You’re great at getting sales in the door. And lost when it comes to what to do with your money next.

It’s not an accident that you’ve gotten to where you are. It took a lot of grit, smarts, and good business sense.

That doesn’t change the fact that every time you login to QuickBooks you spend an hour (that you don’t have) scrolling…

Without learning anything meaningful.

And honestly? You’re still cringing about some of the financial mistakes you’ve made in the past. They hurt more than that buffalo wing and ranch pizza that sounded like a good idea at the time but…

Welp. You know.

Every time you crack open your books, you feel frustrated, scared and, maybe, a little embarrassed.

Afraid that someone might see that you don't actually have it all perfectly together behind-the-scenes. Bookkeepers, software, and project managers? They haven’t really helped.

If anything, you just feel busier and more in the dark about what the *actual* problem is.

I know you didn’t build a successful, established business by chance. You’re really, really good at what you do.

No matter how smart you are or how well your business grows, you feel stuck. But not for lack of vision.

In fact—if business was all about the ideas and smarts, you’d be set. But you’re not a newbie anymore, and your established business has hit a bottleneck that you can’t figure out how to get out of.

You just *don’t* have:

Any more time to spend figuring out systems + strategies (that probably won’t work)
A clear understanding of what good financial data and targets even are
Somewhere to get clear financial and operational advice—without being judged for past mistakes
A plan for cleaning up the internal mess in your company so that it can grow well… without sacrificing all of your personal time in the process

More tools and information aren’t the solution. What you need is a CFO’s strategy for understanding the numbers in front of you. ‍

Too many people are shouting “Hey! Hey! Look at me!!!” trying to get you to buy their software or service.
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Not enough people are actually coming alongside you to understand your goals, numbers, and unique business needs to show you what to focus on.
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In fact, *no one* is teaching you how to think like a CFO the way that I am.
I want you to have the same strategic skills and narrow point of focus that I’ve used to grow small businesses and $20M+ enterprises.
Because it's time to break through your ceilings.

The answers to your next best move are already inside your data.

I’ll show you how to find it.

If you knew what to do with every dollar in your business... then you would know exactly what action to take to grow your business.

The way to know what to do with every single dollar is to understand how each dollar is being used, where each dollar is coming from, and how each dollar contributes (or constricts) the growth of your business.

When you understand that, you can answer questions like:

I have some extra money every month, where should I invest it?
If I were to put an extra $5,000 on a credit card because it would grow my business, where would I put that $5,000?
Can I afford to hire that new team member (and pay them)?

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When you understand exactly what each dollar is doing…

You can decide what actions to take to grow your business from a place of confidence and purpose, not panic…

You can feel masterful at managing your money instead of inept (or just plain scared)...

You can see exactly what’s working, so you can ditch what’s not to create a snowball effect of massive profit and market power…

And you can make your money make MORE money.

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That’s what CFOs DO -- they look at your financial data, find the patterns, connect the dots, and use it to drive growth.

I’ll teach you to do that too.

Think Like A CFO

What Is It?

A four month accelerator, online workshop, and coaching program that will teach you to think about your business like a CFO would.

Who Is This For?

I designed Think Like A CFO for experienced coaches, consultants and agency owners who want to:

Feel wildly capable about your money so you can know exactly what action to take next… without spending tons of time stuck in Quickbooks OR feeling bad about mistakes you’ve made before.
Confidently make data-based decisions about how to grow your business.
Understand how your financial data informs your growth.
Connect the Dots -- understand how your operations, your finance, your team & your technology all connect to create the foundations of your business.
Build an efficient, resilient business that is actually fun to run.

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**Note: this offer is part of a pilot/beta program and because of that, I’m looking for business owners who want to help me develop and refine the details of this program, help me shape the program YOU want to see and provide feedback throughout the process**

Here’s What You Will Discover, Clarify & Achieve Through Think Like A CFO:

7 Live Workshops - We’ll tackle seven core areas of focus that each contributes to your overall understanding of your finances. These sessions are hosted on Zoom and recorded for you to replay later. This is the last time I’ll be teaching these workshops LIVE!

Here’s a look at what we’ll cover in each of the sessions:

1 - Think Like a CFO

Your business is an ecosystem - everything is connected. In this workshop, we’ll examine your business’s financial health, your default decisions and talk about how to prioritize initiatives -- what do you work on first?

2 - Risk & Resilience

Examining your risks and building a resilient business are inherently intertwined. You can’t build resilience without being aware of the risks (so you can fortify your business against them).

We’ll talk about where risk lives in your business, how to use your business structures and systems to fortify your business and minimize your risk and how to build resilience into your business’s DNA.

3 - Investing In Your Business

How do you decide WHAT to invest in? How do you figure out whether or not your investments were “worth it”?
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In this session, we’ll talk about HOW to decide what to invest in. How to think about investing in your business, what to consider when you DO invest and how to measure whether or not your investments paid off.

4 - Master Your Data

In order to have the data in your business answer the questions you have, it needs to be set up to do that. We’ll talk about where your best sources of data live in your business, what data MATTERS (and what’s just a vanity metric) and we’ll make sure all your data is organized to be able to create key reports effortlessly.
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The hallmark of a CFO is someone who can interpret all the data available in your business -- and then connect the dots. We’ll dig into the different sources of data in your business and how to see those connections.
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Like how your time tracking or project data can show you who your best clients are. Or how the profitability of each individual product can show you where to invest your resources for a bigger payoff.
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We’ll choose (and get systems set up to calculate) key metrics for YOUR business -- not the vanity ones, the ones that will drive profitability & growth.
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So you can make decisions from a place of confidence and strategy, not panic.

5 - Cash Flow Mastery

Insufficient cash flow is the #1 most common reason that businesses fail. We’ll cover how to forecast your cash flow, how to USE that data to make better decisions about investments in your business, and how to use operational strategies + technology to improve your cash flow and get paid faster and more reliably.

6 - Beyond the Cash Cushion

There’s more to managing cash in your business than just the flow of it. How much of a cash cushion should you have? Should you create savings or pay off debt first? How do you balance your personal cash needs versus your business? That’s what we’ll cover in this workshop.

7 - Troubleshooting Your Operations

If something isn’t working the way it’s supposed to in your business, how do you figure out what to do? In this workshop, we’ll talk about identifying problems, how to figure out why it isn’t working and learn how to solve operations, workflow and finance challenges to make your business run smoother and operate with less overhead.

Here's What You Get:

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7 LIVE Workshops + recordings: I’ll record each live workshop and you’ll get access to the recordings and resources we use to review later. This is the last time I’ll be teaching these workshops LIVE! Workshops are 1.5-2 hours and happen on Mondays at 1pm EST to accommodate as many time zones as possible.

Templates, Checklists + Resources: Each workshop comes with all the tools, checklists + templates you need to implement what you're learning.

4 x Months of Live Group Coaching: Twice per month, we’ll come together as a group on zoom and talk through what you’re working on and where you’re getting stuck. Calls will happen on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of each month at 2pm EST.

4 x Months of Direct Email + Voxer Access to Me for Consulting: You can email (or Vox) me at any time to ask any questions that pop up between calls and I’ll get back to you within one business day.

4 x 1-on-1 Strategy + Implementation Calls: Get direct, personal guidance specific to your circumstances to talk through any aspect of your finances, operations, workflow or technology strategy. You have up to six months from the start of the program to use these calls however you wish. Each call is 30 minutes.

Your Investment to Enroll

My one-on-one clients invest between 15k and 35k for me to help them tackle their finances and operations strategy. But you won’t invest nearly that much to get the same results when you enroll in Think Like A CFO.

You have two options to enroll:

The Think Like A CFO VIP option gives you four months of access to everything listed above in the What You Get section, including the four 1-to-1 coaching calls and unlimited email and Voxer access to me for four months to get direct, personalized help between calls.‍

The Think Like A CFO Workshop option gives you four months of access to all seven workshop calls, all the recordings, all the templates and tools and the live group coaching calls, but without the one-to-one access to me.

FAQs

When do we start?

We kick off on October 1st and run through January 22nd. We’ll take a few weeks off for Thanksgiving and at the end of December. The live workshops will all happen before the end of year break, so that you have all the material you need before you take a break and then you’ll still have live calls for support to get you started on the right foot in the new year!

Will this take a lot of time?

There are 7 workshops that vary between 1.5-2 hours long. We’ll normally try to do a lot of the implementation work during that session, but expect to spend about an hour or so outside of the workshop to implement the action steps. The live group coaching sessions last about an hour or so.

What if I miss a call because of vacation or something else conflicts with the schedule?

Totally fine. All the workshops and coaching calls are all recorded and will be uploaded to the course platform by the next business day, so you can catch up on what you missed.

When are the live coaching calls?

The live coaching calls happen every 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month at 2pm EST.

When are the live workshops?

Live workshops will happen on Mondays at 1pm EST. Because of all the holiday breaks, they aren’t spaced out exactly every other Monday.
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The workshop schedule is as follows:
1 - Think Like a CFO - October 12th
2 - Risk & Resilience - October 19th
3 - Investing In Your Business - October 26th
4 - Master Your Data - November 16th
5 - Cash Flow Mastery - November 30th
6 - Beyond the Cash Cushion - December 7th
7 - Troubleshooting Your Operations - December 14th

But, if you can’t make the workshops LIVE, remember that the recordings will be on the course platform, so it’s no big deal if you can’t make it live every time.

**I’m just starting out in my business, is Think Like A CFO right for me?**

Think Like A CFO is designed for experienced business owners, normally ones that have been in business for at least 3 years or so.

**What do I need to know or have already to get the most out of Think Like A CFO?**

You should have up-to-date bookkeeping and be able to understand what a P&L statement is (and how to read one), and have a basic understand of what cash flow is, how it works and how to read a cash flow projection. We work with a lot of your own data in Think Like A CFO, so if your bookkeeping isn’t current or you don’t understand where to get the data we’re going to work with, you’ll get less value out of the experience.

Is this a course to teach me how to be a professional CFO?

Nope. This experience is designed to help business owners think about their business the way a CFO would think about it - that big picture strategy piece. It’s not designed to train accountants, controllers or bookkeepers how to BE a professional CFO or how to do advisory for their clients. If that’s you and you ARE interested in that kind of course, shoot me an email at susan@scalespark.co and let me know that you’re interested in that kind of content. That’s not to say that if you happen to own a bookkeeping or accounting firm that you won’t get value out of joining Think Like A CFO, but it’s geared specifically towards business owners, not accountants.

Learn how to think like a CFO so that you can be the best CEO