Bad financial data hurts you every single day in your

business, because especially if you're using that data to make decisions,

garbage in, garbage out, right?

So if I'm trying to determine how I'm going to scale my business

based on garbage data, I'm not going to scale my business properly.

You

What if you could redefine the grind of entrepreneurship into

a journey of Peace and profits.

Welcome to Seek, Go Create where today's guest, Kendra Nicole, shares

her revolutionary approach to business.

As a fractional CFO, Kendra has transitioned from running her

successful accounting firm to empowering entrepreneurs to build

sustainable, scalable businesses without sacrificing their wellbeing.

Balancing her roles as a CEO, wife, mother, Kendra embodies the principles

she teaches, proving that it's possible to achieve financial success

alongside personal fulfillment.

welcome to Seek Go Create.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

I love being here.

I'm glad you're here too.

Kendra, Nicole, welcome.

Let's do this first before we start.

If, if somebody bumps into you, you run into somebody, you're traveling,

you're out with, you're out with your child, something like that.

And they say, what do you do?

What do you tell people?

Yeah, I tell them I'm a little bit of a superhero.

Honestly, I'm a wife.

I'm a mom.

so it's hodler at that.

I, run a business called the finance film, which is a

virtual CFO and accounting firm.

exclusively support women on entrepreneur or women entrepreneurs,

and do all the things from a book, bookkeeping, financial reporting,

investor relations, fractional CFO work.

And yeah, so I've been, we, I run that business my day to day and

I, I try to run the household a little bit as best as I can as well.

And, do all the, all the things,

so superheroes, you mentioned that word.

So I'm going to ask this question.

Superheroes usually have some type of a superpower.

And it's something that sort of defines them.

What's weird is, in these Marvel and DC universes, usually there was some kind

of accident that occurred that brought out their, their, their superpower.

But, what, what are your superpowers?

I feel like I have grown over the years to have the

ability to stay calm and chaos, which was not always the case.

if there was a tornado going around me, I was going around in the tornado with it.

But, over the last few years, probably three, four years or so,

which my son is three and a half.

So yeah, I'll say about three years, I have learned to, how to find

calm in the chaos, which I do feel like is a superpower these days.

Probably not anything that you master though, or we have,

we have a four year old and a two year old granddaughters, grandchildren.

And we talked to our daughter and, we've parented, but we're, we're beyond it.

We're done with that.

It seems like it's extremely tough in the world and culture we're in today.

I don't know if it's different or whatever.

I mean, it seems like there's always something going on, right?

Absolutely.

And, and four and two.

so that means that your grandbabies came into the world around the time

that Carter did with pandemic and all of that, that was going on as well.

And it's just different.

Of course, Carter's my first child, so I don't know how, how it is having a child

outside of a pandemic, but I do know that.

it's just been a really rough welcoming to motherhood, when you can't have

friends and family over to travel to see you and, so it was definitely hard.

And yes, you're right.

There's no mastering the calm in chaos.

There's kind of just, taking it day by day and trying to grasp onto it.

As much as you can.

And sometimes it will slip through your fingers and you will be amongst the

chaos, but it's as much as you can.

I'm holding on to that calm and knowing that, this too shall pass with everything.

This too shall pass.

Yeah, that's interesting.

I forgot that our, our oldest granddaughter was

born like February of 2020.

So it sounds like, you were

short later that year.

and and it was real odd.

We were in Colorado when she was born and we were around there and we, we

weren't supposed to visit, but we did anyway, it's hard to not do that.

But I do believe like for her first six months or something,

I don't know that she left.

I mean, I don't know, they couldn't go to church.

They couldn't go out.

Anywhere.

And I think we talked about it.

What, what kind of impact is that going to have on that group of,

of children, that didn't get out, but you know, she seems okay.

did you say what's, what's his name?

Carter.

Wait, what's the name?

Carter.

How, I mean,

adjusting.

I mean, kids adjust well though, don't they?

Yeah, my dad always told me, children are very

resilient and I see it all the time.

And, he's this life has definitely put that to the test where I'm able to

see it day in and day out that they're very resilient because I was worried,

his first year of life because to your point, he was born in September 2020.

So his first year of life, everyone's talking with a mask.

So we're like, how is he going to learn how to speak in phonetics?

And everyone's mouth is covered.

And my dad is like, kids are resilient.

Don't worry.

He'll be fine, so yeah, I mean, from what I can tell, everything seems seems

fine, but I do believe there's going to be like a docuseries on, new moms

during the pandemic, like there has to be something that's going to come out at some

I think the kids are resilient.

I'm not sure if the parents and the adults are, we're

thinking about all these things.

Yeah, I can kind of see it 20 years from now.

It's like the, the, the COVID, the pandemic generation, they were

born during that 12 to 24 months.

how are they doing now?

And I I think they're, Going to be just fine, but that does bring

up something that it, it seems as if you have narrowed down with how

you work and who you work with.

And that is female entrepreneurs, which are going through

what you're talking about.

And, I, I, I do want to say this.

There's, there's some irony in, a guy, first of all, an older, mature

guy, like me asking these questions.

It's just different though.

And I mean, I think if we can't say it's different, then we're

kind of fooling ourselves.

Guys, men are going through different.

Stuff than the women, female entrepreneurs, leaders

that you're working with.

So just kind of big picture, kind of talk about what are some of those challenges?

We probably have already addressed some, but what are some of those that that those

leaders are dealing with, especially the female leaders that you interact with?

Sure.

Yeah.

And I appreciate you, you saying that.

so when I started and wanted to really focus on women

entrepreneurs, it was because.

I was coming out of corporate where I was, I actually had a lot of male

bosses and they were all excellent.

I've loved every single boss that I had in corporate.

but I would see some of the leaders, the company I was working for at the time,

the CFO was actually a woman and, she was, privately having these conversations with

some of us, like female colleagues about like how hard it was with her children.

Her children were really young and, she would kind of give us these lessons

when you do have children, think about this and think about that and kind

of like coaching us a little bit, but it was like these side conversations.

and so that kind of struck something in me that, okay, women, we need support.

Like we should be able to Not just have these conversations with their colleagues,

but have them openly and understand that, yes, there are things that we have to kind

of deal with even, even if the household is, split 50 50, which can it ever be.

But even if it's kind of well managed, there's still just things

physically that you take on when you are either going through having

children or emotionally, hormonally.

so that's really why I wanted to focus in on supporting women when

it came to, kind of birthing their entrepreneurial journey as well.

And, and, and listen, I want to say, I'm a man, I've been through

all of that, my best bosses, leaders that I interacted with way back when I

did corporate, they were all females.

And, and also want to say that on the flip side of all the things you just mentioned,

us men, we don't really know what to do.

We, we.

Couldn't handle all of those superpowers.

We're just not equipped to do it.

And also want to say this, it's probably not fair.

It is probably not a fair structure and system.

My wife would probably chime in and say, yeah, it's not, but.

But it is what it is.

And you've been through, so you've had, you've had like, transitions

and shifts in your career.

And, are you originally from the South Clemson university?

Where, where are you originally from before you went to Clemson?

I did.

I lived in South Carolina for a little while.

So I went to high school in South Carolina and, fell in love with Clemson.

And so that's why I ended up going, going there for school, but definitely

have had several, transitions.

I would say the largest were, was, obviously, just

going into corporate, right?

Like real life, going from college to corporate and then

climbing that corporate ladder.

my goal was always to stay in corporate.

I knew nothing about entrepreneurship.

Like I do not have an entrepreneurship family.

I'm definitely a corporate climbing family.

so when I started into entrepreneurship, that transition was very new

and very different for me.

And that was probably the biggest one.

like the first one that I, that I kind of took.

So what was, when, when you entered that corporate world and we're

going to tie some of this together as it leads into what you're doing now, but

when you entered that corporate world, you mentioned climbing the ladder,

but what How did you define success?

One of the things we do here is we talk a lot about success and how we

define it and how it changes over time.

But when, coming out of college, going into corporate, what was your definition

of success then, if you can recall?

Yeah.

So my dad had a big part in that.

He actually worked at Toyota for over 30 years and was like way

up there, one of the high execs.

And so I always saw that.

And my mom was in accounting and she was climbing as well.

And so I always saw that and was just like, okay.

This is what I want to do is like climb and just become this top executive.

And, he was the first black man to do this at Toyota.

And I was like, I'm going to be the first black woman to do this.

And so I wanted, I wanted that, that was success to me.

and so because I also had, like I said, amazing bosses and

leadership, it felt easy to do.

So I was like, okay, yeah, that's great.

This is, this is, What I'm going to do.

so here's what I noticed.

I came out and I did corporate for a little while.

I had already started a business though, and I'm probably 20 years

ahead of you or before you, I guess.

And one of the things that I realized as I was thinking about that corporate

ladder was that paradigm of 30 years, be in one spot forever, it

didn't seem to play out like that.

Much.

I'm not saying it's totally gone, but at what point did you realize

it may not be that what your dad had as success, which was 30 years,

same spot, moving up, same company, pension plan, all that kind of stuff.

Did, did that, did that, did you realize at some point,

Hmm, a little bit different.

Oh, absolutely.

and my dad realized it too, because every two years I was changing companies,

not even just positions, but companies and sometimes States altogether.

And so my dad, I remember, when I left GE actually, which I was

there probably like four years.

So he really thought that was going to be like, he was like,

Oh, she's going to be her Toyota.

I knew he, I know he thought that.

And so when I left there, not only did I leave the company, but I left the state

and he was just like, What are you doing?

You're moving again.

You're changing again.

Like, what are you doing?

so I knew in that moment, I didn't, it wasn't about entrepreneurship.

I just knew that I wasn't going to be the 30 year lifer to one company.

and I was all about, Hey, Dad, every time I move and change positions, I

learned something vastly different.

That I couldn't learn if I just stayed in the same company.

And, I very, I very clearly still remember that conversation.

Did you ever, did you regret or not regret, or did you like

hesitate to communicate with him when you were about to make a move at the reason

I bring up, this has been years ago.

My mother, I was, I was at Bell South large corporation for about nine years

and I had 10 jobs over the course of those nine years, moved around,

bounced around mostly the Atlanta area because they were based there.

And I remember my mom, which probably was my dad saying something similar was,

can't you find anything that you can do?

Or can't you settle in?

And I, I, the answer was no, not really because of, it just

wasn't that environment anymore.

Did you, did you have, and and I'll say it this way.

Was there a sense of, I don't like using the word failure, so we might could try

to use another word, but was there ever a

sense of Failure because it wasn't that model that you knew from your family.

yeah, that's a really good question.

I would say it was, and I agree that failure might not be the

right word, but that it was.

Maybe like disappointment where maybe I felt like I was kind of

disappointing my dad because I'm not exactly doing it, the way that he did.

Meanwhile, my mom is like, go for it.

whatever, whatever it makes you happy.

so I always had that balance, which was great.

but yeah, I definitely feel like there was a sense of, Disappointing

him by not going in that exact.

Right.

Good.

All right.

So you moved around a good bit and had some corporate experience.

Give me, and maybe this is high level, low level, whatever.

Give me maybe the best thing or the top thing that you learned during that time.

And then maybe something that wasn't as positive that you, that you kind of have

taken from those years, Kendra, the early years or whatever we want to call it.

Yeah.

so I was in corporate for sure.

One of the big things that I learned was the relationships.

So the, like I said, the, the CFO and how she would kind of bring some of

this, us women, like under her wing.

And then even the relationship between the CFO and the CEO, that's kind of.

How my love for this whole fractional CFO business, how that came about

because I saw the relationship between the CEO how they would not move

forward in the business without coming together in the boardroom and talking

over the numbers and all the things.

so relationships is something that was, a large part of my learnings in corporate.

and I would say on the opposite end of that, it might be, honestly,

maybe something similar in that if you're, if you're not.

making those great relationships.

Sometimes it's not about how great you are and how great of the work

that you can do, but it's maybe about your lack of relationship.

And so it's, it's kind of one of those, I guess, double edge swords where it

could be great and amazing if you had the relationship and it was built the

way that, whoever thinks that it should be built, but if you don't have it, you

might miss out on certain opportunities.

I think I heard someone say one time that they were

talking about business or something.

They said, yeah, the best thing about what we do, they're the people.

And then they said, the worst thing about what we do are the people.

And I, I do see that now as you.

Transition to when you left corporate, did you start your own thing immediately?

Did you decide you were leaving?

Was it a side hustle?

What was that transition like moving away from that corporate experience?

So entrepreneurship literally fell in my lap.

And I know it's like cliche when folks say that it truly did.

I was climbing this ladder.

I had the goal to get, the floor to ceiling glass windows, corner

office, like that was my goal.

And, but I had friends who were starting businesses and who were

doing great in their business.

I mean, they were making millions of dollars.

And sales and their business each year.

And so I'm thinking, and they're on social media, like, about

all their sales and everything.

And I'm like, Oh, they're just living the life.

But then behind closed doors, they'll come to me and they'll say, I'm struggling.

Like these numbers aren't making sense.

Can you help me?

And so I'm like, sure.

Put me in touch with your accountant.

And they don't have an accountant.

They're like, I don't have an accountant.

What are you talking about?

And so I'm like, how are you making millions in your business?

And you don't have an accountant, a bookkeeper, anything.

And so that's when I started to work with them on the side, not thinking

at all, this would be a business, just thinking I'm helping out a few friends.

But those first couple of friends after a few months in their business, completely

turning around just because they had visibility into what they were doing.

And of course, as an entrepreneur, if your business is doing

well, then like your life.

Like it's a personal thing, and so when I saw that turnaround for them after

just a few months of working together, it clicked instantly that like, this

is what I'm supposed to be doing.

So like corporate was like paid training to be able to help these women in

real life, with their small business, make, Changes in their business.

And so once I saw that I was like, gee, he's going to make billions of

dollars, whether I show up to work or not, but these women might close the

doors if we don't show up for them.

that's how the transition happened.

And I would say after about five or six months of kind of side hustling

it with friends on the side is when I left corporate and started full time.

And so one of the things that comes up when we talk

about business owners, let me address this before I move farther.

It's amazing how sometimes social media doesn't portray the whole story.

you said, Oh, they're killing it.

They're doing so great.

And then, and yeah, they might have that revenue come in, but

there's the behind the curtain.

It wouldn't be great if we actually hadn't, A true reading

or gauge of, of what's going on.

So you kind of get to look under the hood a good

bit with people, which is pretty powerful.

And you could probably find out what's really going on before we get

into some of those details though.

I'm always fascinated when I talk to people that deal with money.

And, and I want to, there's a couple of things I want to talk about here before

we kind of go into all the services you provide and what you're doing

and some things we could learn from the people that you're working with.

And that is what has been over the course of your life, what has been

your relationship with money and what has been some of the things

you've learned from seeing how other people, especially business

people and owners deal with money.

So first of all, talk about money.

Is it something that drives you?

Is it something you've always thought about?

You've always been good at dealing with it or anything you want to

share about money air quotes for those that are listening in here.

Yeah.

So I love this question.

Now, when I used to hear this question or something similar, I would get anxiety

because I actually have always had a pretty good relationship with money.

My dad has, when he was climbing that ladder, he paid for our college.

Like he, he bought our first cars for us, for me and my siblings.

Like, So I've always had a good relationship with money.

And so when I first started, I used to always think, man, no,

one's going to really want to work with me because they're going to

think, this girl comes from money.

Like she doesn't understand me and my struggles in my business.

She comes from money, not realizing that just because I had

the ability to get money from my family didn't mean that I did.

I struggled.

Like every other entrepreneur struggles.

I struggled in college, like every other college kid struggles.

and, but I say that because when I would first hear that question

before, I would always think, okay, man, people, everyone's always got

the, rags to riches story and I don't have this rags to riches story.

So anyways, that's, that's my true relationship with money is it was never.

Oh, I have to accumulate so much of this or, but just like it was never

a, Oh, I don't have enough of it.

There was never really any, deep thought around money, except for I

know that it can make people happy.

For example, I always think of this story when, when my dad would take

like our whole family, like cousins and aunts and uncles out to eat.

And he'd always pick up the tab for the whole table.

And I would just always see how everyone, no one ever has to worry about like,

who's going to pick up the tab, right?

Things like that.

That's my thought when it comes to money is being able to do that, it's,

and so hopefully that answers your question, but that's, that's kind of

what my relationship was with money.

And, and even now to this day, it's always, When I'm talking to like my, my

business owners and I'm working with, I'm always trying to understand what their

relationship is with money and where some of these almost like arbitrary goals come

from, because you always hear the, I want a million dollars of sales this year,

or I want 500 K in my savings account.

What?

Why?

Like, what are these numbers tied to?

so I always try to get a better understanding of that from them as well.

The reason this is kind of a neat conversation.

I didn't realize it when we were scheduling this interview, but the last

interview I did was with Steven DeSilva that it probably will release right

before this episode for those that might want to search, we actually discussed.

prosperity and money from a spiritual tone.

And I think that's a great foundation for a lot of people.

And then I think next week, the next one we're having is talking to someone

who's kind of like a wealth advisor.

And so I'm looking at our conversation here is like, business

owner, how to deal with like some practical and things like that.

So I think, I think these three, this arc is going to be a great combination, but I

do think that we learn a lot about people in two situations when they have a lack

or extreme lack of financial resources and possibly when they have An abundance or an

extreme abundance of financial resources.

Would you agree with that?

And is there anything you want to say about that?

100%.

100%.

I, I totally agree with that.

I think Sometimes on the abundance side, what can show up is the

insecurities that the people might have.

And, sometimes that money is or that what we think is abundance or excess of money

is used to kind of, fix or resolve or gloss over some of those insecurities.

And so I definitely.

I definitely agree 100 percent that you can really see someone on both of

those, ends of the spectrum for sure.

Yeah.

And I think what that does is it, it, it can really manifest when someone has a

great idea, they have a business, they're trying to provide a service, and then

all of a sudden they're doing all those business things, and we're dealing with

either a lot of money coming in or we're Things are tied and things like that.

So, so with that, let's transition and let's talk about some of the things

that you've seen, maybe high level.

And then we'll go down practical with that mindset about money.

Maybe let's start with mindset.

You've interacted with a lot of females, it sounds like, and.

And and I know you don't want to mention names or anything here, but what are some

ways that you've seen people handle the mindset of money well, and maybe some

examples when people it's like, okay, this is something that we're going to have to

exercise these demons to get this to where we could really be, do well financially.

And I'll mention a couple of things after you say that, but any, anything

popped to mind when I bring that up?

Yeah.

I would say some of the, some of the biggest like struggles or hurdles

will come through when, when one is extremely creative and, maybe coming up

with several different ideas and, or, concepts and everything has to go live.

Now, like I have to launch everything today and then I come

up with a new idea in a week and I want to launch that one too.

And, and sometimes that's just because they're super creative, but sometimes

it's also out of fear that what I launched last week might not bring enough money.

So let me create something else.

And so they have.

100 things that are 85 percent complete, but nothing that's 100

percent across the finish line.

And so they're tacked out emotionally, physically, financially, because I

can't get anything to the finish line because I keep starting these new things.

And so I do see that often with those, That are just extremely

creative and come up with these different concepts and ideas.

And I think that sometimes that does come out of fear of, well, these other

things that I created might not be enough or might not get bring in what

I need to let me create something else.

That's definitely 1 that I see another 1 is with the social media.

Side of seeing the success of everyone else and thinking that

they don't have that success.

And so they're chasing that in chasing someone else's success is extremely

expensive on all of your resources on your money, on your energy, on your time.

you can't chase someone else's success.

You don't know what their success actually is.

So it's this, it's just this like never ending.

thing that you're kind of running after.

And I see that often as well.

And I get it.

It's hard, but, but I do see that quite a bit as well.

Yeah, the comparison trap is so challenging and I would

say, years ago when I was starting my first businesses, you could just look

around and see two or three people.

Now you could look around and see two or 300 or two or 3000 and boy they

all look, they are, they look like they're just killing it and doing

so great and living their best life.

And that's why I like talking to people that are in the CFO role.

'cause they sometimes.

No, really, like I said earlier, what's, what's under the hood.

Do you ever run across entrepreneurs, business owners?

I know that I deal with this and I deal with mostly males.

I'm not exclusive, but that they're just delusional.

They just have no clue or concept.

Don't mention names here, if it's true, but they are, they're probably

good at some of the things, but when it comes to the financial

piece, they are living in dreamland.

It's that you see that often.

I

Yeah, I won't say that I see it often.

I do see it.

I do see it occasionally though.

and it's hard because I feel like usually when I see it, it's because they're,

It's less of the lack of knowledge of financials, which is absolutely part

of it, but it's more of they're just so incredibly passionate about whatever it

is that they're trying to get to market.

And they, and they, and it might be life changing.

It might, it might change the lives of however many people

sign up for that app or take that technology and do whatever it is.

But, but it's, it takes money to get there.

It takes the marketing efforts to get there.

It takes the investments to get there.

And sometimes.

there's this, if you build it, they will come kind of mentality and

entrepreneurship that like, I mean, I had it as well when I first started

the business, like you get humbled very quickly, and entrepreneurship,

like that's just not how it works.

And so I think sometimes there's a little bit of that, where you just

kind of have to let them see a little bit of it to understand, like, it can

be an amazing idea, concept, whatever it is, but it, it takes more than

that in order for it to be successful.

noticed with me, that was, we were talking about superpowers earlier.

I think it was one of my superpowers.

Up to a point, but an overused superpower sometimes can be our kryptonite.

It can, it can draw down what I had extreme optimism and I really had a

vision for the future of where we were headed and where we were going, the

disconnect or the challenge was, is that it's hard to spend future money.

I think people can borrow and things like that.

That's not a good formula for profit.

People like me that have that mindset.

And so I was living off future money, and I would say things

like, Oh, I'm investing in myself or I'm, I'm putting money back in.

We're investing back in.

But the, I won't get into the whole story, but in 08, we had real estate

companies in that, that came to an end fairly quickly, how, how does someone

who is a CFO or accountant or someone who's working with someone like that.

How can you approach it to reel someone like that in without

squelching all of that energy?

That might be a hard question, but I'd love to know because

that's my background and probably a lot of listeners backgrounds.

find the best thing is to understand is to really understand each

individual person and what drives them because you can be extremely optimistic

and have these these thoughts and these these plans and and also be the type that

if I were to bring you data of, maybe historical things that have happened or

data of projections of what might happen.

you might be the type that can sit down and look at that, and that can

actually be enough to kind of sway you one way or another, if you're kind

of data driven, or you might be one that can care less about the data.

I have those clients as well.

Kendra, I don't care what the numbers say.

I feel this in all of my aura.

And I'm like, okay, yeah.

Let's go another about this another way.

And so then I might tap into more of the, well, why are you wanting to do this?

And if I can get a better understanding of what their why is and what their end goal

is beyond this, then maybe there are other avenues that we can take that might be

less risk or, less of a financial burden right now that we can still get closer

to that why without as big of a jump and then sometimes it's just, You know what?

You're right.

Like this might be a big vision, a big dream.

It might be a big risk, but this sounds, this actually all kind of shakes out

and it looks good, let's go for it.

But let's check in often to make sure that it's going the way that we're

thinking that it should go and pivot when necessary versus like, let's

just throw it out there and just like sit back and kind of let it cook.

Yeah.

The thing that's the reason that's so good Kendra is is the ability to access the

data is where people like you, I think, bring extreme value to people like that.

I've got a call later today with one of my clients, runs a company and he generally

knows in his head what's going on.

He's a real detailed type person, but boy, he needs that, we, I think

we call it a CFO in his organization to track, look at trends, look

at things that might be problems.

Look at, what happened last year, what's happening this year, what

we, what might we do next year.

And I think that that Becomes important.

I noticed with your, your business that you use terms like fractional CFO.

we talk about obviously accounting and there's other words like

comptroller and things like that.

I think before we kind of go any further, could you for myself and others define

what you mean by some of those roles?

Cause I think.

There's some people that would say CFO.

Oh, that's not for me.

That's like a big corporate type thing.

And that could be your corporate background, knowing the role they have.

But talk about those.

whatever you want to do, CFO, accountant, controller,

bookkeeper, all of those, I think are sometimes lumped all together.

And I do think there's differences.

yeah, absolutely.

so I'll start with kind of your bookkeeper.

So if you are, if you, so essentially what they are for.

So a bookkeeper essentially is responsible for, accurately classifying

from an accounting standpoint, every transaction, every financial transaction

that you make in your business.

So every time you swipe your debit card to buy some supplies, or every time

you get a invoice paid from a client, a bookkeeper's job is to ensure that

that is being classified properly.

So that when you run a financial statement, like a profit and loss or a

balance sheet or a cashflow statement, everything is on there accurately, and in

a compliant fashion, so that when you go to file your tax return and everything,

it's all like on there properly.

and an accountant is like the level above that your accountant also

should understand some deeper laws for your business, for your location.

Okay, maybe there are some, journal entries, which is.

Fancy way of saying, some like adjustments that need to be made in your books

to ensure that it's also compliant.

So where the bookkeeper might kind of understand things at a transactional

basis, your accountant kind of understands things that are, higher, business level.

and then your CFO, let me pause there for a second.

You're so that means that your bookkeeper and your accountant, they're all

looking at historical transactions.

They're looking at things that have happened in the past.

The money that you've spent, the money that you've made.

and, and a CFO is more forward looking.

So we come in, we have to have accurate accounting.

So we need a bookkeeper and an accountant to, to, to do our jobs because they

give us all of that historical data.

But then we take that historical data and then anything else is going on

in the world and then understand, okay, well, if your business is

currently here, how do we get it there?

Or how do we get it here?

Or how do we get it out of whatever?

messy might feel like you're in.

And CFO is more forward looking.

we, we create strategies, we create projections, things like that, where

your bookkeeper and your accountant are more present day or past historical.

but we all work together in order to kind of create everything that's

needed, but that's usually the step.

And to your point about who really needs a CFO, you can, you can earn 20,

30, 40, 000 a month in your business and have a fractional CFO because we

can just come in and maybe help you understand how you're making 20 now.

And if you want that 20 to be 40, we can understand the, the metrics within your

business that help you get to that 20.

Cause the 20 is just an end number, right?

That's based off of maybe how many units you've sold or whatever your pricing is.

So we can understand the economics of the, how you got to that 20 to

figure out how to make that 20 or 40.

That's when the CFO would come in, a fractional CFO would come in.

100%.

that many entrepreneur business owners will use when it comes

to those services are something to the effect of we can't afford blank.

Accountant, bookkeeper, CFO yet, and you just mentioned a dollar amount, but could

you now go through that if you want to go through that list again and kind of

give, what are some clues that you need?

bookkeeper, accountant, or it's time for a CFO.

It's time for fractional CFO.

Do you, are there any metrics around that?

Or are there any, is there anything that someone listening

or someone gauging it would say, okay, this is a trigger for this.

So if you're making about 100, 000 a year in sales, whether

you're product based, service based, whatever, 100, 000 a year in sales, which

is about 8, 000, a little over 8, 000 a month in income, then you definitely

want to at least consider a bookkeeper.

Now that's on the, absolutely, like that's a trigger that should absolutely

make you want to bring in a bookkeeper.

But if you're bringing in 5, 000 and it's overwhelming to you.

Then you can consider bringing in a bookkeeper as well because there

are some bookkeepers as low as, a couple hundred dollars a month.

There are some, SAS tools like bench.

co that I think it's like 140 a month maybe, and you don't have a person that

you're kind of working with one on one, but it's a, it's a solution, a tool that

kind of automate some of your bookkeeping.

So if you're, if it's overwhelming, go ahead and outsource it.

But if you.

don't feel like it's that overwhelming, but you're already

at that 100k a year threshold.

I would say still go ahead and consider investing in a bookkeeper.

the accountant that really comes in more so depending on the

complexity of your business.

So if you're purchasing a lot of like assets, whether it's real

estate or whether it's a lot of equipment that you're purchasing,

if you're doing like manufacturing.

Then you want to consider an accountant because they're going

to look at some of those entries that we talked about earlier.

and that would also be probably at that 100k or more range before you're,

obviously investing in like equipment.

now a CFO, I usually say if you're making about 250k a year or more,

sometimes it's like 500k a year or more.

It really just depends on what you're doing that you want to bring in a CFO.

It's almost less about the dollar amount though, and more about

what's going on in your business.

So CFOs are great when you're going through some kind of a

transitional point in your business.

maybe you're hiring your first full time employee outside of yourself, or

maybe you are going from one location to two locations, or you're going

from being a dot com to opening up a brick and mortar location as well.

So when there are some Larger transitional points are happening

in your business that you want to consider bringing on a fractional CFO.

Cause it might even just be for that project.

It might not be an ongoing commitment.

It might be for the next three months.

As I consider bringing on this next employee, I really need somebody that

I can run this scenario through and help me go through these numbers.

Those are good gauges.

I appreciate you giving us some, some indicators there.

One of the things that also came to mind is I think it was before I want to

talk about the next thing is how often, and you, and you may not interact with

these I think many times entrepreneurs and business owners, there's a

statement that I make often and it's called thou shalt not fool thyself.

I think we will often fool ourselves thinking, Oh, it's just numbers.

I can keep track of that.

Oh, it's just marketing.

I can do marketing.

Oh, it's just social media posts.

I could do that.

We really don't.

Do this is goes back to the delusional thing.

I think there's a delusion that we either can do it all or we have to do it all.

So how often do you have to deal with folks that are like, I know I could do

it, but I feel like I just need help.

Or.

I think women are probably better at admitting they can't do things.

Maybe I'm wrong about that, but how often do you have to

say, okay, let us handle this.

You go do what it is.

You're really good at.

I think sometimes entrepreneurs are not good at that.

So talk about that.

Some,

yeah, I 100 percent agree.

And, and, and it's, it's a thing with women as well, for sure.

we'll often hear folks on calls say like.

I know I'm sure I could do this, I'm sure I can like create my own

projection for this three year plan for the sales pitch or the, the investor

pitch that I have coming up, but you know, I would rather just outsource it.

I'm like, okay, I'm sure you probably could do it, but wouldn't you want

someone who does this for a living?

To do it, it's like I, I probably could write a book in Portuguese, using chat GPT

and Google, but what, what I really want to write a book in Portuguese versus going

to someone who can write in Portuguese.

yes, it does take, I think sometimes it just takes having the conversation with

whoever that potential fractional CFO is for you to get comfortable with the idea.

Of someone else taking it over.

Cause I do think at least with, within finance and accounting, that a little

bit of that is the, concern of someone is about just kind of see all of my mess.

And so they really are almost like talking themselves out of bringing

somebody on because they don't want someone to see all of their mess.

but usually that goes away very, very quickly once they have their

first set of books done for them.

And they're like, Oh, this is this is great.

I didn't have to do a thing.

so it happens.

I'm the same way with marketing.

I'm always like, Oh, I can do my own marketing and then nothing

gets done for like 6 months.

So I get it.

but usually once they hand the reins over, it's very easy.

Easy for them to then see like, Oh, I should have done this a long time ago.

yeah.

Or you get it done and it's done poorly.

And there's some pretty, I don't want to say severe repercussions.

There's some repercussions if you

don't handle the, okay.

Financial pieces, right?

I I've interacted with clients in the past that have brought up things

that sound something like this.

I'll mention this and then let you respond something like this.

Oh, we've paid our taxes, but we haven't done a return in three or four years.

Which is an interesting.

Or yeah, we've been a little bit at tight.

We're a little bit behind on our tax situation and we'll get caught

up as soon as blank happens.

When you hear things like that, as someone who deals with the financial

piece, what goes through your mind?

I, it's tough because you don't want to like ring the alarms, but

at the same time you, you have to kind of wake, wake them up a little bit to

the, to the realities of what's going on.

and then also like, yes, there's the repercussions with, with taxes for

sure, which is definitely something that you don't want to mess with.

But then also Bad data, bad financial data hurts you every single day in your

business, because especially if you're using that data to make decisions,

garbage in, garbage out, right?

So if I'm trying to determine how I'm going to scale my business

based on garbage data, I'm not going to scale my business properly.

It's going to, go any old kind of way.

bad.

I always let folks know that bad financial data, like this is beyond

the scary taxman, which is a scary tax man, by the way, it really is, but

beyond the tax man, it's your day to day decision making that's also on the line.

So why make, why grow a business with, with this, this incomplete data, when

you can have information in front of you that helps you make decisions.

Everyday decisions, the decisions that we all have to make is my pricing, right?

How much should I, offer this person for this full time job?

Like, these are questions that we have to make that looking

at data would help us make,

I think it's just being a good steward of

what you've been gifted with.

It's something we talk about a good bit here.

That's, I think that's the right thing spiritually.

I think it's just the right thing.

If you've got a business, you need to steward it and take

care of it in a certain way.

And part of that are the numbers.

Part of that is the people, part of it's other assets and other

things that you've been gifted with.

And so I, I, I think.

I think it's something that you just need to take care of better.

And it seems like that's what you bring into the business.

You've got something that I read about called peace and profits and, and, In

the same sentence that I was reading it, it said something about, stop the

hustle or stop the hustle and grind, which is near and dear to my heart.

I was the early part of my life up until probably, 20 minutes

ago, I would have been kind of a hustle and grind type person.

No, actually about 15 years ago is when I started getting purged of that.

And so anytime I see something, it might've been what attracted me for

us to have this conversation, peace and profits and, avoid the hustle.

It, it means something to me.

So tell me about peace and profits and how those fit together.

Yeah.

as a CFO and someone who's in finance.

It was always about profit to me because that's just kind of what made sense.

I'm here to look at the data and the numbers to see what's going

to be the most profitable thing.

And even when I started my business, same concept, because I

took that mentality from corporate and then, 2020 I had my son.

And when I had my son, I thought that I had set myself up to have this like

great maternity leave as an entrepreneur.

I'm like, I'm in control of my own time.

I can like, determine who I get to talk to and all of this, how many hours I work.

And, that just wasn't the case.

I, I was still grinding while, bouncing on a yoga ball while like, Nursing my

son to sleep so that I could take a call and hoping that he doesn't wake up.

Like, and it was that way for months and I was so drained.

And, then it just clicked.

And I had some clients who were completely understanding.

And then I had some one in particular who roasted me on the call because

I'm like rocking my son to sleep while I'm on the call with her.

And that's when I realized like, okay, I really signed up for this entrepreneur

thing because I knew that I could have a little bit more control over my

life and who I work with and my time.

And it's time that I really put that into place.

And so that's when I started to transition my mindset from

this business is all about.

Helping people be profitable to this business is all about helping people

be profitable, but so they can live a peaceful life so they can do whatever it

is that they're wanting to do, whether that's spend more time with their

family, whether that's travel the world, it's a combination of the two things.

And it's, it then puts a purpose behind the profits.

which ironically enough makes the profits grow because you're doing it for a reason

and a reason that's in alignment with you.

And yeah, that tipping point, really changed things and I still have my CFO

hat on, but I always look at things through the lens of peace and profits.

And, once you start down that path, like there's no going back, I can never go

back to being like profit, profit, profit.

Like I, it, it, it, I can't go down that path anymore.

The interesting thing to tie back into something we talked

about earlier, you mentioned that there are a lot of people that are chasing

after Profits, business, new business, whatever chasing after a lifestyle that

they think someone else is leading and they think they want to do that also.

you mentioned the chasing and to me, that is almost the opposite of the

wording of peace and profits and.

And the anti hustle, do you still have people that come into your, your circle

that they're going through this chasing?

They're, they're on the wheel, the, we could call it a hamster wheel.

We can call it a hustle and grind, all of these things.

And I love what you just said.

It's like, When you stop chasing, it's like when, if you're got a, if your

dog goes outside and you're trying to

run them down, but yet if you just kind of sit with something that they

come after, is that, I mean, have you had observations that you can

share with someone listening right now?

It's like, stop chasing, slow down, And let the business come to you.

That almost sounds like a Yoda type statement and all that, but any, I

don't even know if that question made sense, but what do you want to say

to anything about stop chasing, allow the peace and profits to come to you.

Yes, and you're 100 percent like I would I'm I'm I always say like

I am NOT a woo woo person My sister is so woo woo, right and I'm like, oh,

you were just so I'm just not a woo woo person Until this shift with like peace

and profits happened and I'm like, okay, wait, there's something to this There's

a little there's a little woo in my life right now, and I'm accepting it because

there's something You can, you can run and run and chase and chase all you want

to and you will do it to exhaustion.

but once you actually, understand your why behind things, which again, before

I would have said, oh, it's so low, so low, but once you really understand that

it grounds you in what you're doing.

And absolutely.

I mean, I definitely have clients who once I.

Once I kind of saw the light and kind of brought that to them as

well, it just changed our dynamic and our working relationship.

It's changed how we, how we implement and execute things in their business.

And some folks listen, some will come to me and we'll still

want to chase and grind and work really hard on what they're doing.

I understand that's the season that they're in.

and I can, do the best that I can do to serve them.

But, but yeah, it, it, it, it just, things just smooth out a lot more.

Once you accept that there's two sides to this thing called entrepreneurship

and it's not all about profits.

Sure.

You need profits to obviously continue to run and funnel your

business, but you need peace too.

You need peace too.

and yeah, I, I love it.

I'm so very grateful, for that client who roasted me on that call because

I don't know, it would have taken me longer to get to this point.

and yeah, I'm not going back.

Do you find your, do you find that you're attracting people that fit?

I mean, listen, when you use wording like peace versus scale, I mean,

there's nothing wrong with scale.

I'm an engineer by training and went.

To school down the road from Clemson at Georgia Tech.

And so systems engineering and scaling, those were part of my vocabulary,

but I'm going to place in life where that piece part is really important.

Are you attracting clients that aren't roasting you as much on phone calls now?

100%.

And those who come in for like consults that I can feel just

the, the high, strong energy.

That they're not on the peace and profit side and that they're still

on this, like, I'm going to grind it out by any means necessary.

I understand that's the season you're in, but we're probably not

the best fit for you because I'm not going to move at that pace.

I'm not going to tell you to drop any and everything that you do right now.

To, accomplish X, Y, and Z with no thought about the other things that

you want to accomplish in your life.

And one of the call or one of the questions that we actually

asked on the console call is like, what are you doing this for?

Like, what, what's your reason for this business?

And if it's just, I want a million dollars in the bank account.

And I can't get any deeper than that, then we're probably not the best fit.

But if it's like, I want a million dollars in my bank account, because

that's the number that I hear is going to help me pay for my kids tuition.

And I can retire when I'm whatever age, and there's like something else behind

it that we can like really tie into.

Then it's probably a better fit, a better alignment.

Years ago, when I was coaching in the real estate investing

space, I would have some people that would say something to the effect of,

well, I need to make sure that I've got your phone number to text you, 24

seven in case there's ever an emergency.

Kendra.

My response was this is real estate.

There won't be an emergency.

You don't need my text to text me.

I mean, we'll, if you send me an email, I respond within 24 hours.

I'll get back to you, but that's not, that's not, there

are no real estate emergencies.

I don't know.

Are there ever any accounting or CFO emergencies?

Take

Don't know.

if it's at the end of the day, there's always going to be time

to sit and think things through.

Actually, ironically, earlier today, a client of mine sent me

over a a listing of a property that she's thinking about buying.

And we've already had the conversation about if she should do real estate

investing and things like that.

So we've already kind of cleared that, but we had a cap.

We had an amount that we were supposed to stick to, and this

is far beyond that amount.

And she's like, and I have to make an offer.

They tell me I have to make an offer today.

And I'm like, you don't have to make, you don't have to make an offer today.

Like, let's look up with the numbers.

Let's talk about it, but you don't have to make an offer today.

And so I think it's.

It's a lot of that.

Sometimes it's just kind of not talking to our clients, like off of

a cliff, but just letting them being that other person that they can talk

to and, and understanding what they need in, times and moments like that.

yeah,

a deep breath.

There are no emergencies.

If that deal doesn't work, there's more.

I don't like deadlines or pressure or stuff like that.

Maybe that's just where I'm at.

I haven't always been that way.

We we've got a few minutes left here.

There's a few questions and I want to, I want in just a moment you to

list all of the things that you can provide someone, but I've got one.

Maybe bigger question before I get to that, Kendra.

I always love it when I talk to people that get to interact with a lot of

different business owners or leaders.

And the question that I want to ask when I, when I find that is what is

a tip or a piece of advice that you can give maybe financial related, it

may just be bigger picture things that you observe and it might be something

we've talked about, but what is something that you observe that is a.

Tip that you want to share with the person listening in that they're an owner might

be a female in business, might be male.

I don't know that you've seen from the seat that you have to be able to look

at businesses and business owners.

I would say, honestly, I would just say, look

at your numbers, like look at.

And, and, if that just feels overwhelming and if that just feels like, okay,

that's just way too, like, grandiose, like, give me something specific.

Then think about some of the few, two to five, we call them, KPIs of metrics, but

essentially, Numbers that are the most important and impactful to your business.

So if you are a product based business, that might be like your average order

value, like your cart rate, right?

Or it might be how many sales orders do you do in any given month?

Or if you are a consultant, it might be how many prospects do you have

in the pipeline, what's your close rate when you're on sales calls, but

focus in on just a few of those key numbers that matter in your business.

And track them and look at them.

And, and as you track them and look at them over time, you'll start to see

like trends and, seasonality, things that might impact those numbers.

Just get really comfortable and familiar with those few numbers.

You don't have to know the whole P and L and balance sheet,

like the back of your hand.

But know those few numbers, because with the clarity comes the

confidence and confidence is really what you need in entrepreneurship

when it comes to to not get tested.

if someone's testing you on your prices or on whatever it is, if

you have that data on those few key things, then, that gives you a lot

of clarity and a lot of confidence.

And, so I really just think, just know what those three numbers are

and make sure that you study them.

Yeah, that's really good.

I think clarity is so much better than confusion and not knowing those numbers.

So I, I was looking at your site and looking at the information and I,

I do believe, and we went over some of the terms, the fractional CFO and

all earlier, but if you could right now, tell us, tell us what all you

can provide for someone, especially a female business owner, entrepreneur that

might be listening in, what all do you and your company, provide for people?

Yep.

So we have three main services.

So we have our executive accounting solution, and that is for anyone who

needs that bookkeeper or that accountant.

That's anyone who needs that clarity in their financials.

We come on, we come in, we take over your accounting.

We do all your financial reporting for you every month.

and so that is where you are completely hands off on having to like

maintain your day to day books and financial reports and all of that.

that's our executive accounting solution.

And then our fractional CFO solution is.

For anyone who is kind of on that next phase in their business.

So like I said, maybe they're going through something transitional,

bringing on their first hire or scaling the team, their product

suite, and they need more strategy.

So we'll still handle your accounting and all your financial reporting,

but then I'll come in and we'll have these really strategic conversations.

We'll build out a plan around whatever it is you're kind of transitioning into.

And we're marching to that strategy and kind of, and pivoting.

I always say that because.

We got to pivot, right?

All the time.

It's entrepreneurs, things change and move, but in pivoting along the way.

that's the fractional CFO service and then taxes as well.

We handle all things, taxes, whether it's just preparing and

filing or tax strategy as well.

Very good.

And if someone wants to connect with you, one of the toughest

things we had when we first got on the phone was, what do I call you?

You're Kendra Nicole or Kendra Nicole James Anderson, Kendra Nicole James.

But if someone wants to connect with you or to find this, where do they need to go?

We'll include it in the notes, but where do they need to go?

Yeah, so the best place really is the finance

film dot com and film is F.

E.

M.

M.

E.

but the finance film dot com is really the best place to go to get

more information on those services and to be able to reach out.

My email is info at the finance from dot com.

And so that's probably the best way to get in touch.

It's always tough.

This is another thing that we started the conversation with how

sometimes things just aren't fair.

Our culture, women change their names and men don't tip it.

Some are doing it now.

Some are adding the hyphens and stuff like that.

They typically don't.

And it's got to make it tough for someone who's gone through corporate.

And then,

you know, get married and then all of that.

Is that kind of where all these names come from?

Or do you have like multiple superpowers that you,

each superpower has an identity.

I wish, when I got married for sure, adding on Anderson.

But then LinkedIn and everyone in my corporate was still doing

me from Kendra Nicole James.

And then I was like, well, my podcast is Kendra Nicole.

So it was just, yes, I appreciate, working with me on all of these name variations,

yeah.

And we even came to the agreement or I'm going to call you Kendra Nicole.

Okay.

I'm going to call you Kendra Nicole.

So anyway, Kendra, we are seek, go create those three words.

I'm going to allow you as my last question to choose one of those that

just resonates more with you and means more to you and why I'm a final question.

Seek, go or create.

I'm going to go with seek, I'm going to go with seek.

And I, and I hope that.

That listeners and, that everyone really seeks what is important to them and

understands like what their why is behind everything, especially in business,

because you put so much time, energy, money, effort, everything, all of your

resources into building out a business.

And if you don't really know what the underlying reason is for that thing, it's

going to be very hard to push it through.

So I would definitely ask that.

To seek for what the underlying real reason and why is behind

what you do, doing what you do.

Excellent.

Love that word, Kendra.

Thanks for joining us here.

And I just want to remind the listener.

This is, this conversation has been a great fit with what I believe if

it's released last week's, Steven DeSilva, where we talked about.

More the spiritual aspect of finances and money.

And then next week we're talking about wealth.

So man, this is, this is great.

If you haven't listened to those, go back and listen to those.

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