Glenn Harper: Welcome, everybody.
Or another episode of Harper and Company Empowering
Entrepreneurs. Glen Harper here.
Julie Smith: Julie Smith.
Glenn Harper: And we'd like to welcome our guest today, Kristin Deese, a
fellow entrepreneur who is the brains behind multiple
companies. She is a virtual CFO as well as a real CFO for
multiple companies and owner of Gulf Coast business
coaching in sunny Gulf Breeze, Florida.
And in her spare time, she can be found on the beach
throwing mud on ATVs with her family.
Even though she looks like she's all brains and a desk
jockey, she likes to get dirty and experience nature and
manual labor. Thanks to Christian for being part of the
show today.
Kristen Deese: Thank you for having me.
Glenn Harper: You're welcome. Well, it's the funniest thing when we get
some guests on here, the we try to have some commonality
and we can make fun of each other.
And knowing that you're an accountant, I mean, we share a
special bond, I think, and a non accountants just don't get
it. Julie doesn't get it.
She has no clue about what that means.
And we're trying to figure out, you know, when you were in
school, I don't know if you really wanted to be an
accountant, but you said somehow you liked it and I just
didn't know if it was, you know, was it the cash versus
accrual accounting amortization of bond premiums or
accounts that just made you have to be the language of
accounting? Which one was it?
Kristen Deese: Probably none of the above.
Glenn Harper: What those are, that's sexy, that kind of stuff.
Kristen Deese: I actually started my college career wanting to be a nurse,
which is completely opposite of accounting, and realized
that in order to do that I had to take biology and
chemistry and they were really hard.
So I jumped ship from that and moved over to accounting,
which is completely opposite spectrum and found.
I always have loved numbers and organization and stuff like
that, but then started really understanding how it worked
from that accounting perspective.
And then I was like, okay, this is kind of cool.
It's just basically like a puzzle.
Glenn Harper: Yeah, we look at it like, you know, some accounts really
never even get it.
But you're an anomaly, kind of like myself, where at one
point you're sitting there looking at numbers and doing
what you do, and all of a sudden it's like the matrix.
The numbers just roll and they make sense and you're like,
Oh, I can speak this language.
It makes sense, right?
Is that kind of what happened?
Kristen Deese: Yeah, totally. As a matter of fact, the very first
accounting, one on one class that I took, I failed.
I had to retake it.
But then once it clicked the second time around, then I was
like, Oh, this is all making sense now and then.
Now, even just yesterday, I was working on a complicated
journal entry that was just really I just couldn't get it
to balance. And then when it finally did, it was like, oh.
Glenn Harper: Are you are you suggesting that you don't just plug a number
and make it bounce or you actually try to find the number?
Kristen Deese: Oh, no, I can take it.
Glenn Harper: Yeah, that's great.
So I've been dying to ask this.
Your husband, Justin, does does he think your tractor's
sexy? Do you guys have a tractor because you said you drive
one of those around?
Kristen Deese: We do have a tractor and a four wheeler and a side by side.
Nice.
Glenn Harper: So I stalked you a little bit on your online profile and
Kennesaw State University.
How do we detect that?
That's the third largest university in Georgia.
Well, how did you pick that versus the Bulldogs?
What was the reason?
Was it Sturgis the owl or is just because you just want
like the smaller school?
Kristen Deese: Well, I actually started at Georgia State and transferred to
Kennesaw about halfway through.
I went to high school up in that area, so I was very
familiar with that area.
And when I went to Kennesaw way back in the day, it was
still a commuter school. So it wasn't even close to the
size that it is now.
Now they have dorms and a football team and all kinds of
stuff, and when I was there, none of that was there.
However, they had a fantastic business school and they
still do. And so I wanted to get out of the city and out of
Georgia State. So I transferred up to Kennesaw to finish
out, and I'm very glad I did.
It was it was an excellent school and their business and
accounting program was is pretty good.
Glenn Harper: How about that? Did you you weren't there when they had
Sturgis, right. I think he came along a little bit later
but yeah.
Kristen Deese: Yeah, no I wasn't there when when they were there, my
brothers ended up going there for a little while for
engineering several years after I did.
And by the time they went, Sturgis was there.
And the plank and all of the things that they do now.
Glenn Harper: Do they like have the outgoing attack little animals or is
it just flying around or is it just sit there and look
noble?
Kristen Deese: I honestly have never been to a Kennesaw football game, so I
couldn't tell you have it.
Glenn Harper: And my final like warm up question is do you prefer
horseback riding or four wheeling?
Kristen Deese: Oh, my gosh. I don't know that I could pick.
It is a tough one.
I think probably four wheeling, but only by like a little
smidge of a preference.
Glenn Harper: Because it's not as dangerous or more fast.
You like to live in dangerous.
Kristen Deese: I have a little bit more control on four wheeling because
I'm driving as opposed to a horse where you have to you
have some bit of control.
But really the 1200 pounds beneath you has more control
than you do. So.
Glenn Harper: Yeah. They a moth.
Oh, my God. We're going to die.
Horse jumps straight.
Julie Smith: Yeah, that's Glenn's last softball question.
But the one thing that I read while stalking you like
Glenn, was the coffee and wine comments so we can find you
in the morning, drinking your coffee and ending your day
with wine. And for whatever reason, it wasn't the numbers
that connected me with you.
It was that.
Kristen Deese: Yes, like I am a human too.
Julie Smith: So which one's your favorite?
Do you like to the beginning of the day or the end of your
day?
Kristen Deese: Oh, coffee? For sure.
Yeah, for sure. I as a matter of fact, it's mostly cream
with just like a splash of coffee.
Julie Smith: So I get that as I'm drinking Starbucks dairy's.
Glenn Harper: Good selection theory.
Well, would you?
You know, for our listeners out there, we always like to
have our our guests kind of just tell a little bit about
what services your companies do and, you know, a little
intro of what you guys do for a living and the why of that.
And then we'll get into some more depth about being an
entrepreneur as a you know, we just want to know a little
bit about what you do so our clients can kind of connect
with connect with you.
Kristen Deese: Well, we do own a couple of businesses.
We, my husband and I have worked together for 20 years,
give or take. We own a business in Atlanta that installs
kitchen appliances for people who purchase them from Lowe's
and Home Depot. So if you go need a dishwasher and you want
somebody to install it, that's our company that gets
contracted out to do that.
And then we own a company here in the panhandle of Florida
called Paradise Home Services, and it's plumbing, HVAC and
then water and mold remediation.
So I operate as the CFO for both of those companies.
And then what I do with the majority of my time is those
CFO services for other businesses in the trades.
What we find a lot of times in the trades is the owners are
really good technicians, they're really good at what they
do. But running the business part isn't necessarily
something that is a strength for them.
So the coaching and the CFO services help them in that area
of weakness so that they can be more balanced as a
business.
Glenn Harper: So you work, you coordinate that with their current CPA or
accounting people to get the data.
And then you kind of look at at a high level.
Kristen Deese: What the owner yeah, I actually work with their in-house
accounting staff.
So a lot of times they'll have like a bookkeeper or an
office manager or somebody who's keeping track of all of
the day to day information expenses and receipts and
payments and deposits and invoices and all that kind of
stuff. And I help them with getting their systems together
and how are they going to collect receipts and where are
they going to store them and how are they going to track
them and how are they going to track to make sure that
they're getting paid on their invoices?
And then I help them put together their financial reports
and reconcile all their statements and do all of those
things. And then when they go to the CPA, they can give
their CPA their completed books.
And their CPA is not having to run around trying to figure
out, you know, trying to do the reconciliations and figure
out where everything is.
They can just take the completed reports and prepare the
taxes and do whatever they need to do with it.
So it's definitely very much a managerial accounting as
opposed to tax prep accounting.
Glenn Harper: Gotcha. See, you're more of a controller and then you take
that data, hand it off, and then you analyze it with the
owner and tell them what's going on.
Kristen Deese: Exactly. Yeah. So the we take the the information that goes
to the CPA, they deal with the tax side of things.
And then we take that same information and we sit down with
ownership and we say, okay, let's look at how you did.
Let's look at what your trends are.
Let's look on which departments are making money and which
departments are. Let's look at where your holes in the boat
are basically, and let's figure out how to plug them.
Glenn Harper: Don't business owners just love getting under the microscope
and getting called out on all of those things?
It's the.
Kristen Deese: No. It's a really vulnerable situation for business owners
to be in, but it's totally necessary in order to be
successful. There are so many times that, you know, these
people are running around selling, selling, selling.
They're they're working really, really, really hard.
But then they look at their bank account and they're like,
where is the money? What is going on here?
And you have to have that.
You have to be able to analyze the information and know
what you're looking at in order to figure out where it's
going.
Glenn Harper: It's funny when this whole podcast is empowering
entrepreneurs and it's about helping them get the knowledge
transfer so they understand what it means to run a
business, not just do the business.
And and that is a neat thing that you're doing because that
is something severely lacking for small business owners,
for sure. I find it interesting that, you know.
The responsibility of being the CFO of multiple companies
that are your own, but also then to take that role.
It's an emotional burden because you can't help.
But I'm sure that you feel fully invested helping these
clients and you've got to get you can't just cursory look
at the numbers, you've got to get down into it, down in the
detail. And it's an emotional thing, even though people say
it's not supposed to be. I have to believe it is a little
bit for you. I mean, it is for me when we look at clients
books because you you want them to succeed, you want to
help them, you want to educate them.
But boy, up and down, it's a it's a traumatic experience
for everybody.
Kristen Deese: Yeah, it's definitely.
You celebrate the wins and then you also mourn the losses
when you're going over that information with those business
centres. But it is also really exciting to be able to see
growth in the business and in the leadership capabilities
of owners when you've spent the time with them to teach
them how to read their numbers and how to look at their
reports and how to use that information to make good
business decisions.
It's it's really neat to see that transformation in the
business owners themselves and that tremendous growth that
can happen.
Glenn Harper: It for for me and and I think probably all the other staff
that we have on our team and the other accountants, the
ability to coach a client along and have them learn
something and interpret and be able to make decisions on
something they never even understood.
You know, a day ago.
And all of a sudden they they can speak the language.
They know what it means. It's you know, that that mentoring
or just helping them do that is is so powerful because now
that that client or that individual, that company can
literally achieve something greater.
And if we if you do it right, we see they don't even now,
they're not involved in the operations as much as the
business. They're just like a hands off business owner that
just does some things and they can do all the things that
they want to do. And that's the fun part when they realize
they have this opportunity to do other things, not just
grind away at something.
Kristen Deese: Right. Yeah, we we definitely talk to the business owners a
lot about the difference between strategic tasks and
tactical tasks.
The tactical tasks are the minute things that have to be
done all the time, every day.
The physical labor of the of the business and the strategic
tasks are is that higher level thinking?
And that, you know, let's look at this from a big picture.
Let's step back and see what does the future look like and
where did we where have we been and how do we get to where
we want to go? And being able to pull those business
outers, the business owners out of that tactical mode and
that tactical mindset to be able to look at things
strategically just does.
A total like mindset shift for them that it doesn't we
don't I don't have to be in a truck doing the job and
checking on the sites.
We can set this up so that other people are doing that and
I can focus on the bigger picture of things.
Glenn Harper: You always have a trick question for clients.
We onboard them and even after we've had them for a while,
it's always ask them, what is it that you do that actually
makes money? Like what do you think your role is?
What? What pays the bills?
Like, what is that thing that you do?
And they always say, Well, it's this task of doing it.
I'm like, That's not where you make your money yet.
Making money is being strategic and planning and putting
your team together. And it's just when they get that aha
moment, they're like, Oh my God, that's right.
What? Why? Just because I am the wizard at fixing a breaker
box doesn't mean I should be doing that.
I mean, they're fun playing black boxes, but that's not
what they should be doing. I mean.
Kristen Deese: Yeah, there's a lot of times that they don't realize that
they're being the bottleneck in their company until you
pull them back a little bit.
Sometimes you have to pull them back by the collar, pull
them back a little bit and be like, Get out of the way.
Let your business run.
Look at it from the strategic level.
Make the decision from that level and just get out of the
way. And then all of a sudden it's like, Oh, wait, this is
what leverage is. This is how to leverage.
Glenn Harper: It's kind of like you and me, probably.
We again, we got some affinities that we share a little
bit. And one of those things is, you know, we just dearly
love our ten keys, right?
And but we don't really make money on our ten key.
But dang, now, but I just can't stop using it.
I don't know about you. It's just something fun.
Kristen Deese: I know it is.
Julie Smith: He. He used to pack it in his backpack.
We'd go away to, like, speak at conferences or whatever,
and he'd, like, we'd sit down and he'd go to unzip his
backpack. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, is that a ten key in
there? He's like, You just don't know.
I'm like, Never, ever.
Glenn Harper: I can't even add one plus one without a ten key anymore.
So it's very important for me.
Kristen Deese: I mean, it's not efficient to use the numbers along the top
of the keyboard.
Glenn Harper: Oh, see, you get it.
Julie Smith: I have a solar calculator at my desk.
It works just fine.
Glenn Harper: It's embarrassing. Totally embarrassing.
It gives us all kinds of bad name.
When did you decide?
You know, it's one thing when you come out of school and
you're doing what you do and you're working for a living,
and then all of a sudden you decide that you're in your
husband or you in a business partner.
Are you on your own? You're going to start a business, you
know, how did you decide to do that?
I mean, that's. Did you have a real job where you're an
entrepreneur as a kid?
What what made you decide that, hey, I'm going to be a
business owner today.
Kristen Deese: So my my husband made that decision for us a long time ago.
He is.
He always has been our entrepreneur, visionary.
Between the two of us and I have always been the detail
oriented. Let's make sure all of the T's are crossed and
the I's are dotted and the money's where it needs to be and
all that kind of stuff. So when we first started our first
business many moons ago, I kept a real job, quote unquote,
in order to make sure that we could pay the power bill and
eat. And then it got to the point where the business that
he created was getting to be enough that I was working in
the evenings and on the weekends in his business doing all
of the accounting things.
And then I was still trying to keep this job.
And then we had two small children at the time and I was
like, okay, this is too much.
And I made the leap to move over into that business, and we
did that for a long time.
Just the one service company.
We grew it very large.
It was the appliance installation and some plumbing.
We grew it very large.
And then in 2008 hit.
And like everybody else, we kind of had to reel it all back
in and really cut out a lot of things.
We went from like four or five states and 50 trucks running
down to a very bare minimum just because we were cutting
weight everywhere that we could.
And then when we came out of that, which we did come out of
it barely when we came out of that, then it was kind of
like, All right, we're going to rebuild what we have going
on here and kind of make some shifts.
And as we got comfortable in that position, that's when I
realized that my area, what I really enjoyed doing was the
coaching side of things.
I don't necessarily like being in the day to day, you know,
solving problems and putting out fires and all of those
things. But I do really enjoy working with business owners
and showing them how to get out of that spot.
And so after working with our own business coach for quite
some time and kind of seeing that transformation in us, I
was like, Man, it would be really cool to be able to do
this with other business owners.
So then I started doing coaching in general.
We were I was coaching vision stuff and organizational
charts and systems and marketing and finance and, and
leadership and the whole thing still only really focusing
on the trades because that's where our experience is.
So I can really relate with those business owners and then
ended up just in the last probably two or three years
really whittling it down to the systems, the finance, a
little bit of the vision stuff.
But it's really that organization and that level of detail
that the business owners don't really want to mess with.
They just want it to be done because they kind of feel like
if it's there, it probably would be helpful, but they don't
really necessarily want to put the work in to make it
happen. And then there's all kinds of coaches in in our
space and in in spaces all over that really focus in on
driving sales and leadership, which is amazing and it's
necessary. But if you don't have the foundation and the
details lined out and your systems in place, your sales,
your additional sales that you're getting from these other
training programs are just compounding issues that you
already have. So I try to get a hold of them, help them get
that foundation really strong.
Then when they do ultimately go to sales and leadership
training and coaching and whatever, they're seeing a much
higher return on investment on that because their
foundation is strong.
Glenn Harper: It seems like everything's is packaged for entrepreneurs
like the literally the two things that are really the most
important in my opinion, other than obviously have to be
good at what they do, whatever the product and service they
do. But they got to understand the tax consequences and
they got to understand their financials to see how they're
performing. And those are literally the two things that
just give the heebie jeebies to everybody.
And I don't know why that stereotype is there, but once
they learn it and understand it, it's actually it takes so
much stress off of them because they're like, oh, that's
all there is to that.
And I don't know why it's so hard.
I don't know if it's because they're watching too much TV.
I don't know if it's a read too many magazines.
I don't know if they just are intimidated by it.
But it is the strangest phenomena.
Would you agree to that? I mean, it's weird.
Kristen Deese: I do agree and I think honestly that it is a level of
accountability that a lot of people don't want to own up
to. I think that your numbers hold you accountable, and if
you don't look at them, then who is holding you
accountable? So I think that that a lot of times has to do
with the desire to to not look at them or to.
You know, we've got I've got a saying that if you don't pay
attention to your numbers, they're going to get you they're
going to get your attention and probably in a way that you
don't appreciate. And so, you know, you you want to look at
the numbers when they're when it's a good month and you
want to look at the numbers when it's a bad month.
And you need to you need to scrutinize them the same way in
both scenarios, because if it's a bad month, everybody
wants to know where the money went and what happened.
But if it's a good month, you need to know why that
happened as well so that you can repeat it.
Glenn Harper: It's almost like the.
Actual numbers are real.
And like, it's not an opinion, it's a fact.
And entrepreneurs, again, they like to freewheel a little
bit and they like to do what they feel and think.
And that's why we love entrepreneurs, because they have
that manic thing about them side.
But at some point you've got to get them on point and look
at the real things, make real decisions, and then send them
off to hunt again. Right. And that's that's the fun part.
Kristen Deese: Yeah.
Julie Smith: And something you said that, you know, I read your profile
is quality over quantity.
And I think you've you've hinted around that a lot, but
that's definitely the pinpoint of what you're definitely
trying to get the owners to do is to get out of their own
way in regards to that quality over quantity and having
that accountability and having those systems in place in
order to have that, if you, in my opinion, you know, that's
exactly what you're doing.
Kristen Deese: Yeah. For sure.
It's that it's it goes back to the, the idea that if you
have problems in your systems and you have problems if
you've got problems when you're small and you throw more
sales on top of it, all you're going to do is have bigger
problems when you're big. So solve them and then dump a
bunch of sales onto it and then it'll flourish.
Glenn Harper: That's a bunch of poppycock.
That is not true. That is not I don't know who told you
that, but that's simply not true.
You've got more sales.
More sales. So your upbringing, when you're doing work,
doing things on the farm, do you think, you know, a lot of
entrepreneurs have this insatiable appetite to challenge
themselves, do more than it's expected, and just really
can't get enough of what they do.
And that comes, you know, sometimes your program that way,
sometimes you are instilled that work ethic when you're
you're young or you see something with an athlete in the
military, you know, police officer or farmer, just
something where you have to do way more than is expected.
You have to get up early. You've got to do those things
again. Who doesn't love shovel manure?
But I mean, like to be able to do those things.
Do you feel like that gave you a good base to say like, I
can roll up my sleeves and get into this, this isn't a
problem.
Kristen Deese: Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, it's work ethic was something
that was instilled in me from as early as I can remember.
And I definitely think that there is.
There is that drive in entrepreneurs that isn't found in
everybody, which is a good thing because we don't need
everybody to be entrepreneurs.
We need some people to just roll up their sleeves and do
the work. I know that it like like a lot of people, there
is a tendency to roll up the sleeves and do the work when
you shouldn't be right, when somebody else should be doing
it, or you should be kind of backing out.
But, you know.
Spending the time early on and working hard and seeing what
happens when you do work hard, when you do a good job, you
know, maybe you get the promotion or maybe you see the next
opportunity. It just opens up a whole world of who knows
what could have happened right?
When I was a teenager, I never in a million years would
have thought that we would be running multiple businesses
and, you know, doing coaching and CFO services and
whatever. And here I am doing the things.
Julie Smith: So when you look back and I know Glenn's, you know, kind of
went back on, you know, your childhood, do you think that
there is someone from your childhood or maybe someone in
college or someone early on, even in your real job that you
would consider consider a mentor that had a big impact on
your life, even where you are today.
Kristen Deese: Yeah. I had a mentor in my I had a job in when I was in
college and it was at a hair salon actually, of all places.
And I was kind of like the salon manager and I was very
young, under 21 for sure, because I would have been I was
in college at the time and the business owner was probably
about ten years older than me.
So she wasn't she was still young herself, but she was very
intelligent in the terms of running the business.
And she kind of took me under her wing and taught me a
whole lot about the back end of running a business that
would have taken me quite a bit longer to learn had she not
done that. And that kind of was probably the first time I
really saw numbers and trending and like statistics from a
business standpoint in that way.
And I didn't necessarily realize how much I really how much
I enjoyed it at that point.
A couple of years later, I was like, okay, now I understand
that this is really cool, but I was actually doing that
work several years prior and not even really realizing it.
We were looking at individual stylist sales and creating
commission reports and looking at expenses and how much
does it cost when the shampoo person does two pumps versus
one pump, when they're doing a shampoo, like all of those
kind of things. We were analyzing and I was doing that,
that whole trending in numbers way before I even realized
what I was doing. So there was I think I definitely leaped
forward while I worked there in a way that even though I'm
taking classes in college and I'm learning, I'm learning
about risk and I'm learning about fraud and I'm learning
about all of these big business, very corporate accounting
ideas on the side.
I'm doing like real small business things, and those are
not the type of skills that I would have learned taking the
classes that I was taking in school because I was learning
like the bigger auditing and stuff like that.
So it was it was kind of a neat experience and especially
looking back, obviously hindsight's 2020, right?
So you can see when you look back, you're like, Oh, that
really was a very impactful time.
Glenn Harper: It too. Comments on that.
So hopefully you figured out a way to give the two pumps
and charge an extra $0.20 for the thing because people want
a lot of lather when they go in there.
So that's important to do that and make sure you're making
the money. But that other part too is the ability to it.
When I was in school, I was working a real job and and in
accounting. And it was amazing when you go to class and you
learn a concept, but you have and then you go back to the
office and you actually integrate it, you're like, wow.
It just, you know, you learn by doing you kind of you're
almost teaching to learn.
And it really accelerates how much faster that stuff
resonates with you. Right.
And so I can definitely see where that could have happened
for you.
Julie Smith: Have you been able to keep that relationship and keep in
contact?
Kristen Deese: For the first several years after I left, we did.
We kind of grew apart a little bit.
And now it's a connection once every couple of years and
it's, oh, my gosh, how have you been?
La la la la. And then a couple more years, we'll do it
again.
Glenn Harper: Do you find when you are you know, when you're willing to
roll up your sleeves and get dirty and get into the into
the guts of things, do you find that that creates a
situation where you can be a more more of a leader than a
boss? Because you're you show that you're willing to do the
work. You've done it before.
You have. Like, don't try to tell me anyone in this office.
I did everything you guys have done and you can lead by
example versus stand there dictating.
Is that is that something you felt has helped you as well?
Kristen Deese: Absolutely. And not only has it helped from the leadership
standpoint, but it also helps keep me relevant in the
situations that these business owners and their employees
are going through on a regular basis.
So that's part of why I still enjoy and appreciate doing
the CFO services for the businesses that we own is because
then when I am working with these other business owners,
they're experiencing a lot of the same things that we are
experiencing. So we can kind of almost bounce back and
forth between what what have we tried, what worked, what
didn't work. Here's what we do in our business.
Let me help you implement that into your business.
And so absolutely the trick is finding the balance of
rolling up my sleeves and getting to work and showing
showing the people that I am still willing to do that and
stepping across the line of not delegating when I should,
because we fall into the trap of it's easier to just do it
myself than it would be to train somebody else to do it or
to come up with a system or whatever.
And at that point, it's when you turn into the bottleneck
when you may not necessarily realize it.
So it's definitely striking that line between, Yep, I'm
going to roll up my sleeves and help and stay relevant.
And also let me make sure that this isn't something that
really should be delegated to somebody else.
Glenn Harper: I feel like there's always somebody watching over my
shoulder making sure that I'll do that because it's really,
really easy because we have all this knowledge on the
wisdom that again, we can look at a problem and we can get
from A to Z in like eight nanoseconds.
And if we hand it off to somebody, it's going to take them
three days. But they've got to struggle.
They got to figure it out.
You've got to coach them along and they'll get there.
Then maybe the fifth time they can do it in a couple of
minutes, you know. But it's hard because you just want that
instant results and get things done.
Kristen Deese: Yup.
Glenn Harper: Do you feel like at any point in time, like now you've been
doing this for how many years?
The CFO thing.
Kristen Deese: The four other companies I've been doing CFO for about two
years.
Glenn Harper: Two years. And when you were doing the CFO for your current
companies, you've been doing that for a while, right?
That started way back when.
Is there anything way back?
Do you feel like there's a was a point in time where you're
like, Man, if I had just known that, then where would I be
today? Was there.
When you look back, is there that moment where you're like,
when you're sitting here today going, Gosh, if I had just
known that little formula 15 years ago, I'd be a
kajillionaire. Is that does that something that that hits
you? Are you are you already just.
Yeah, I got it. I'm just moving on.
Kristen Deese: So I think that.
There's probably a couple.
One would be.
When we figured out that when we started separating our our
the company by departments and looking at department
profitability, we started seeing this was like ten years
ago, we started seeing that there was one department or
wing that just really was underperforming.
But that department brought in a lot of sales.
And so we were terrified to let it go because it boosted
the sales number. But when you got all the way down to the
bottom, it was not doing anything for the bottom line.
And so we were really scared to let that go and make that
decision and kind of take that step in it.
You know, looking at the opportunity costs and if if it's
not making any money and we put that energy somewhere else,
what could we be doing instead?
And all of those things.
So if we could have figured that out a little bit earlier,
that would have been cool.
And also it stays on the forefront now when we're looking
at our different departments numbers as in terms of do we
need to continue to provide the service, is it profitable
or do we need to make a change or we need to let it go all
together? I think the other thing that kind of piggybacks
off of that is it took us when I say us, I would say
probably just in.
My husband is a little bit more guilty of this than I am.
Glenn Harper: But of course, it's as.
Kristen Deese: Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs want to say yes to
everything, right? Like every opportunity that looks kind
of shiny, they want to say yes, too.
And so I would be on board.
I'd be like, Yeah, yeah, let's do it, let's do it.
Sounds great, whatever.
And then it would completely take us off course of the
vision that we had or it would just kind of we were all
over the place for a little while.
Again, this was years ago, so it took us both a while to be
able to figure out what was something that we should say
yes to versus what was something that we should thank you,
but no thank you. In terms of looking at opportunities and
again, if if that's something that we could have figured
out earlier, then we could have been more dialed in on a
direction and a vision earlier on.
I think that we're we're dialed in now, but it didn't
happen. It took half of the time that we were business
owners for that to happen.
So imagine if we would have been able to do that from the
beginning, what this whole thing would look like.
I think those are probably two of the.
Two of the key.
Had I known now what I knew then.
Glenn Harper: What it could have showed. The the one thing you mentioned,
and I think that's probably, you know, everybody has a why
they do what they do and it's your why is not that you love
numbers. I mean, obviously you're doing your accountant,
for God's sakes. We love numbers.
But I think it's more of the fact that you want to help.
And when you walk into a client and you understand, we see
this a lot in our business, a lot that, you know, a client
is all driven about their gross sales.
It's not about the gross, it's about the margin.
Right. And, oh, I sold 10 million last year.
Well, how much did you make? You know, ten bucks.
I'm like, Well, I got a guy over here.
It's sold 1000 and May 900.
Who would you rather be?
Right. So being able to for you kind of understanding that
a ha moment in your own business and now you're out
coaching and teaching other people this, that's got to be
one of the first things you talk about and that has got to
be really, really well received for a client to understand
that it's not about how much I mean, sales are important
and what you sell for, but it's not what you sell it for,
what you make on it. And I feel like that is a very
impactful thing that you're doing for people that again,
you're helping them accelerate and get over that hump, that
it took you a long time to figure it out.
Right.
Kristen Deese: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the idea would be to help them shorten
their learning curve, right?
Like we took we took the long way.
We took the long route there.
But to be able to help them shorten the learning curve and
get to the profitability that they want to be at faster
obviously is the ultimate goal.
There's a lot of times that I talk to business owners who
are just in complete overwhelm.
They're running, they're running ragged, their business is
running them. They've got customers who are beating on the
doors, wanting things, and they have employees that they're
having a hard time dealing with.
And, you know, they don't know their numbers.
They're they're gauging whether or not they're doing well
by the cash that's sitting in the bank and whether or not
they can make their next payroll.
And it's a tough place to be in.
And I know that because I've been there.
And it's it feels like, you know, you go through periods of
time when you're like, what am I even doing this for?
I just seem to throw it all away and go get a job that I
can go to work and I can come home and I can get a paycheck
on Friday, and that's it.
But that's not the entrepreneurial way.
No, it's not. So it's so going in and being like, okay,
cool. I know it's chaotic right now and I have been in
those shoes, so let's get to work on fixing this and then
pulling them out of that and fixing all of the things and
then setting them back out on their little journey.
That is the reason that I do the things, because it just it
hurts my heart to see when they're struggling because we
were there, too. And I can I definitely know I'm living the
example that there is 100% a better way to run your
business.
Glenn Harper: Don't you feel like entrepreneurs definitely have a screw
loose? I mean, we're definitely a little bit odd because
who who wakes up every day negative and is happy to go
perform and try to turn that into a positive.
And the cool thing is, once entrepreneurs recognize that
they need that help, like you said, you had a coach before
you even as you were doing your business, you had a coach
as entrepreneurs realized that that coach and you're doing
that for these as a CFO, you're basically their coach,
right? It's not about the numbers.
It's really about your mental state.
It's amazing how somebody could be so close to burning out
and just they can't take it anymore, but they really,
really want to do it. And all of a sudden they get this
little key and then, boom, they are off to the races.
And it's it's the greatest feeling ever for me anyway.
That's why I love doing what I do.
But I'd imagine it's very similar for you.
Kristen Deese: Yeah, for sure.
Julie Smith: So early on.
You know, I know that your husband was the reason you guys
kind of went into this and you were kind of doing the real
job. But at what point do you think you knew or you and
your husband decided to?
We need a team and we have to kind of get out of our own
way. We have to be able to kind of build this team and
delegate. And I just curious at what point you had that
moment?
Kristen Deese: It did not take very long to get to that point from the
technician labor standpoint, because Justin was the only
one doing the technical labor and he was also trying to
answer the phone and he was trying to talk to the stores
and he was trying to do all of these things.
And so it didn't take long for him to be like, this is for
the birds, somebody else.
We need to get somebody else in here to help with the
actual technical part of it, the technical labor part.
And then so there was so we brought in the first
technician, which by the way, is still with us today.
He's our general manager of our business in Atlanta.
So he came in and started helping and then.
I want to say we probably brought in somebody who sat in
like a CSR position, even if it was just from a part time
standpoint to kind of help with some of the administrative
things. But the point where it was like, okay, we need
somebody is the puppet for I am out the door by five
running the entire day home at ten, 11, 12:00 at night,
sleeping for a couple of hours and getting up and doing it
all over again. You can only do that for a certain period
of time before you're like, Okay, something's got to give.
And then for from me and the job standpoint, it was a strain
on the relationship.
It was a strain on the House in general to have him gone
all the time. Because then I am doing the pickups at
daycare and I'm going to work and then I'm picking up at
daycare at the end of the day, and then we're doing dinner
and bath and the whole thing, and then I get the hour.
We only had one child at the time, so get him into bed at
eight and from 8 to 11 or 12 at night.
I'm working on sending out invoices and collecting payments
and doing all those things to the point where we were both
working so many hours that we were like, Well, this is kind
of stupid, why are we doing this?
So we had to we had to grow.
We didn't have a choice. We didn't have to grow.
We didn't have the money to do it.
We didn't know how we were going to do it or we didn't know
what the employees are going to look like.
But we like we need some help.
This is getting out of control.
Glenn Harper: Yeah, definitely say that.
You know, that's not for everybody.
But literally, if you can get through that period, you can
help get that key.
There is light on the other side.
Unless you suck at what you do right, then that doesn't
matter. But if you're if you're if you're good at what you
do and, you know, like and I'd imagine to just and still
wear his tool belt around the house as he walk around
thinking he's all that or is he doesn't even wear one
anymore.
Kristen Deese: Here does not.
As a matter of fact, there there is we have several go to
contractors for our jobs around the house.
So he is completely embraced, not doing the technical work.
Glenn Harper: Well, I got to talk to that guy because I feel like he's got
to get shocked in an electrical receptacle at some point
just to make sure it works.
Julie Smith: I feel like he has defined delegation, you know, to the
point of delegation.
Right. He's got it down.
Glenn Harper: Got a doctorate and a doctorate in delegation.
Did you have a you know, I listen to one of your podcasts,
which is which is weird because I don't listen to anything
ever. I'm kidding, of course.
But you had a thing that you talk about clients that you
have you have them do this exercise of of writing their own
little thing.
You know what I'm talking about.
You want to share with that how that works and how is that
received by the clients?
Kristen Deese: The analogy exercise.
Glenn Harper: Yeah, I think it's fantastic.
Kristen Deese: So. So that was an exercise that our business coach had us
do when we were trying to basically find figure out why it
is that we were doing what we were doing.
So there's a couple of different ways that you can get to
that. Some people do the seven layer.
Why? Why are you doing this?
Because of this. Well, why?
Why do you want that? And you just kind of keep asking why
that's impactful. However, I think the eulogy exercise is
more impactful from like an internal soul shaking kind of
way because you you literally write what you want, your
eulogy to read or what you would want somebody to say as
your eulogy at your funeral.
And it kind of.
Makes everything very real, and it really helps you
highlight the handful of things that are ultimately
important. You know, you say that you want to be a business
owner because you want to make more money.
Well, making a bunch of money and dying with a bunch of
money isn't something that you would want necessarily to be
put in your eulogy.
Right. So if you if you work out the exercise, very humbling
exercise of writing your eulogy, then you're really
striking the what do you want to be known for?
What what do you want to die knowing that you've done?
Knowing what kind of person you are.
The characteristics that you have.
And when you can highlight that out of your eulogy, then
going forward and making your vision, it kind of can ground
that vision more deeply than if it was just something that
was superficial. I want to make more money.
So it's definitely a really humbling exercise.
There are.
I've only had a few people push back on that exercise.
Most people will do it and they'll, you know, they'll kind
of like scratch the surface and then we'll go over it.
And then I'd be like, All right, cool.
Take it back and let's dig a little deeper.
And then you can tell when they when they kind of hit the
the core of it.
So it's really a very impactful exercise.
And while it sounds really like morbid, it's got good
purpose.
Glenn Harper: I think it's genius.
I mean, everybody's got to know the why and what are you
trying to accomplish? Because for you, this is this is like
one of the trick questions.
Not that I haven't given you like 20 of them already, but
this one is what is the end game?
I mean, are you going to try to do this CFO thing for
another 20 companies, 50 companies?
You're going to scale and put other people in.
Are you going to grow your business to be in all 50 states?
Are you going to open up a ton of other businesses?
You're going to milk this thing and just coders in the
sunset. What exactly is Kristen's endgame on this?
Kristen Deese: My end game is is just my clientele.
I don't plan on bringing on any other coaches or growing
and scaling to that size.
I thoroughly enjoy having a handful of clients at a time
and building really strong, lasting relationships with
these business owners, as opposed to the very low touch
hitting a lot of people at the same time.
Idea. I leave the.
Growing to 50 states and the things that we're doing to
Justin because he's that's where he operates.
Like that's the brain space that he operates in, which is
super amazing.
I don't know if you guys are familiar with the book Rocket
Fuel by Gina Wickman.
So that book is really cool because it highlights the
personalities of the visionary and the integrator and that
how both personalities are necessary in order to have a
successful business. And very rarely is one person, both
personalities in just a nice case.
We are definitely the individuals.
So he is the visionary and I'm in the integrator.
I by doing this virtual CFO, I'm able to scratch the itch
of the integrator for other businesses too, not just my
own. And so, you know, it's not necessarily a desire of
mine to grow this particular arm of what we do into this
ginormous business.
I'm more after, you know, finding the people that that need
me and that want to use me and building that relationship
and making them better and sending them on their way and
then doing that with the next client and just kind of
trucking along until I decide that I want to retire on an
island and Turks and Caicos.
Glenn Harper: I think that's fantastic.
I have this feeling that Justin's got a split personality.
He really wants to be an integrator, too, but he decides
that that you like that better.
So he's going to step back from that.
That's what I think is going on.
Yeah, I'm kidding. Of course.
Well, is there do you want to give a you want to give a
plug to your company? And so people might be able to look
you up and do something with that.
Kristen Deese: Yeah. So my website is Kristin Dotcom and the services and
the different things from the virtual CFO standpoint that I
do are on that site.
And one thing that we didn't bring up is that just you and
I are authors. We wrote a book called When Your Business
Partner Is Your Spouse How to Have a Successful Business
and a Happy Marriage.
And that book can be found on my website and on Audible.
Glenn Harper: Is that under fiction or non-fiction?
I'm kidding. 100% true.
It's a it's an amazing when you get that clarity to make
that work, because it is hard to do that.
And when you figure it out, it is it is going to be very
rewarding. Well, I appreciate your time today.
Thanks for coming on. And hopefully this was rewarding for
you as it was for us.
And I hope our listeners can glean something from this and
say, You know what, that's going to inspire me to be a
better entrepreneur.
This is Glen Harper.
Kristen Deese: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.
Glenn Harper: You're welcome.
Julie Smith: And Julie Smith,
Glenn Harper: Take care.