Before you post that job listing, you need a plan to financially prepare for your next hire, and that's exactly what today's guest walks us through. Carla Titus is a CFO who works with therapy practices of all sizes, and she breaks down why so many owners jump into hiring before they've actually looked at the numbers.
In this episode of The Traveling Therapist Podcast, Carla and I dig into what it actually costs to bring on a new clinician, from the ramp-up period to tracking performance once they're on your team. If you've ever hired someone and then panicked three months later wondering where the money went, this one is for you.
n This Episode, We Explore…
Connect with Carla Titus:
Website: https://www.wealthworthwithin.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wealthworthwithin/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wealthworthwithin/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wealthworthwithin
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wealthandworthwithin
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ceo-financial-clarity-corner-podcast-money-strategy/id1818238749
Connect with me:
Instagram: @thetravelingtherapist_kym
The Traveling Therapist Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/
Signup to learn more about life as a Traveling Therapist: https://www.portablepracticemethod.com/free-training
Revolutionize Your Private Practice with AI Course: www.kymtolson.kartra.com/page/ai
Bill Like A Boss Insurance Billing Community: www.kymtolson.kartra.com/page/blab
Subscribe to the Podcast:
Apple iTunes | Spotify | Google Podcast | Stitcher | Amazon | Castbox
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Transcript:
[00:00:06] Kym: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Traveling Therapist podcast. Now, normally I have therapists here that are traveling, but occasionally you guys know that I do bring in guests that can help us be better traveling therapists, and that's what Carla Titus does.
[00:00:20] So Carla, so excited to have you here today. We're gonna talk about how to financially prepare for your next hire, Traveling therapists, right? A lot of them listening, us, them, uh, might wanna scale, right? They might be like, "Okay, this admin is killing me," or like, "I'm ready to, bring on new clinicians," or, "I need to like figure out my fan- financial situation so I can manage this stuff better," or just like, "How the heck do I get out of this business and let it run itself?" And that's where Carla comes in. So Carla, can you tell us about yourself? And then we can like dig into the nitty-gritty of how you help therapists.
[00:00:55] Carla: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Kim. I'm so excited. I love talking to therapists. They're our favorite kind of clients. They're just so aware and, you know, so in- introspective, and they know they need help, so re- they reach out when needed uh, when it's beyond what they can solve on their own. And yeah, our background is all in financial management for businesses.
[00:01:15] I was doing it for corporate before. My team is all experienced or ex-corporate people that have a passion to help small businesses thrive. And honestly, you know, you didn't get into business to do the financial side. You got into business 'cause you love what you do. You're passionate about serving patients and helping them with their treatment plans and getting them, you know, to a good, healthy state, and you can't do that if the money gets in the way.
[00:01:38] And so we say you wanna have profit because businesses are in business to make profit, but it's to fuel the purpose that you have behind the work you wanna do. So we wanna close the gap on that and get better at financial management so it doesn't get in the way of you accomplishing your goals
[00:01:53] Kym: Yes. And you know, I, before I hit record, I was talking to Carla. I was like, "How do we tie this into Traveling Therapist?" And she's like, "Oh my gosh, there's so many ways." Like, they're virtually remote, like their entire team is remote, right, with with Carla and her team. But ba- basically any therapist that wants to travel and run their practice remotely or, you know, like we were saying before, scale it up and out so you're not, like, in your business so much.
[00:02:14] So Carla's primary role I guess is CFO, right? I guess that is your primary title. Could you just tell us what a CFO is just in case people are like, "What the heck is that?"
[00:02:24] Carla: Yeah. So if you're not familiar with the term yet chief financial officer. So this are the role that Fortune 500 companies have, where the CEO, AKA you the owner, and the CFO, which is the data person, the analysis, the financial insights, come together to make better decisions. And so we call it, the super powering your gut instinct.
[00:02:45] 'Cause a lot of you use your gut instinct to make decisions right now, but you're not looking at the data. So we want you to just add that to it to give you additional context on why you're feeling the way you're feeling, and really just gain those insights so you're like, "You see, I knew it. I knew that was off.
[00:03:00] I knew that we're doing well here." But now the data validates that feeling, either good or bad, and helps you make decisions moving forward. So that's the function of a CFO, is to partner with the CEO to help them. And then when it comes to, you know, scaling and hiring, those are really big decisions. You don't wanna do them alone.
[00:03:18] You wanna do them with informed data at your hands on, like, how can we make this work for the practice? What is this gonna contribute to the practice bottom line? And how are we gonna manage these people remotely to make sure they're actually performing? 'Cause all of that contributes to a profitable, sustainable practice
[00:03:39] Kym: Yes. Okay. So help us demystify the numbers because, I mean, honestly, I don't know if all therapists are this way, but, and you probably see it a lot more than me, but if I hear like we need to crunch numbers or even like gather numbers, my brain like literally shuts down. I'm like, "I don't know. I don't wanna deal with it.
[00:03:54] I don't wanna think about it." I mean, I've gotten much better with that in my like businesses that I run now. But how do you demystify that? Like, let's go with like a solo practitioner maybe like, and steps in with you for the first time with an appointment. Like how do we even start to pull the numbers in? Like what does that even look like?
[00:04:10] Carla: Yeah. So the beauty of the work we do is that we're able to narrow down the things that are important for your practice and really help you understand what's happening before we get into the nitty-gritty, 'cause there's so many numbers you can look at, right? And often I see people are paralyzed by the amount of numbers you can be tracking, and worse yet, they don't even make a decision or change anything because of the numbers they're tracking because they have no idea what to do with it.
[00:04:37] And so we wanna change that. So we'll start with the basic ones, which is what is your revenue? How much money did you brought into this, you know, monthly sales, and how many patients did you treat? How many clinical sessions did you completed? The revenue generation's the first step. Like, it doesn't end there, right?
[00:04:53] Like, that's just top line, what we call it. It's the starting point. Now you're gonna look at your expenses, like how much is it costing you to run this business? Regardless of size, this applies, by the way, from solo to, like, 100-plus therapists, doesn't matter. Like, these are the numbers we look at just in case you're wondering. And
[00:05:11] Kym: would know, I'll just say, 'cause you manage practices that have, like, 70, 80, 100 clinicians, right?
[00:05:17] Carla: Yes, for sure. And they have different complexity, but the numbers boil down to the same metrics because as you're scaling your practice, you still care about these numbers. You just might have different layers of how you look at the numbers that make more sense as you add complexity as you grow your practice.
[00:05:35] Once you look at expenses, like there should be some money left. I know, like shocking, like when I walk people through like the basics of business, right? Finance, is you make more than you spend. I know, crazy how simple that is, but it is literally what we're going for. And then that leftover is called profit.
[00:05:53] Like did you make profit this month? Did you spend more than you brought in? Now you have a loss. Now you gotta understand why that happened and how you're gonna fix it going forward to make sure that doesn't happen again. Maybe your clinical session count was down. Maybe people canceled on you and your cancel rate is up.
[00:06:10] could be something related to the environment, it could be economic situation, it could be a many different things, but you need to understand why that changed and how you're gonna recover from it. And then you say, "Well, I gotta rebook everyone." So we wanna make sure sessions are healthy, right? They're up, consistent.
[00:06:26] Maybe you need to bring in more patients. Maybe you don't have enough to complete your sessions. So this is where you start to look at, okay, inside revenue, how is this revenue created, and what are the levers we can pull that we can start managing more actively to know, oh, that's down, that's why we didn't make as much.
[00:06:43] Oh, look, that's up. That means we might need to get ready to hire another therapist. So these are the indicators we wanna start looking at. And again, not too many, just pick like your top three to five maybe that you consistently look at. Revenue, expenses, profit are good ones to start with, and then completed sessions, cancel rates can be the other ones to just understand how that's happening.
[00:07:05] Kym: Interesting. And as, the CFO, I mean, you kinda take over that part of it, right? So you'd be, like, managing and monitoring and then kinda giving reports back, I guess, to
[00:07:14] Carla: You got it
[00:07:15] Kym: " looks like this has dipped. Maybe we need to bump this. We need to pay attention to this and, and that." And then do you give strategies on how to, like, do that stuff when, when these things have dipped or they're looking a little not good?
[00:07:27] Carla: Yeah. So the first piece we do as outsourced CFOs is we take this off your plate, right? So we're now the ones responsible doing this work, pulling the data, analyzing it, gl- getting insights so we can then share those with you as a CEO, and then helping you decide what are you gonna do about it, 'cause that's really the more important part of our job is what are we doing about this?
[00:07:46] How do we wanna change it? But first, it starts with awareness. We need to know if cancels are up, why? Why did that happen? Is that something that is in our control? Is it a summer break and it's just slow season and we know this is coming, so we should have prepared for it? You know, what's happening in your practice that's in your control?
[00:08:05] Then we wanna address it. What is the thing we're gonna do next to make sure we improve on that metric? 'Cause now that we know the metric's down, or maybe the metric's up and we're like, "What are we doing right? Let's do more of that."
[00:08:17] Kym: Yeah, I like that
[00:08:18] Carla: that good work. Yeah, I love that part too, 'cause sometimes it's not all about doom and gloom, right?
[00:08:23] Sometimes, like, things are going well. Let's do more of what's working and less of what's not working, 'cause we don't wanna work harder, we just wanna work smarter. And that's what the metrics do for you. It starts to highlight things where things are well and you wanna do more of it. So you wanna ask, what did we do differently in April last year that made us make more revenue than normal?
[00:08:42] And then you start to kind of recall and you're like, "Oh, we did this campaign and we did this thing, and, like, that brought in new clients." Like, great, let's do that again. Can we do it again? They're like, "Yes." Fantastic. Again, use what's already proven in your business to do more of what's working. Don't try to reinvent the wheel.
[00:08:59] And then looking at, okay, how did, did it improve? Or if it needs to improve, what are we doing about it? Are we coaching our therapists one-on-one to say, "Hey, let's improve your cancel rate by rebooking everyone before they leave the appointment. Let's make sure that if that doesn't happen, there's an admin following up the day after to make sure there's something on the books next week."
[00:09:17] Like, there's things we as business owners can do from the execution perspective, and this is what we explore with our owners on what is feasible, what, you know, capacity do you have to do that, who's gonna do the follow-up. If it's not the therapist or the admin, is it you?
[00:09:33] Kym: Yeah, yeah. Right. How else that could happen? So that kind of leads into that question then, how long do the numbers need to be consistent for you to be able to say, "Yes, I could hire an admin to actually follow up on these calls, because if I had somebody else doing this, I'd be able to do more clinical time or be able to step out of the business." Like, how do you decide that part of it?
[00:09:52] Carla: Yeah. It's based on goals, honestly, Kim. So, like, what are the owner's goals, right? Is the owner's goal to have more freedom of time and bandwidth in their life because that's what they need, and therefore we do wanna make room in the budget to hire these positions to take these things off their plate.
[00:10:08] And also, they're probably, like, a lower pay rate than you using your time are, and this is a good opportunity cost trade-off for you to consider. And maybe we don't bring someone full-time. We just bring them for five hours a week to help you do this follow-up piece. I think often we're not thinking about what is the business needs.
[00:10:28] We're always just trying to meet all the needs and rushing to the next thing because, you know, business moves, and you have to respond. But when we start to identify areas where we can hire help to free up our bandwidth, and maybe it's not putting more money in your pocket because maybe that is not the top priority.
[00:10:43] The top priority is to free up your time. That's when we're making a conscious decision to afford someone to come do this work for us so that we get the time back 'cause that's worth more to us right now in this stage of life than maybe making more profit is. And every client has different, you know, goals, and some are like, "No, let's maximize profit.
[00:11:03] Kym: Exactly.
[00:11:04] Carla: I'm gonna put in the time. I wanna have more profit." Great, then maybe they do the admin work, which is their choice. And we are here just to advise, to say, "Hey, is there an opportunity here to trade?" Because now you can see more clients instead, and maybe not as many. Maybe you only see two more, but now the admin is happening while you're in sessions.
[00:11:24] How awesome. And now that's, rebook rate is up, so cancellations are down, and this is good for the practice 'cause now we're making more money
[00:11:31] Kym: Yeah. And then I would imagine it goes the other way too, right? You, you start looking at the numbers, and it's like you cannot afford this, like, social media team that's, that you're paying $1,800 a month that's bringing in no leads. Like, how do you help with that part? And like, do, do you actively recommend like, "You need to fire them, and we need to think of a different strategy"?
[00:11:50] Or like, like, how do you help with that stuff? Like identifying, I guess, what would that be? Like, the downsides or, like, problems that you've got in your business. How do you, like, start to pick that stuff out and then, and like, how do you coach around that, I guess, is the question?
[00:12:05] Carla: So that's like the risk side of the business, right? When things are not working out and you're not getting the benefit for what you're paying for, and we do this often, it happens unfortunately, where we're looking at performance and we're not seeing it, and we need to make a different decision, we need to make a reduction in budget or a cut altogether, or a change of team if needed.
[00:12:23] Like in that case the example you were sharing, is we look at metrics. We say, okay, how well is the social media team performing? Is that bringing in calls, intakes? Is that ultimately leading to more business above and beyond your baseline revenue that you were doing before you hired this team, or not?
[00:12:42] And then the, then the question morphs into, okay, what else are they bringing in value? Maybe it's not directly correlated, but is it getting you in front of the, you know, right audience and just takes a little longer. Like, we also have to make sure we give it time to work. We don't just wanna hire a team and be like, "Okay, cut it two weeks later 'cause they didn't do anything."
[00:13:00] It's like, well, if you went into an investment thinking it was gonna pay off in two weeks, maybe don't start. But we do wanna value performance, we wanna get clarity of expectations with whoever we're hiring and trading dollars with to say, what can we expect by when, and then hold them accountable to that.
[00:13:17] Just no different than holding your clinicians accountable. You're holding your partners accountable to results. And if they're not bringing the results, then the conversation has to be like, what happened? What do we need to change in order to get results? Because we're not just quick to cut things, right?
[00:13:31] We wanna make sure we're working with them and figuring it out. And if they don't bring solutions to the table and they can't give you any kind of, you know, hope for what could be
[00:13:41] Kym: Yeah. Yeah, yeah
[00:13:43] Carla: in a couple months we might be like having a very different conversation where we're like, "This is not working.
[00:13:47] It's time to move on." And so that's where we help our clients kinda get into with, you know, their providers and their teams and such, is like that accountability piece, the follow through, the making sure results are happening. And sometimes understanding if it's not in their control, what's in their control that we can change to make sure those results are happening.
[00:14:07] But asking the questions is half the battle, honestly, Kim. Because my owners are so busy running around, they're not looking at every single line of spending and being like, "Hmm, am I getting the value from that one?" And so going through that expense audit with them and being like, "Okay, is this working, not working?
[00:14:22] Are we getting intakes up? Where were our intakes to start with? Did you benchmark before you hired this team?" Right? Again, data again, right? The data will tell us a lot of what's working or not working.
[00:14:33] Kym: I'm like the worst. You would hate me as a client. I'd be like, "I have no idea."
[00:14:37] Carla: It's okay. That's why we're here, right?
[00:14:39] Kym: yeah, I just make these, like, gut decisions, and then later I'm like, literally I have no... There's no tracking. You know, I, I've done that for a long time. Like, I'm much better now 'cause I have, like, a business manager that's helping me, like, get all that organized.
[00:14:51] But, but yeah, I mean, 'cause, 'cause things like social media and all that that you really can't track, I mean, I guess part of what you do is help, like, let's figure out how to actually track this stuff to see if it's working instead of just, like, this vague I'm just, like, paying all this money out for all these things kind of.
[00:15:08] Carla: Yeah.
[00:15:08] Kym: Yeah.
[00:15:09] Carla: we wanna make sure that we have some benefit to show for it. It might be visibility, it might be visits to the site. And, w- you know, we can decide what those metrics need to be that give us, like, the benefit we're looking for. But then there's other strategies we try, too. You know, more community outreach, more in-person type things that differentiate us from the competition.
[00:15:27] And in a world of AI, I feel like sometimes we also want to do business with other humans. So this could be a competitive advantage that other big companies might not be able to do or have if you can show up differently in your community and, like, you know, do the referral base, the marketing to the community directly could be an advantage.
[00:15:48] And how a lot of my practices still thrive through referrals despite what, you know, other practices might be doing, where they're relying on social media and that maybe is not working right now 'cause AI just threw a loop into the whole thing and people are trying to figure it out.
[00:16:02] Kym: Yeah
[00:16:03] Carla: have to fall back on what they know is true and works for them in the meantime.
[00:16:07] But we're always evaluating opportunities, investments trade-offs, and making sure that we bring that data layer to that gut decision feeling. 'Cause I think your gut serves you well. I'm not... I think a lot of business owners have done really well on their own with their gut instinct, right? But they hesitate, and that hesitation, the lack of confidence in moving forward with a decision 'cause they just don't know, is what we help them close the gap on by bringing that data to the conversation.
[00:16:36] Kym: That makes a lot of sense. So how do you help project and plan for future hires? Is there like
[00:16:42] Carla: Great question
[00:16:43] Kym: just how do you get that going, I guess? 'Cause you can't just ... You probably don't come in and you're like, "Oh, you've got $20 million sitting here that we can hire tons of people." I'm sure there's gotta be like, like we gotta cut some of this, we gotta cut a little of this, we gotta add some of this to get people ready. So I'm just curious, like, like how do you go about that process with somebody, with a practice or, or what? A solo practitioner?
[00:17:04] Carla: So there's a pr- some preparation that happens in anticipation of hiring, right? So you're probably feeling something like, "We have more leads than we have clinicians available to service." Okay, great problem to have. Still a problem 'cause now you got a wait list you gotta deal with and people who might choose your competition because you didn't get back to them fast enough and you don't have availability.
[00:17:25] So then the next question is, do we even have space to hire these people? 'Cause I often see people forget that you have to put the humans in the office, so like they need a space to be able to either share or have an office to have their sessions, right? Especially if it's in person. If it's telehealth, a lot easier 'cause you don't have that constraint on space.
[00:17:43] And then you wanna look at, do you have any cash runway? Because this is the one I see a lot of business owners hiring completely miss. They're like, "I'm gonna hire and I'm gonna make all this money from this clinician, so I'm gonna be just fine." The thing they forget is that there's a ramp-up period.
[00:18:00] There's a period where your clinician is just getting up to speed. You're probably paying hours for them to watch trainings, do onboarding, file their paperwork. they're not billable. You're still waiting for credentialing. If it's insurance,
[00:18:13] Kym: Oh
[00:18:14] Carla: to account for that time. And that costs money. It's real money out the door where you're not generating yet.
[00:18:21] Now, obviously by 30, 60, 90 days, your clinician's fully ramped and has a full caseload and now all of a sudden money is being made and it's fantastic. But if you cannot survive the first three months of that payroll, you just shot yourself in the foot and you're gonna struggle because you're gonna be paycheck to paycheck until that, you know, person is up.
[00:18:42] And what happens when the clinician doesn't perform the way you expected? 'Cause guess what? That also happens, and it's a bummer. in with the hopes that they'll be full-time, right? They're like, "I will do 20 to 25 sessions a week." Three months later, they're like, "I wanna be part-time." So this happens all the time, Kim, and I can't tell you how many times business owners who weren't ready to hire decided to move forward with taking that chance, which I think is fantastic that they're looking to grow their practice.
[00:19:11] But they need to be made aware of these areas of, you know, just risk that comes with hiring a new clinician. And so I always recommend you have a few months of payroll tucked away for this new position. Not your ongoing, you know, payroll for yourself or your rest of your team, but for this new position to make sure you're not stressed out about that ramp period and that, you know, if they work out fantastic, now you're making money off of it.
[00:19:36] There's a break-even point, and then there's the point where you start to make money, and this is adding to the bottom line, which is what we wanna see happen. But managing those critical performance metrics, especially when you're a traveling therapist, is becomes even more critical 'cause you're not even there to see if they showed up to the office to do sessions, if they sh- you know, are completing sessions unless you see it in a dashboard where it tells you they did this many sessions this week.
[00:20:02] And that's how you get to track performance remotely to make sure your practice is actually generating the results financially that you need to see in order for m- for it to be worth it to hire this person.
[00:20:13] Kym: Yeah, 'cause it's so easy, I'm sure, to just be like glance in the dashboard or whatever and be like, "Oh, looks like she saw 15 people last week." But then you really look at the numbers and it's like, actually no, like half were no-shows or like, I mean, yeah. Gosh, you gotta be so on top of that. Right.
[00:20:30] Carla: Yeah. And then what do you do when that happens is the next best thing- next question you can ask of your business to solve because, okay, 15 sessions, but five were no-shows. Now what? You have a conversation with that clinician, you coach them on best practices, you make sure the intake team knows they need to follow up with, you know, 10 more patients in order for them to be able to hit their goals.
[00:20:53] And, you know, depends on the type of therapist they are and, you know, the type of clients that they have. There might be a higher, you know, cancellation and lost client rate than you expect because of the type of therapy that they do, like couples, right? It's a really high turnover rate. And so just knowing that and calculating for that and knowing that you need to have that uncomfortable accountability conversation, which I know a lot of people hate.
[00:21:20] But this is what makes business performance happen, is having those difficult conversations. And you don't have to approach it as confrontational. You can just approach it as, "Here's a coaching opportunity. Let me help you grow your skills in retention, developing client treatment plans that help clients get results, that keep them coming for more support."
[00:21:42] And when you approach it from the clinicals, this is what's best for the client, right? Rather than that this is all about the money. I find that therapists respond a lot better because, like, they do want their patients to get better. They do want them to get the help they need. And when it's a clinical treatment plan conversation, they're very responsive to, "Oh, I understand why retention is important.
[00:22:04] It's because that helps the client make the progress needed at the rate that we need it in order for them to see results." So they're more responsive to it
[00:22:12] Kym: So you're a CFO, but also, I mean, it sounds like to me like a mentor too. That because you've done this with I don't even know how many practices you guys probably manage and help, you've probably been there and seen it all, and you know exactly how to handle a lot of these situations.
[00:22:26] Where, you know, as a therapist, g- director, clinical director, whatever, you know, over other therapists, you may not really have that business acumen. Like, well, I don't know. How do I... I don't know. This clinician's not performing. I have no idea what to do. And it sounds like you have a lot of experience with those situations already.
[00:22:43] Carla: We've seen a lot. And, you know, in the eight years in business, it's funny 'cause you just have been through it with clients and you're, like, trying to figure out what is the best course of action. And how do we also keep... Because yes, we do numbers for a living, but we also take the people side into perspective.
[00:23:00] We're like, we're dealing with a human being. Like, is there something that's happening in their personal life that's preventing them from performing? Do they need some grace? How long do they need accommodations for? Like, these are the kind of conversations we wanna have with the team to understand what's causing that because maybe it's out of character, right?
[00:23:17] Sometimes we have high performers, all of a sudden they're not performing. You're like, "What happened?" And so we can have that human conversation and really understand, okay, maybe you need to go part-time temporarily, and we wanna accommodate that, or... And we can afford to, right? And so that's something we can do if we know what's going on, but if they're just, like, not performing and not talking to us, it's really hard for us to help them.
[00:23:39] And so financially, there's things we can do to help, you know, navigate that period of time. It often is just a short period of time. It's not long-term. And if it's long-term, then you should be considering other longer term solutions and options. So this is where I think working with our clients and kind of asking the questions, 'cause we don't have all the answers, Kim.
[00:24:00] We might have gone through a lot. We kinda know our way around 'cause we've seen a lot.
[00:24:04] Kym: I guess, right? Every
[00:24:05] Carla: you...
[00:24:06] Kym: is different. Yeah
[00:24:07] Carla: And you as the owner know your people best, right? So we rely heavily on that, on like what's the best way that they'll respond if we go this direction versus that direction, and the owner becomes the expert in that.
[00:24:17] We're just here to facilitate asking the right questions and really help them navigate the financial aspect of it with the human lens as part of it, as part of the consideration, and then ultimately saying, like, "By the way, if you don't wanna have that conversation and you don't wanna fix this issue, it's your choice, owner.
[00:24:35] Here's what it means financially for an impact." And so then they're like, "Oh, okay. I'm okay with it," or, "I need to go have that conversation today."
[00:24:44] Kym: Yeah, that's pretty
[00:24:45] Carla: up to them.
[00:24:46] Kym: to say, "That's fine if you don't want to, but it's probably gonna cost you about
[00:24:51] Carla: like, those are choices, right? And we leave our owners to have complete 100% choice on what they wanna do and how they wanna go about things. It's our job to inform them of what that would do to their business from a financial perspective so they can then take that into consideration and decide, yes, this is a fight worth having or a battle worth having or not, because I'm okay with that impact financially is not as much, and it's okay, and I can afford to take it, and I'm gonna, you know, not deal with this for another month.
[00:25:23] Fine. We all go in knowing exactly what to expect. There's no surprises. And then when the financial results show up at the end of the month and you're like, "Ooh," we can be like, "Well, remember, we made this decision not to deal with the situation right now. Are you ready to deal with it now?" And they're like, "Maybe." And that's okay. It's their business. It's their choice. We're just here to inform them.
[00:25:43] Kym: Yeah, and here's the numbers. Yeah, that's great. Amazing. So how does somebody work with you? Like, what are, what are the options to work with you and your company?
[00:25:53] Carla: Yeah, so we like to keep it flexible here because I think every practice has different needs, and we service them on both a one project time basis as well as monthly ongoing retainers. So if a practice is, like, looking to, you know, get a taste of what it's like to work with a CFO, they do not have to make an ongoing one-year contract commitment with us.
[00:26:14] We love that because it allows them to get an idea of what it's like to work with a CFO. Our team is super experienced, so they can get into the nitty-gritty, answer the questions, deliver on the scope that we agreed to on the project, and then decide if they wanna continue to work with us, which, you know, tends to lead to some clients converting to monthly ongoing, and some choose to just take the plan and go work it themselves, which we love, too.
[00:26:36] We just wanna meet the needs of our clients where they're at. We wanna meet their budgets as well. That's very important for us
[00:26:44] Kym: say, you might get in there and they're like, "Why? You can't even hire us, so I don't know what you want."
[00:26:49] Carla: And we will tell them flat out, Kim, because we think it's our job to do right by our clients and make sure we're not putting them in a worse financial position than where they started working with us.
[00:26:58] We're supposed to improve their finances, not make them worse. And so we will tell them, they'll be like, "I wanna work with you." And we're like, "Ooh, we can't yet afford it, but here's what I want you to do in order to come back and afford it at a later time." And so we solve for goals they need to hit, milestones in order for them to be able to afford to bring us on as part of the team, and we're very budget conscious in that way 'cause we don't want them to stretch themselves and then not, you know, and be stressed out and not pay themselves.
[00:27:24] Like, that's not our job to bring that kind of stress to their company. It's really to help them solve for their financial. And then sometimes we have shorter-term packages we use to just help solve certain issues in a period of time, and then take a break and come back at a later time. And so we have ways that clients can work with us that do not break the bank and meet their needs and help get this in order, like the financial side in order, where they can then navigate that on their own or continue to work with us as they choose to, and it makes sense financially to do so. We obviously invite that as well.
[00:27:59] Kym: That's amazing, yes. And, and where do you live on the web? Where is Wealth and Worth Within on the internet?
[00:28:05] Carla: Yeah, so you can find us on all socials at Wealth Worth Within, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube. We also have a podcast if you like listening to podcasts. Uh, This could be a good one to check out if you wanna improve your financial acumen on your business finances. That is called the CEO Financial Clarity Corner.
[00:28:25] I do episodes every other week just sharing all the educational content you never got on running a business from a financial perspective. And you can check out our website if you're ready to hire a CFO or interested in bookkeeping services. You can find us at wealthworthwithin.com
[00:28:42] Kym: Amazing. Thank you for taking the time today. It really explains the process a lot, and also I hope is kind of a wake-up call for people listening, like you gotta get your numbers in check so you can make good decisions about your business.
[00:28:55] Carla: I love that 'cause numbers don't have to be scary because once you understand them and know how to manage them, they can be really fun and enjoyable. Like, who doesn't like to make money? I like to make money and an impact. Like, I like to do both, so we wanna help our clients do the same
[00:29:10] Kym: Yeah, no kidding. I love when my, business manager now is, like, keeping track of that stuff for me, and it's like, " Oh, we, we did? We made that m- we made money off that ? Oh my gosh." I h- 'cause my mind is always like, that wasn't good, or like, I always go to the negative for some reason. Like, "Oh, that wasn't a big enough launch," or whatever.
[00:29:26] But to see it out like that, it just really does help a lot to say, "Okay, we are moving in the right direction." It's like, takes the, the stress level off, for sure
[00:29:34] Carla: And it gives you some clarity that you didn't have before, and that's really the magic of numbers is I know if you're scared to look at them, maybe it's better than you think.
[00:29:43] Kym: Yeah. Hopefully, right? Well, thanks so much for taking the time today
[00:29:47] Carla: Yeah, thanks for having me. It was lovely