it make most sense for them to have a chat to someone like you?

Rachel Smith: So I think. I think there's a lot of noise about fractional FD at the moment and.

Co-host: Or cfo.

Rachel Smith: Or cfo or a portfolio, whatever the term is. I use them massively, interchangeably because I don't really know what the difference is. Um, but someone that is going to come in and be your number one finance person. That is what I do. Um, I've talked about these kind of day checks. I think that is really useful to do at any time if you get the right person to do it. Because I think as business, the problem with an SME is that they want. They need everything. They need FD sort of strategy, they need financial control of ship, they need bookkeeping, they need someone to do their stat accounts and you can't get one person to do all of that. Uh, and they also need different bits of that at different times. So I think the fractional model, if it's used properly, can be amazing because you can go, right, I need an FD to come in and look at my business and work out what I do need, what my team are doing, what tech. I could maybe use, what I should be looking at. And that might be it. That might be all that I need. Um, it might be that. Actually the result of that is I need an FD to come in and help me set a lot of stuff up, but then not kind of going on. So I'd bring an FD in at any point, but just on a. Really. Don't commit anything. Just have a look and ask them to give you an idea of what it is that you might need. You might just want someone to sit on your board or that you can ring once a month to go. These are all the things I'm worried about. What do you think? Because a really good FD is, it's not Just about the numbers. It's about a kind of commercial acumen that you can use, um, in your business whenever you need it. So I would say I don't know, but get someone in to try and tell you what you might need or give you a bit of guidance. Um, and don't think that if you want to use a fraction fd you're signing up for anything long term. You can actually just bring someone in for a bit to have a look at it. And then, you know, a good FD will say, actually you just need a really good finance manager. I sometimes do mentoring so um, I done a kind of health check with a business where they had a great fd. Just it's his first FD role. He didn't really know what he didn't know and he didn't have anyone to check because in a small business you haven't really got anyone to bounce things off. So for six months we had twice monthly calls where he was just like, I've done this. What do you think about this? I'm going to present this. This is happening. And it was amazing. We did six months. He felt great at the end of it and I've waved him off. But uh, I know that in the future if he needs anything, I'm there to do that. So I, ah, can't remember the start of the question. I think it was when I think get someone in. If you're not sure that your finance function is giving you what you need, just get an FD in to just speak to them and have a look.

Co-host: Some of the challenge I suppose with that is, um, if a founder, CEO, uh, they've not worked with an FD or cfo, we've got to cover all angles here. Um, if they've not worked with a finance person before, they might not know what they're capable of. And I'm m a big advocate of the fact that good FDs, good CFO, they're good business people and um, CEOs don't necessarily know that. They might think, oh yeah, you're just a numbers person. How do you do you come up against that? I guess is question number one, question number two, if so, how do you get around that? Are you offering your services for free for a day or something like that? Or are you just demonstrating it?

Rachel Smith: Yeah, not for free, definitely not. I'll always have a chat, but not for free. I guess most of the work comes in because it's something that I've done before. So it tends to be that someone that's you know, worked with me before, will say oh to their, to another business kind of. So I'm not, not massively trying to sell out on their full fight that. So I think quite a lot of the people that I end up speaking to already know that they need something, which makes it easy. I think it'll be a lot harder to kind of just go out trying to sell it. So it tends to be. Quite often it's because something has gone wrong, if I'm honest. So something has gone wrong with uh, licensing or a customer. Something has happened which made the CEO realize that they need a bit more. And it's at that point that I go in and say, right, well let's have a look and see what you need. Um, I think, yeah, I think it's quite challenging if you don't know what you need. I guess with. I'm not trying to oversell it, but I do think it's almost always when I get in there, people like, oh my God, I should have done this earlier. Because it's not about numbers or tech or systems. It's just about somebody asking you curious and asking you questions about, well, why is that? Do you know this? Why don't you look at this? It's that kind of thing where it's really valuable, I think.

Co-host: And they probably expect you to get up to speed pretty quickly. What do you do to ensure that you, that you are.

Rachel Smith: So I think it's a bit of a skill to kind of get up to speed quickly. And I think the fact that I do so many businesses is the strength of it because I'm going into similar size. What I try to do is I've got lots of different industries but they're similar sized businesses with similar systems. So they're probably going to have similar kind of problems. So more and more, what kind of. We almost. You almost know what you're going to suggest before you get in there with some iterations. Because when we've had the initial conversation it's obvious and quite often it's not that I need to get up to speed with the business really quickly. It's okay, what have they got? What are they looking at? Can we just get them some information quickly so that we can then say, right, okay, what do you need? So it's just chatting really with the business, understanding that they probably need management reporting, they probably need a business plan and a forecast and you could probably get to that quite quickly. And that process in itself gives you a bit of an idea of what the business needs. But I'm not promising that I'm getting under the skin of everything really quickly. I'm um, trying to sit at a level where I'm saying, what's your business model? What does your three year plan look like? Does it make sense? Can you see what is happening in your business? Do you look forward as well as backwards? That uh, sort of thing is really what we're going in.

Co-host: And so I suppose you're giving them a bit of visibility from, not from day one necessarily, but uh, I know you use tools like Fathom, Xero and the like.

Rachel Smith: Yeah. So you can, it's very different now. You can go into a business and if they have got Xero and more and more, there's a lot of clients on Sage, which is a bit more challenging. But still you can do it. You can bring something in quite quickly that at least tells you what the numbers are looking at. Obviously if those underlying numbers are not right, there's more to do. But again, looking at that high level will probably tell you quite quickly whether there is something amiss underneath or something that needs looking at. But one of the clients that I work with, we sort of sign the engagement letter, they were doing Excel Management accounts, we put in sift rather than fathom before the first meeting and then could produce it on the day because it's just really quick, like it's not doing anything really exciting, but it's just really quick. So you can do some of that. So you're not spending your time doing that. Therefore you get straight to. So what do the numbers mean? What's missing? What do you need to know?

Co-host: Great. So, and you mentioned earlier about fraction, you're working with other fractional people, fractional FC's, bookkeepers and the like. That's fairly new as well, I suppose, isn't it? And do you see that becoming, Is that how we're going, Is that how finance teams are going now? How's it changing?

Rachel Smith: I think so. I think that there's a real strength in having more than one person. There's a real strength in kind of focusing on what you're really good at. Uh, I think there's a lot of, what a lot of businesses need, I think is a fractional cfo, fractional fc, because you know, you might want an FD for certain things if you're doing something, you know, if you're going out for funding or if you coming up to a transaction, you might want an FD to kind of, of sitting your board for kind of that sort of gravitas and experience. But quite often the work doesn't need to be done at that cost. Um, and I think fractional FCs, that's what a lot of people are going in and doing. If you're setting up management accounts, doing monthly reporting, I don't think you need an FD to do that. You might want an FD to design it and go, this is what you should be looking at. But I don't think you want an FDA to do it. That's expensive. Um, so I think it is absolutely going that way. Um, and I think the fractional model works amazingly. If you genuinely are getting a fraction of a couple of different people, you don't need a full. You want one person but that person is made up of three different people doing their expert bit. That's the nirvana if you can get it to work. But I do think it is going to be more like that. I do think that fractional, it's not going to be just loads of FDs. Um, it's going to be. I want a bit of that and a bit of that and then I want a bit of that just in small businesses. Well, I don't know. It works in small businesses I guess because there's usually a financial restraint to it. Whereas if you in a bigger business you can afford to have someone in full time. But I don't know why it wouldn't. I think you have to be quite big before you need a full time FD doing just FD work. Um, I think you could in a lot of the businesses I've looked at also because I'm very much. I work part time. My two FCs that I work with all the time work part time. We've got uh, eight children between us. I do. I'm always looking for a way that you could structure it slightly differently and I think the default is I need a full time fc. Well, do you? Because you m might need three days of an FC and you could have another three days or four days if someone more junior doing some of the work. Or you could have 4 days FC and 1 day FD. I just think it's always worth having a look. You might be able to use your money in a more effective way. Um, and there are also some amazing part time people out there that would be, you know, you're not lazy when you're part time because it's quite focused. You've got to get it done. So I think you can always have a look at a different model.

Co-host: Yeah.

Rachel Smith: Okay.

Co-host: And does it work for everyone?

Rachel Smith: Going into fractional, um, I think you've got to really enjoy the uncertainty. I am quite fortunate that I can be a bit picky about what I do. I think if I was desperate to fill five days a week, then I would probably pick the wrong stuff. And then I might not always do the right thing by the business because I'm trying to kind of fill my time. So I don't think it suits everyone. I think you need uncertainty, quite high boundaries. I also think if you're going into fractional now because it's busy and there's a lot of it going on, and I really think you should think about what you're really good at and focus. So, you know, if you've done PE deals and, you know, you're really good at, you've done a couple of exits, you know, that is a real need. Businesses that need to get ready for that. If you really like the kind of monthly compliance stuff, sell what you're good at. Uh, and just the more that you're doing the same sort of thing, the easier it is, I think.

Co-host: So double down on what it is that you're good at, uh, rather than just saying, I'm a cfo, I think so.

Rachel Smith: And then you're standing out a little bit. I'm, you know, I'm a fractional cfo and I do small businesses that, you know, this sort of size and I'm, you know, and it's management accounting or reporting or sitting on your board or mentoring, you can do all of it. But I think it is easier to sell your service if it's quite focused, uh, and clear what you do.

Co-host: What about for the fractional FCS bookkeepers and the like? Is it a bit harder for them with the selling skills and things like that as well?

Rachel Smith: Yeah, potentially. And I think that I don't think anyone's looking for that yet. I think, you know, people will go, I think I need some finance. And fractional FD is quite topical. I don't think you think you need a fractional fc. Um, but I do think it's really, really valid. But there's lots of fractional FDS out there, so it's building that network. So, you know, we do a lot of referring work to each other as FDs or FCs. I don't always. And it might not be me. I might just say, actually, I don't need to do that. You know, that's not for me. So I think, I think it's harder as a fraction. I see. Because it's not Quite caught up with the kind of trend.

Co-host: Yeah, yeah, sure. So would they be best advised to align themselves like your team have? Align themselves with a fractional CFO who's out there winning the work and getting the referrals and things like that, and then they.

Rachel Smith: Yeah, they can deliver, I think. Or it doesn't have to be one. You don't have to. You know, the fractional CFCs that I work with don't just work for me, you know, it doesn't need to be like that at all. I think it's all about your network. I think if you're trying to kind of sell this sort of stuff on LinkedIn, I think it's really hard. I think you need to speak to recruiters that know what this market is, and I think you need to try and use your network because, um, that's the route I've always ended up going down, um, speaking to people about it and then kind of working that way rather than, um, trying to sell your services. I'm not very good at. I'm good once I'm talking to you, but not. I don't really like marketing. No, no.

Co-host: That's the tough bit, isn't it? And I get asked that a lot, really, with people that want to go and do it. And I say, you've got to market yourself and things like that. But let's talk about the networking side of. Because a lot of people that have worked in finance, they might have come the route that you did, come corporate, and actually they look at the network and they say, well, they're all working in big businesses and this, that and the other. There's not a lot they can do for me. And I challenged that and I said, well, you never know, actually, why don't you go and have a coffee and see who they know and try and build it one at a time has always been my advice. But what about you? What did you find was the best way of building out that network?

Rachel Smith: So it was just people that I work with in big business. And like I said, I didn't start off doing an FDA role. I kind of just, you know, someone working in another business saying, well, could you come in and do this for me? So I think you have to be quite open at the beginning, so don't do something that is not, you know, it's not your expertise, but I guess be open to it, but I think speak to other fractional FDs. I think, you know, I've got a group, I think there's about 15 of us on There now, it's not really competitive because we. There's plenty. There is quite a lot of work out there. None, uh, of us want to work full time, so we do pass stuff to each other. And also something that comes to me through my network might not be the right thing, so I'll kind of move it on. So I think use your network of everyone that you know and just tell them what you're doing is probably. But speak to other fraction lefties as well, because they might be happy to pass on work that's more suited to them.

Co-host: There's some gold there for people thinking about it. Um, closing question for you. Slight change of tack. You know, this one's coming anyway, because you've worked with great finance people, haven't you? Up and down the chain. You've reported into some, you've had others work for you. What is it that you see in really great finance people that you wish more people knew about?

Rachel Smith: Yes, I did have a good think about this one, actually. I think. And it's what I aspire to as well. You almost don't know that that's the finance person in the room because, you know, it's not someone leading with the spreadsheets or the historical data, uh, or the risk. It's someone that has got all that finance background. So they're commercially really sharp, but they're curious about the business and they're asking questions about all of it. I think I love it when people are surprised that I am the finance person, because actually I'm just asking about sales or people. I think that is the real skill. Um, and someone that is curious about the entire business. It's a business person that's got a finance background. That's. That's what I think is amazing.

Co-host: That's the line we're going with. Love it. Yeah, thanks loads. All right, thanks for listening. See you next time.

James Roach: Thanks for listening to the finance seat. Before you go, please do take a minute to rate and review. It makes a huge difference. And make sure you give us a follow so you know when the next episode is out. See you there.