Latest / Six-Figure Chicks / Episode 21: Unstoppable: Scaling to Seven Figures with Fractional CFO Wisdom with Gabby Luoma
Transcript
- Speaker 2: Hey there, welcome back to Six Figure Chicks Podcast. I am joined by Gabrielle Luma and she is one of the newest Six Figure Chicks authors. She's going to be in the Global Book, which is launching in less than two weeks. I'm so excited. Thank you so much for joining me, Gabrielle. Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Speaker 2: Yes, and or Gabby, as she says, most everyone calls her. ⁓ so Gabby, why don't you share your awesomeness with the audience? Speaker 1: Yeah, so am Gabby, ⁓ Mel mentioned, and I'm the CEO of Mod Ventures. We're a fractional controller and CFO business, and we predominantly work with founders who are in the like the two to ten million dollar range. ⁓ We help them help them really ⁓ prepare for that growth, that scaling. Speaker 2: Mm. Uh-huh. To take them to double, triple digits. Yeah. Exactly. The seven figures. Mm-hmm. I love that. And everyone knows how much I love money. So let's talk about something before we deep dive into ⁓ your skills and ⁓ what you've gone through as a business owner. What is one thing that not a lot of people know about you? Speaker 1: Exactly. Well, I would say people think that CPAs love math. ⁓ I actually flunked algebra, I think, three times. ⁓ I algebra and this is predominantly my, you know, early schooling. but I ⁓ was introduced to and that just really changed it for me. so Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: basically just changed my complete pursuit of math. really what I love about accounting is that it can do so much for you. It can actually help you in your business. It's it's truly a language for business owners ⁓ you want to learn it. ⁓ I ⁓ just love it. I feel like it can do so much for you, ⁓ you, ⁓ support you, yes, tell you when you're going down the wrong direction, ⁓ Accounting is is really one of my favorite things, now. Speaker 2: What did you did you like kind of have a thought of what you wanted to do before accounting? Speaker 1: No, like I really did not have much direction as far as what I would enjoy. ⁓ I've always been kind of a both a creative slightly analytical personality. what in CPA world you would say I was more of an auditor than a tax person. So an audit person really is ⁓ analysis and reviewing things and trying to understand why. ⁓ in it's more black and white in some respects. So it's just a two different side of the brain that I like to use. Speaker 2: Yeah, awesome. Well, okay. So now talking about your your business, how long have you been in business? Speaker 1: Gosh, my business started in 2004. my daughter was born, I essentially was like, I cannot go back to work for somebody else. I need to find something, you know. And so over the years I just started ⁓ taking clients and and here are today, seven figure over figure business. So yeah. Speaker 2: That's amazing. So kind of thinking back on, you know, your journey through the entrepreneurship world is like we a lot of us create the business wearing all the hats. we've all gone through some challenging times. ⁓ like, what's a defining moment for you that you faced in your business as it's grown to seven figures? Speaker 1: I think one of the hardest things to for me to accept or had been to accept was that I truly became the bottleneck things grew ⁓ grew. ⁓ was the person that was slowing down things. I the person making all the decisions. And I had to start trusting others and build team around me ⁓ instead of, know, trying to be the smartest person in the room. So it was a big change for me. And I I I still I still work through that, even today. Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I get it. It's not something that you can just flip a switch on and turn it off and be like, okay, well, I'm just gonna give everything away to everyone. Right before this show, we were talking kind of like what you're experiencing now is like you changed marketing companies. Yeah. ⁓ for the better, but it didn't make it an easy process, right? Speaker 1: No, no. And and every time, you know, you're you're making changes, you're making the bigger decisions, you're really trying to determine who's going to get you to that next level. you also have to realize that you're not always going to be that person that's going to get you to the next level in that particular position, right? Especially if you're you're wearing all those different hats. Like you can't be the best accountant CFO or the best. CMO or the best COO. You know, there's like so many different hats that we wear. We have to realize that it's okay. And then you just work with people you really trust. Speaker 2: Yeah. when you went to this new company or, you know, additional support for your company's growth, did you come at it as ⁓ a business owner ⁓ or you ⁓ your CPA at your books, going, where are the numbers at and where do want them to be? Speaker 1: 100%. the first thing was the numbers for me. ⁓ was like, what return are we getting? Like, does it make sense for us to continue down this road? And the and the second one was alignment. we follow EOS in our company, and that's really helped me start handing out the different hats and and build a leadership team. But were they with where we wanted to go? Were they the best fit for us for the next six to twelve months? and that really helped us make those decisions as far as like it's to move on. Speaker 2: Yeah, just like anything in life, right? We can outgrow people or ⁓ our life. Like, you know, we could bring on an assistant in the early days, and as the business grows, your needs change ⁓ and necessarily you have to stay with whomever you're working with. Right. ⁓ you mentioned EOS. Tell me a little bit about that. What is that? Speaker 1: Mm. EOS is an entrepreneurship operating system and it's the framework of creating a scalable business. It helps founders actually build a leadership team and ⁓ up those roles and responsibilities so that everybody's clear on who's responsible for what. it truly has been life changing for me because we'll go into and and I'll go to chime in on something it's like, no, this is not your area to make a decision in. This is their area and you've allowed them to do this. So it's it's it's been definitely change. you know, and and the whole team has to, you know, obviously come together, but and we have some pretty good discussion. but I I Not that I've been told no, but I've been like, not right now, Gabby. This is not the best, you know, use of either your time or our time. had to step and even have our coach ⁓ tell no, this person is right, ⁓ because like, what? Speaker 2: Like this is my business. Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. ⁓ it has been really good for me to learn that. ⁓ I think a lot of founders really don't have that you know, team around them that you can trust them enough to do that. but it's something have to build over time. And so we started journey ⁓ it was a year a year ago this month. so it's it's been quite a change for me. But it's been great. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, I completely ⁓ understand, you know, I've brought on my my own personal assistant. Finally, you know, supporting so many business owners, I was like, well, what about me? Because we do tend to put ourselves last, right? Yes. ⁓ know, that's probably my biggest tip would give to anyone is, know, just Speaker 1: Absolutely. Speaker 2: Don't give a hundred percent focus on whomever you're serving. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. You the thing is, so we're a fractional CFO and controller, and really needed that higher level skill set. And at the same time that we went for EOS, I hired a fractional CFO for us. Because I like, No, I need to have and practice what I'm preaching, know, like ⁓ I have to walking the walk, but ⁓ I need to the benefits ⁓ of this type of service. and so ⁓ have a a tremendous team member, Sam, who has come in ⁓ and you know, transformed things and is really ⁓ giving ⁓ me reporting that I need to feel confident to make the decisions that need to be made. And so yeah, I a whole different viewpoint now also because I've experienced the same thing. Speaker 2: Yeah, most definitely. It's like we can fully a hundred and ten percent attest to the powers of the services that we offer. Absolutely. like we're drinking from the faucet. Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure. We're we're yeah, definitely walking the walk. Speaker 2: Yeah. So as an author from the Six Variotex Global, you kind of like opened up, ⁓ you know, hopefully, probably as you never have before. back on that ⁓ like maybe years your younger self, like what would be the one thing that you wish you could tell your younger self today? Speaker 1: I think you don't have to solve the things ⁓ yourself, you can find reliable ⁓ folks help you along the way. I would also this is the part for me. Don't worry so much about what everybody else thinks. And I think that's been the hardest thing, you know. Because I I want to please clients. I want to make everybody happy. And sometimes you can't. So, you know, you really have to find aligned clients that then you could both be happy. And so I think who you work with is so, so important. you know, lastly, I think clarity of where you're going. I think so many times I've always seen so many different options. It was really hard for me to get super clear on what I wanted. Yeah. So, you know, narrow down, narrow down, narrow down and s get super clear in what you want. ⁓ so that you can move quicker. So I I'm one of those people that just likes everything. So I have to be picky. Super picky. Yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. I'm right there with you. I tend to say yes really quick. Like, well, I don't know about that. ⁓ so fractional CFO, like you know, I said CPA earlier. Like, is that like do you encompass like bookkeeping, CPA? Tell me a little about this because like it's a crowded marketplace for yeah, all entrepreneurs out there in their specific industries. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no. So I am a CPA. ⁓ I don't own a public CPA firm, although did for years. ⁓ when we switched ⁓ and kind of rebranded to ⁓ mod ventures, we decided to let go of the public accounting side of it because we're really focused on operational type of accounting. And what I by that is that you have historical type of accounting. And then you have accounting that's actually happening now, and then the futuristic. So the tax the the tax planning, there's also advisory and planning, future, you know, what what do you want to see happen in a year? cash flow forecasting. So those are the big areas that we really hit, and it's different from public accounting. whereas in the past, it was very historical. Three things you have to know about generally and ⁓ in general, right? So you have the bookkeepers, then you have controllers, which is mid level, and then you have the ⁓ outsourced or fractional CFO. These are three different types of layers. And generally what we do ⁓ clients is we'll come in and bring in a team. So have a team that may consist of bookkeeper or an accountant as we call them because most of them are are degreed so degreed accountant with a controller or you'll have a controller with a CFO depending on the size of the business so we build the team and then we align and collaborate with the client to ensure that the operational goals are being reflected in numbers and the numbers are reflecting the operational goals. So that takes more collaboration only because you know, you might make a a change in your operations that affects the numbers and without you two speaking together, things get missed. So ⁓ it's big part of what we do ⁓ working our clients. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's amazing. ⁓ thank you so much for clarifying that 'cause it's like one of those things of like we hear these names, but yeah, what do they mean? Speaker 1: It's confusing. It it really is a con confusing because you have people who will label themselves certain things and then you don't really know what that means. So ⁓ yeah. And then on the tax side of things, we do do some ⁓ preparation ⁓ and tax advisory. And again, I can get into all the differences between those two, but essentially we help you hold on to more of your ma your cash and help you plan out the future that way. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: That's right. We want it we want you to keep your money, invest in yourself, so that your future is is bright. Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And so bright future, bright days, like what's your song of choice to bring bring out that sunshine and get you ready? Speaker 1: ⁓ my favorite song is Unstoppable by Sia. It's a good one, ⁓ know? It's super empowering. And just I love that song. It just gets me So, you know, reminds me how powerful we are. ⁓ and I think we all need to remember that from time to time. Speaker 2: For sure. I mean I c it can hear the song in my head, like I yes, unstoppable. Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Speaker 2: know I'm gonna put it on. So yes, we'll add that to the playlist for sure. and we'll share all of the ways to get a hold of you because I know people do want to know more. and your clientels, do you strictly stay with Arizona or do you go nationwide? Speaker 1: Yeah, we work with clients ⁓ nationwide. we have a ton of clients in ⁓ of course Arizona, but we work with clients in North Carolina, Texas, California, Tennessee. So we have a wide range of clients that we serve. ⁓ Speaker 2: I love that. So yes, people listening, if you want to keep more money in your pocket in that bank account, contact Gabby. ⁓ and you know, she is a six-figure chick, so she is certified, verified, ⁓ the best. okay, so we'll share all your contact details, but what's one great place to find you online? Speaker 1: Well, the best place to go is go to my website at modventureslc.com and just click on contact us you can schedule a discovery call with us ⁓ and it's just exploratory and getting to know each other. and so we get to learn about one another and see if you know we're a good fit or you know, yeah, ready to make the move. Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And it that's what it is. It always just starts with the conversation. You're not locked and tied to anything. Speaker 1: No, exactly. Exactly. Speaker 2: More information we know the better. So thank you so much, Gabby, for joining me and sharing your awesomeness with the ⁓ people listening. Speaker 1: My pleasure. Thank you. Speaker 2: together we rise, together we change lives. Until next time.