What Fractional CFOs Really Do For Growing Businesses with Alison Bolt

The first one of his steps is to like copy and pivot an idea. You don't have to have a brand new idea to go into business. You just have to take something that's been done and do it better or do it differently. And it's really simple things like that that I learn by being fortunate enough to be in those rooms or availability of having that book. And that's kind of where my knowledge comes from. Welcome back to the Need F Word podcast, where we talk finances in business. I'm your host, Colin Hewitt, founder and CEO at Float. We're so glad to be back for season 3, and this season we've got some great guests that are going to bring a ton of value. We'll be diving further into how fractional CFOs add value, what financial clarity actually looks like, and what systems and apps are leading the way. New guests, sharper conversations. Let's get into it. Hey, welcome to the New F Word podcast. It's great to have Alison Bolt with us today. Alison, welcome. How are you doing? Thank you. Yes, having a great day. So I hear you're in Manchester. What's going on there? So I'm up in Manchester today on a delayed train, bit panicky. One of my clients, Business Leader, are holding an event here with Bryn Dolphin for CEOs and founders. It's a how to exit your business masterclass. So super interesting. And I've just stepped out to do this. Brilliant. Oh, thanks for taking the time. I'd love to— well, let's get back into that, but maybe just jumping back a step. You're in the fractional CFO space, you've been in it for a while. Do you want to give us a bit of how you came to that and, uh, what excites you about that? Initially did an engineering degree, fell into finance, started my career in a more bigger organization, more commercial, massive multinational, and then from that I kind of ended up in more SME space over the period of kind of 10 years or so. And I thought it was, I just really enjoyed it. I enjoyed working closely with founders, CEOs, almost being their right-hand person a bit, a lot more autonomy or decisions that you can make that actually will be put into effect rather than in bigger businesses where there's maybe a bit more bureaucracy. So yeah, it's been an interesting journey, but I definitely think within the last couple of years moving into Fractional was where I want to be and where I kind of belong, which, and I love it. Brilliant. And you're also launching Agile Talent, which is like on the same lines but slightly broadening it out a bit. Tell us a bit about that. So Agile Talent, it's kind of started as just me a couple of years ago, as, as most people will do if they're working fractionally, will set up their own business. I went through several name iterations, landed on Agile Talent, and then I've just been over the last kind of year or so trying to focus on how I go from just being me providing fractional finance support and kind of guidance to CEOs and founders into like a, a bigger than me picture. What I've noticed quite a lot from businesses I work with, those, that smaller scale businesses, is that they tend to outsource bookkeeping, IT, and HR, and don't necessarily have the funds or the need to have full-time kind of CTOs, CPOs, CFOs. And I think those three services sit in a really nice place where if you have a bit of knowledge of all three of those, it's super helpful. And I think because of my kind of perm roles that I came from before, I was overseeing a lot of that anyway, so quite a lot of knowledge of that anyway. So it kind of came about as, how do I make this bigger than just me? It's in a process at the minute, not fully developed, but working on how we offer those services across those three functions in a really nice way that a founder or CEO can have access to that information without having to have three different points of contact, three different businesses. It, it becomes like you have one C-suite person that can help you, and then you can call in on like a CPO if you need them for an hour here or there. Because we've got those people in our network at Agile Talent. So, it's not fully developed yet. It's a kind of thought and turning into something. Yeah, I really like the sound of that, to be honest. I think other people that have been on have said, you know, there's a few different approaches to that. Is it like, you know, multiple people in a team, or— I like the thought of one point of contact with the ability to bring in people for a shorter period of time. That tends to be the thing that It makes a lot of sense. There's so many things that just kind of go hand in hand that if that one person knows and can manage, um, like more junior— so for example, one of my clients at the minute, I manage the HR lady that, that works there, and she just kind of plods along in the background doing the things that need doing, but I'm the point of contact for it. So it means you don't have, like, like I said, 3 different people that you go to. And I think that the joy of working in a high-growth scale-up is that as you go along that journey and as they grow, if we have an HR arm in Agile Talent, we can then help you to recruit. And because we understand your business, we understand your culture, we've built your policies with you, then we can help you recruit into that role. And actually, there are some cost savings there because you don't have to go out to recruiters unless you want to do it super, super fast. So, there's a lot of kind of thoughts just knocking about in my head. Along, and I haven't really made them all that concrete yet, but I think there are some real advantages of doing it that way. Absolutely. It's a work in progress. And I— but yeah, ultimately, I think the last person I spoke to said that they felt like it's really difficult if you're just a solo CFO or fractional CFO, because you realize that you do need to pull in more people. And often, if those people aren't in place, then you do need HR, you need operations, And you— are you going to do all those things individually for multiple businesses? It becomes very difficult. Yeah, it does. But if you have a template, then if you have the people in the template, it becomes much easier. And all those things are equally important. So I think like every time I go into a new client, it's, it's around, can you do a budget for us? And all of the questions I have about that budget are around people and tech. So it's like, well, what are your people plans? What are your like Is tech even just increasingly more and more as a majority of your spend? Like, what are your plans and are you utilizing the tech you have in place and is it integrated properly? Because effectively, if it's not, then you're probably paying people when you don't need to be paying people. So, all of those things and understanding those things. And then I guess in an age of kind of AI and all the clever integrations that exist, being fractional really helps because I've got a client over here that does it this way. And that, you know, why don't you do it that way? Because that actually saves them a lot of time. So I think there's some real kind of cost-saving benefits of having that fractional model. Absolutely. Do you have a niche or do you tend to, is it kind of early stage tech company that you're focused on? No, currently I'm working quite a lot in kind of the member space. So Business Leader are a peer-to-peer CEO growth program, which I absolutely love. And I think we absolutely need in this country. I think from working with founders in the past and being on kind of an SLT, a very small SLT, it can be quite lonely. And there are so many lessons to be learned that I think founders and CEOs will go through on their own without realizing that there are— well, they probably realize they're probably just so— the conversation I had today with a lady, like, you're so in the detail and in the running of the business that actually the thought of spending a couple of hours every month speaking to other CEOs about their journey and That you can learn so much, you could save so much money just by learning one lesson once a month, you know. So business leader, peer-to-peer CEO growth platform, it's kind of membership, but equally editorial. And then another client I have, a client called Crafty Council, who are in-house lawyer membership. So it weirdly ended up in that membership space, but have come from an FMCG, retail, consumer goods background, which I love as well and actually miss quite a lot. Because I just, I do enjoy, I enjoy food a lot. So I would like to pick up a couple of clients that are restaurants or whatever like that. So I do enjoy that space as well. You can pick what you want to do, obviously. For me, it's about the person I'm working with. So the business leader, it's great when people have that growth mindset and they want to grow their business. That doesn't necessarily mean they have to be growing their business, but I think you have to have a chemistry, even more so in a small business. You have to have that chemistry. Something that you feel like the CEOs that you work with, like, what do they typically get wrong? Like, what's— is there, is there a single trait? Like, you talk about having a growth mindset. Is there something that you see CEOs typically— you're starting from the same point every time, or is everybody just so different? Um, I don't think there's something that they typically get wrong. I think there's a lot going on, so you can't have control of everything, especially as you grow. I think that what stops you getting it wrong is having those really good foundations in place. So, we talk about HR, HR contracts, HR policies, because if you don't have those in place, that could bite you later down the line. So, you are a CEO, you've got 10, 10 employees and they're all your, your best mate. And that's absolutely great because that's how you built the business and good on you for that. But as soon as that then grows to 30 people, if you don't have the right contracts in place for those first 10, the weight of you then being your mate won't weigh up anymore as the business grows. So you need to make sure you have really solid kind of policies and stuff in place so that when it does grow and you can't have all those touchpoints anymore, you don't get, you know, problems that crop up with employees and things like that. Yeah. Yes, I think that's exactly it. It's the, this works now, but it's not going to work. And I guess that it's the not knowing what you don't know, um, that you're able to kind of say, look, I've seen this play out multiple times, like, here's a playbook of what we need to start to address. And, you know, everything has to be in place on day one, but we're going to work towards, uh, like a path. And I think also it is pointing, like, flagging the risk. Ultimately, the CEO, founder is the person that takes the risk on. So as long as you're aware of the risk, I've done my job. I've told you that this could happen if we don't do it properly. If you're happy to take that risk, that's fine. And I think that makes me slightly unique compared to kind of other— possibly compared to other finance professionals that might see it in a very black and white way, I can work quite nicely with founders to flag those risks and say, what about doing it this way? Have you thought about this? This thing might actually only take you a little bit of time and protect you in the future, rather than being like, you must do it this way. A much more kind of a guide. Yes. How do you think about finding new work? Do— how do you think about capacity? Do you have capacity at the moment? Do you feel like you're getting point where, you know, you can see it very quickly topping out. Where are you at with that? I've got a bit of capacity at the minute, not in a, in a way that it, I'm okay with that. I'm okay having that capacity. It allows me the time to work on my own business, which I think is important. I think, and, and that again comes back to why I kind of want to expand Agile Talent, because I will hit capacity at some point. And actually, I'd rather be at that strategic level working with the business leader or having really important discussions with them. And that might not be a case of them having one day of my time a week. It might be a case of them having a couple of hours of my time a week. And I'd rather have those super important conversations and us bring in a team that can kind of crunch the numbers and do all of the admin and be producing your monthly reports and things like that, your kind of KPI decks and things like that. So that I can actually properly add value at that strategic level. So I think in answer to your question, I'm in a really good place. I'd like to get that to an even better place where I'm more of an advisor than a kind of— I can do the numbers and I do love the numbers, but it's a bit of a natural progression really. Yeah, 100%. And I think, did you say that you would take a client on if you were only doing a couple of hours a week? Is that like something you would consider? I would do. I think we'd have this discussion about what was required, really. The clients I have at the minute, they need kind of everything from finance manager upwards to, to that CFO level. So I'll sit in on board meetings, but I'll also run the cash flow every week. So I do that at the minute. I'd like to get it to a point where I had someone else running those numbers, and so I was spending the quality time with those clients and I had more of them. So if it was a case of a client who needed a couple of hours a week, it's just conversation about what exactly they need. Do they need a CFO to come to their board meetings? And actually they've got a bookkeeper, but that bit in the middle's missing, the reporting and that kind of management of that bookkeeper. They don't want to do anymore because it's hard work because actually you still have to manage an outsource even if it's not, you know, even if outsourcing something seems like the right way to go because it's taking a bit of hassle around your recruitment away. You'll still have to manage them and make sure they're doing their job. So yeah, I think in answer to your question, yeah, have a conversation and see what you need. Yeah, no, I really like that. I think there's— I've seen a few people recently sort of going like, you know, minimum X number of days a month. And, you know, I think for some businesses it's kind of almost— that can even be too much just to come in and just start somewhere and then figure out like, yeah, where is it? Is it, is it in this operations? Is it in the HR? Is it you know, where's the— where do we put the effort in? But a lot of people hold back from doing anything because they're not willing to take on that initial commitment. It is very difficult to get into fractional, I think, because into that really fractional way you have a lot of clients, because— and I found it very similar— like, you need to earn a living and you can't do that off of a couple of hours a week, and you can't get 10 clients all at once. So that journey into fractional, it happened quite nicely for me because I was asked to go and do work by a colleague where I had an interim position before, and that was a full day a week. So then I was able to take on other clients. So that was actually really nice and really fortunate, but I can see how it's hard to— because effectively going out and finding your own clients is very difficult unless you've got your network built up already. It's an interesting market to try and go out there and physically find clients. Yes. And it's just happened organically for you. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, yeah, definitely. The other thing is I've heard from people, you know, saying, I don't want my fractional to be going out and just seeing them all over LinkedIn every day, you know, because it's like, how much are they building their own network and writing content? And how much are they actually like in, like thinking about my business? And I think there is a bit of that sometimes. It comes back to the trust you develop with the business leader, right? So, and it's like with any employee, like, if you're employing someone you don't think they're doing the work you're paying them for, you need to ask yourself that question and have that conversation with them. If you build a relationship based on the trust that they are delivering, then that's the answer to your question. Like, it's not necessarily about amount of work, it's about value. And I find that really difficult myself coming from a position where I worked in permanent. I assume a lot of people will have just come from permanent to whatever. I still find it very hard to remember that it's not necessarily about me sitting at my laptop 8 hours a day. I am adding value just by, you know, sitting on the train for 30 minutes and thinking about the business in a different way and thinking about like, are we doing it that way? Are we doing it this way? Bringing that different perspective. So, I think there is something in that, that definitely I'm still on that journey as well of remembering that I don't necessarily just bring value by doing spreadsheets or exporting files and producing decks and all that kind of stuff. My value add is from my experience and what I know and what I can bring to the table in discussions. It sounds like, you know, if you're having fun, then traveling up to Manchester for a couple of hours, it it's all part of the gig. And whereas if you're not having— if you're not enjoying the client that you're working for, I can imagine it starts to become a real drag. Yeah, I can't imagine it would be much fun. I think it comes back to that we've all got to earn a living, right? So, um, some people may not be able to be as choosy, but I think it's really important to enjoy what you do. And I think that I've had points in my career where I've not enjoyed what I've done normally around businesses not being that well funded, so it becomes very stressful. And I think that's a note to myself about the people I wanna work with and the kind of businesses I wanna work with. But I don't think there's a lot when you think about your career when you're younger. I think you, you should be thinking all the time from a younger age, like, am I enjoying this? Am I having a nice time? Like, yes. Does it give me a nice career projection and, and do I think I'll end up where I wanna be in 10 years' time? But equally, like, make sure you're having a good time at the same time because you're working 8, 10 hours a day every day. Absolutely. Uh, yeah. So where do you see— where would you like to see Agile Talent in, in 5 to 10 years? If you had— if you could sort of like dream the dream, where would you be? How much time would you be— would you still be hands-on with clients, or would you be just running the show from? I'd love to still be doing client stuff, I think, which I think I might find difficult if we get to a point where it is a bigger business, because obviously you have to run the business as well and you have to run the people, etc. So I would like to get to a point where I had maybe 10 clients that I was working with and then still having a little bit of time to run the business, but across those 10 clients, giving them that full suite, that full package And also, I would love to be in a position where we'd had a couple of businesses that we took on and then had left us as well, which I know isn't normally kind of from a finance point of view, you wanna keep your clients forever, but it would be great if we could take a business from that kind of 1 million turnover up to 25 and then bring a CFO in and take them on that journey. And then, and then maybe that founder exits that business and starts something new and brings us in again. So it's a bit of an ecosystem in that, and it's, definitely about that supporting through that journey. That's where I think where I'd like to be. That makes a lot of sense. I think that's the, that's the goal, isn't it? It's like get the growth that the founders are looking for and step back and watch it. Are you finding, like, in, in terms of productivity gains and technology and AI, are you finding, you know, you're still pushing into that? Is that, is that helping you? Has a thing changed in the last couple of years that you know, you're finding really useful? Yes, huge. The kind of things that are available now, the integrations that are available, and again, it's especially in that smaller business space. I think there are unique issues around bigger businesses with kind of systems that they've had for a really long time, and that's a whole nother kind of transformation discussion, I think. But in the SME space, there's a lot available. Nothing is perfect. You still need to use Excel and spreadsheets and things like that. And there's a lot, I think, around kind of the whole journey, the whole— you might find systems that will give you really good financial reports, but are they looking at your non-financial KPIs and how are you integrating those? And that's got a little way to come from what I've seen. I still haven't found a cash flow solution yet, so I'm still, uh, still doing those manually, which is I think it's kind of a, a good thing and a bad thing. I think understanding the cash and being on top of the cash is key for those, that smaller business and that growth phase. And so me understanding it and being close to it, as well as being able to speak to the founder CEO about that and then feel confident there's nothing gonna go wrong there is super important. But I think there's, yeah, huge advances. I think there's still loads to go, and I think there's a lot of interesting development in that space of kind of API integrations as well. So I think it's quite nice that a lot of things connect now, and it's not just a case of you get one ERP and that's it. You actually can connect 10 different things that do their own thing really well individually, and they connect really well, and the whole system works. But to build that, you need the expertise unless you have them in-house. And I think that's a super interesting space. No, absolutely. I think, um, well, we'll have to talk about Float another time. We feel like it's great to see the evolution and, you know, just hearing about some of the stuff that's happening in, uh, like reconciliation, auto-reconciliation. So that's going to make live data more available and everything available in real time. Have you checked out any of the new ERP systems, or are you very much in the zero Sage, QuickBooks world? What's your— very much in the Xero world, but we are using Sift, which I think is good. I think their support is very good, which is helpful. I think from my point of view, great, because I can use a system. I understand finance. I'd like to not be doing those things anymore, so I'm happy to learn it and build the reports and things like that. Um, and I think it is great it's not as complicated as perhaps learning how to build reports in Excel because it's pre-built, but you still have to, there's still learning to do there. So it's not a case of like just anyone could come in and do it. You still have to understand what P&L looks like, balance sheet, et cetera, et cetera. So I would love, I assume they're going to develop some decent integrations with, for KPI reporting. I know there's, they've got some HubSpot integrations, uh, and I know HubSpot is absolutely massive and a very good tool. So. I'm excited for what's available. I would like someone to tell me, but I've had to do a lot of kind of testing myself. But then I think there's, there's still a way to go. I'm still doing budgeting in, in Excel with like KPI reporting. You can use like, like Power BI or bits and bobs like that. Um, I think finding us the thing that works and building that is, it's still It's not kind of, this is what it is and go for it. It's a case of still having to do a lot of exploring. It makes me think, like, finding that other network of other CFOs or fractional CFOs to cross-reference things. Have you, have you found anything like that yet? Do you feel you have a community of people you can lean on if you need to? So I have a network, a female in finance network called NOVA, which is lovely. They, it's just like women across finance, um, at any level, and they cohort us into two different groups and I'm in a Fractional and Intrim group. I don't use it as much as I should, that's for sure. But yeah, I think there's, there's a, like I said, I'm in the membership space by, by the work I do, but it does exist. I think when you go out for dinner with a bunch of people, you don't really wanna be talking about systems. You wanna be just getting to know people. So it's like finding that balance a little bit. Just moving on to some rapid fire questions finishing up, but it's been great. Great shouting. If you weren't in finance, what other career would you love to try? Probably something with animals, probably like, you know, a dog shelter or a zookeeper or something. Wow. Might be fun. Yeah. Uh, also challenging. And what's been the most challenging dynamic with a leadership team that you've had to walk through? Do you have, is it like you say, running out of money or having a disagreement about the strategy? Like, where have you found that you've been the most stretched in your role to do it? Oh, it's hard to think of an example. I think probably it comes a bit when a company outgrows the people in it. And I don't know if kind of you've been through this as a founder, but you get to a point where you've got someone that's super lovely and they were there at the beginning, and they're great, like absolutely fantastic, because they, you know, did everything. But then you've got to a certain size where kind of you've outgrown their ability a little bit. And I think a lot of that happens. It happens really frequently. And that's where you'll get calls from recruiters saying, you need to sign this NDA, etc., etc. And I think that must be super challenging for a business leader to have to make those decisions, and especially if it's someone that's been with you from the beginning. It makes it very difficult for them. And how do you support them, um, in that decision-making? Because they have to make that decision to grow the business. You can't have that person, you can't carry them really. So I think it's really not unique, but it's super, super difficult. And it's something that as I grow my business, I hope I don't ever have to do. But I completely understand that it's— yeah, there's nothing I'd ever want to do. Yeah, no, it's not fun. I think that's the hardest part often is Saying goodbye to good people, whether they're moving on for their own growth or you have to move them on, it's never fun. Final question, you talked about a growth mindset earlier in the podcast. Are there any resources like books or podcasts or videos that you find really helpful? Like, why do you, how do you learn? How do you grow? I don't really want to plug it, but I might as well. Business Leader is brilliant and it's owned by a fantastic person called Richard Harpin who grew and sold a company called HomeServe. And off the back of that, he has set up a business leader to kind of give back. And every event I go to, I learn something. It's the event today, I've only been down there for about an hour, but it's just the kind of knowledge that you get imparted on you in that period of time. He's also written a book, The Nine Steps to Make a Billion, which very, very simple. And I have to confess, I haven't read the whole book, but I have read each step has an introduction and I've kind of inspired me to do or to try to do what I'm doing because I think in the past I've always thought, oh, I, here's a business idea, maybe I'll do that. And then it's like, oh, but this person over there's doing that, so I don't wanna do that. And I've been quite risk averse, like quite naturally as a finance professional, I'm quite risk averse. And the first one of his steps is to like copy and pivot an idea. You don't have to have a brand new idea to go into business. You just have to take something that's been done and do it better or do it differently. And it's really simple things like that that I learn by being fortunate enough to be kind of in those rooms or availability of having that book. And that's kind of where my, my knowledge comes from. It's great. It's not the only area, but it, it's been invaluable in the last 6 months. Yeah, having a reference point like that is great, and it's great that other people can read it and then you can dig in. But yeah, Business Leader sounds cool. I'll definitely check it out. I hadn't heard of it, and it's a good endorsement. Alison, thanks so much. It's been brilliant to chat. Thanks for coming on the podcast. We will put links to some of these things in the show notes, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your time in Manchester. I will. Thank you so much, Colin. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of The New F Word. I hope you enjoyed it. Remember, expert financial advice shouldn't be limited to those with just big budgets. 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