Latest / Scrappy but Successful [Consultant's Personalities When No One's Watching] / 59. Why She Never Took a Client Outside CPG with Abby June Richards

Transcript

59. Why She Never Took a Client Outside CPG with Abby June Richards · Scrappy but Successful [Consultant's Personalities When No One's Watching]

• 0:03
  What's happening, everybody? Welcome to Scrappy But Successful. It's a show where I sit down
• 0:07
  with your favorite consultants and we find out if they're successful today because they're sophisticated
• 0:12
  or because they're a little bit scrappy. I'm your host, Jack Tomkinson, CEO of Pineapple
• 0:16
  Consulting Firm and Pineapple Analyst AI, always helping small businesses become more data-driven. Fun fact
• 0:21
  of the day Longview, Texas hosts the great Texas balloon race every single summer. It's
• 0:26
  the one of the largest hot air balloon festivals in the state. Like, I have
• 0:30
  no idea how you race a hot air balloon. But that is neither here nor
• 0:35
  there. Today I'm joined by my friend Abby June Richards. She's the founder of the
• 0:40
  CPG CFO. She's a fractional CFO, runs a whole firm that is serving emerging, better
• 0:44
  for you, and sustainable CPG brands, helping founders know their numbers, but also build sustainable
• 0:49
  businesses. Circle knows her way around an ingredients label, I'll tell you what. Abby, thank
• 0:54
  you so much for joining us. We know that you are successful today. But the
• 0:58
  question we have for you, do you think you fall more on the sophisticated side?
• 1:03
  More on the scrappy side.
• 1:05
  So I would love to say that I'm just purely scrappy, but I because I
• 1:11
  spent several years in consulting for a big firm before I started my company, and
• 1:18
  because I had a very like solid plan for how I wanted to run everything,
• 1:24
  and everything most everything that I've done has been in accordance with that plan. I
• 1:31
  Do you feel like I have to say it's because I'm sophisticated and that is
• 1:37
  not because anyone who meets me would say, Wow, that
• 1:42
  Yeah.
• 1:43
  girl's very sophisticated. But you know, I'm a CPA, right? I can't I can't come
• 1:46
  out and say, Yeah, I just just winged it and it all worked
• 1:50
  Yeah.
• 1:51
  out really well. Like I had a plan, so
• 1:55
  And you've stuck to the plan, which is everybody has a plan. Nobody sticks to
• 1:58
  the plan. You've actually and you just celebrated three years of business. You've stuck to
• 2:02
  the plan for the three years, you'd say?
• 2:04
  Yeah, I mean, for the most part, there are certain things like, I I feel
• 2:09
  like I probably speak for most any consultant when I say that there are certain
• 2:15
  clients that you work with early on and maybe you realize that those are not
• 2:21
  the clients you want to work with long term, but you I don't want to
• 2:27
  say you take what you can get, but also you have to try things out,
• 2:32
  right? And then it's like, no, actually, if clients are a little rude, that's not
• 2:38
  okay with me. or now that I'm adding a team, that little bit of rudeness
• 2:44
  that I could tolerate myself, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna put that on a
• 2:50
  teammate. And so I'm just gonna have to cut ties with that client. But yeah,
• 2:55
  other than that, everything is mostly the same.
• 2:59
  Wow, that's pretty good. That is very good. Okay. Where does it all begin? Take
• 3:03
  us back to the beginning. Where did you grow up? Did you have any entrepreneurs
• 3:08
  in the family?
• 3:09
  Yes, so I grew up in Beeville, Texas, which is in South Texas. it's like
• 3:14
  an hour, hour and a half south of San Antonio, north
• 3:18
  Okay.
• 3:19
  of Corpus, if you're familiar with Texas. And I my dad worked for himself. my
• 3:23
  mom stayed home. I also feel like I grew up a little unconventionally because not
• 3:29
  only would did my dad work for himself, my and and we were actually homeschooled.
• 3:34
  And so I never attended. Public or private school until I went to college. And
• 3:40
  when I first started college, I was like, this is amazing. They just sit up
• 3:46
  there and
• 3:47
  Yeah.
• 3:48
  they tell you everything that you need to know. Like I was used to having
• 3:51
  to like read it all because there were six of us. So it's not like
• 3:55
  my mom could lecture us, like give
• 3:57
  Wow.
• 3:58
  lessons, right? So I just had to read the book myself and then do the
• 4:01
  homework. And then I'm gonna tell on my mom a little bit. She would make
• 4:05
  us grade it sometimes, or most of the time.
• 4:08
  Wait, you were grading your own homework? That's awesome. How'd you do?
• 4:13
  I had to like grade my own work. Yes. I'm like, it's like insult to
• 4:13
  injury. I have to read the book myself.
• 4:16
  Yeah.
• 4:17
  Like, then I get something wrong. I have to grade it myself. And then my
• 4:20
  mom would be like, Well, did you try and figure out what you got wrong?
• 4:24
  It's like, can't you just tell me, please? Like, just you know one thing. Yeah,
• 4:28
  this is great. Delegation at its finest.
• 4:33
  I mean, I learned it from a young age, I guess.
• 4:36
  That's too funny. Okay. There's a bit of entrepreneurialism even in your mom's approach to
• 4:40
  homeschooling, too. And i if I heard you right, you're one of six.
• 4:45
  I'm the oldest of six, yes. Mm-hmm.
• 4:46
  You're the oldest of six. Okay. Were you eventually helping teach the younger ones then?
• 4:52
  Yeah, I mean not formally. but I remember my my oldest the oldest of the
• 4:58
  boys, my oldest brother, or actually multiple kids, like they would be sick and kind
• 5:05
  of stuck in bed or just not feeling well. And I would use that opportunity
• 5:11
  to teach them about money. like teach them
• 5:15
  Ooh.
• 5:16
  how to count and exchange money. Just it was like a fun kind of project
• 5:19
  to just kind of do. And I remember doing that with multiple of them, like
• 5:24
  just for fun. and then my sister, when she went to cause she attended eighth
• 5:28
  grade. She just went one year and she came home and she's like, I don't
• 5:33
  understand like any of this math. And I'm like, well, come on, let's sit I'll
• 5:37
  show you. And so I'm like This is crazy. Like she's went to school. Like
• 5:42
  the teacher should be teaching her the things. But yeah,
• 5:45
  Yeah.
• 5:47
  I I helped her with her math.
• 5:50
  Okay. So all right. So you've got the entrepreneurial spirit as a kid.
• 5:53
  okay.
• 5:54
  Are you like I mean, this is this is South Texas picture in the summer.
• 5:57
  Are you running a lemonade stand? Are you doing anything that's kind of entrepreneurial, making
• 6:02
  money?
• 6:03
  I don't remember ever doing I I actually I take that back. We did lemonade
• 6:08
  stands at my my parents would have garage sales. We would do them there. I
• 6:13
  have a I did a few different things. So when I was young, and and
• 6:18
  you may remember this, some of the listeners may remember this, in the back of
• 6:23
  like comic books, there was an ad for Olympia. And they would it was like
• 6:28
  basically like selling for school. Except for you would get money and prizes and there
• 6:33
  was no school. The the company would just make the margin. And so I I
• 6:38
  sold Olympia door to door. I would like make bracelets and sell them door to
• 6:44
  door when I was little. I would babysit, I babysit because I was homeschooled. I
• 6:49
  would babysit starting when I was like 12, like three times a week for a
• 6:54
  mom in the neighborhood. I would put on
• 6:57
  so not your siblings.
• 6:59
  No, no. I mean, of course, yeah, if I'd
• 7:03
  You would be able to say for other kids. Okay. Okay.
• 7:03
  what needed to, but mostly, yeah, mostly other kids in the neighborhood. Because my mom
• 7:06
  stayed home. She didn't really need a babysitter.
• 7:09
  that's a good point.
• 7:11
  and she didn't have like go away from the house hobbies. her hobbies were like
• 7:13
  keeping
• 7:14
  Gotcha.
• 7:16
  rabbits and writing and things like that. but I would put on day camps for
• 7:22
  kids in the neighborhood in the summer. And then when I was eighteen-ish, I would
• 7:28
  sell websites on eBay. Yeah. Like website design. Yes.
• 7:32
  Whoa. Okay, so you've got several different design hustles. Yeah. Okay. I mean, are you
• 7:38
  you're doing the books for all these? Like the garage sale, the family garage sale,
• 7:44
  are you running the books for that too?
• 7:48
  I am sure that I helped with like, you know, you take the sticker and
• 7:51
  you put it on the paper and like you tally it up. especially if it
• 7:54
  was like my stuff. My mom would give us the money, you know, if it
• 7:57
  was our stuff we
• 7:58
  Okay.
• 7:59
  were selling. But I'll tell you a funny story. Or I think it's funny. when
• 8:04
  I was little, that's like me starting out and just how much I love numbers.
• 8:09
  We we had a a very We had an amazing collection, and I actually own
• 8:15
  it now, of Fisher Price little people. So the little ones, the vintage ones.
• 8:20
  Nice. Of course,
• 8:21
  So we had
• 8:22
  yeah.
• 8:22
  all sorts of yeah, people and animals and houses and businesses and all the things.
• 8:26
  Well, we were home together all day, right? Like we did have to do a
• 8:30
  little bit of school, of course, but that didn't actually take the whole day. And
• 8:35
  so we played like crazy. And one of the things that we would play is
• 8:39
  little people, and it was very elaborate. So you'd have your people, they would, and
• 8:44
  I basically set up like an accounting system. kept tracked everybody's bank account. They would
• 8:48
  have jobs and then they would go to work and then their bank account would
• 8:52
  go up. And then if they went
• 8:55
  Ha ha.
• 8:56
  to the store and bought something, their bank account would go down and I would
• 8:59
  track everybody's. So it was basically like a little tea account
• 9:02
  Yeah.
• 9:03
  for for everyone who was playing little people. And that was like probably my I
• 9:11
  was just naturally drawn to accounting, I guess.
• 9:16
  That's too funny. Okay, so you're making a ledger. Like, I mean,
• 9:19
  Yeah.
• 9:20
  you could have easily went in the direction of like being a bookie for sports
• 9:25
  betting, but you went the traditional route and went accounting in much more legal profession.
• 9:30
  Yes, I'm way too risk averse for anything like that.
• 9:34
  Okay, and yet you start your own business. So take me give me give me
• 9:36
  thirty seconds on today.
• 9:37
  Mm.
• 9:39
  Like what do you what does the CPG CFO actually do today for clients?
• 9:44
  Yeah, so what we do is help clients make decisions and analyze their results around
• 9:50
  margins and cash flow, right? So strategic finance, of course, you know the term FPA,
• 9:56
  but a lot of CPG founders don't, have never had exposure to that and and
• 10:02
  may have not even heard of a CFO, right? So for the people who have
• 10:08
  worked with FPNA or a CFO before. Once they understand what we do, they're like,
• 10:14
  you're like a CFO. And I'm like, yes, I'm your
• 10:18
  Yeah.
• 10:19
  finance partner looking at the business through that lens. you know, with hard data and
• 10:24
  facts, as opposed to we feel like marketing's going well. You know, like obviously there
• 10:29
  are market, there's marketing data too, but but yeah, it's like, okay, here's the results
• 10:34
  at the end of the month. Let's talk about it. Let's figure out what we
• 10:39
  need to do next.
• 10:41
  Okay, very nice. And the the area that you work with is better for you
• 10:45
  type brands, right? Tell us like what what do you mean by that?
• 10:50
  Yeah, and it's not just better for you, it's all it's we say mission-based. so
• 10:55
  it's better for you ingredients, but it doesn't even have to be food and beverage,
• 11:01
  right? So we've definit we worked with like white we had a wipes company where
• 11:07
  it's like household wipes, cleaning wipes, baby wipes, just all sorts of wipes. they were
• 11:13
  compostable. So as an example, the substrate, which is what we think of as the
• 11:19
  wipe, the the physical part of the wipe, that's not just the liquid is nearly
• 11:25
  always plastic. So they were making compostable wipes those very new and also getting into
• 11:30
  like antibacterial that didn't have all the gross ingredients that you wouldn't ever want to
• 11:36
  you know ingest. So that's an example of a non-food and beverage. I've also done
• 11:42
  a little bit of apparel. So it's just things that you tend to buy more
• 11:48
  than once, right? So it's replenishable type goods. And The thing, like I said, mission-based.
• 11:54
  So we really like the better for you, sustainable. We also really like something that
• 12:00
  is culture based, right? So somebody is from, you know, the Caribbean and their grandfather
• 12:05
  has this family recipe for spicy ginger beer and they bottle it and start selling
• 12:11
  it. that was actually my first, my very first client. And so yeah, we we
• 12:17
  just love feeling like it's a product that we are really excited to help get
• 12:23
  out into the world. And that makes us, you know, just look forward to work
• 12:29
  every day.
• 12:30
  That's pretty awesome. Okay. All right. So you're one of the most entrepreneurial kids that
• 12:35
  I've had on the show so far. And then you eventually start your own business.
• 12:40
  let's let's kind of build a bridge between that. College is your first social school
• 12:45
  experience. How did it go? Where did you end up going? What'd you graduate with?
• 12:51
  yeah, I loved it. I initially went to Coastal Bend College, which was in Beeville,
• 12:57
  where I grew up. And then I did some at I just kind of finished
• 13:03
  up at Kilgore College, which is near here. I went to AM Commerce, which I
• 13:09
  think they changed, I think it's East Texas AM now. Texas AM Commerce at the
• 13:16
  time, got my bachelor's, and then we moved to Austin to kind of seek our
• 13:22
  fortune. And I ended up getting doing the accounting piece for the CPA at Austin
• 13:28
  Community College. So a lot of community college, I'm a big believer in community college.
• 13:34
  I'm on the advisory accounting advisory committee at Kilgore College now. And so I just
• 13:41
  think it's a really great you know, kind of especially for first time college students
• 13:47
  or people who are not coming from high income, right? It's just a really a
• 13:53
  step up into, you know, a higher income bracket, more opportunities, a better career. And
• 13:59
  I I'm a big believer.
• 14:02
  Okay. Were y was there a culture shock of holy crap, there's more than six
• 14:05
  kids in this class now?
• 14:07
  No, no. I mean, I had I had I had gone to like we went
• 14:11
  to church when I was growing up. It's not like I I hadn't been around
• 14:15
  other kids, but yeah, I think the culture shock really was what I mentioned before
• 14:20
  was that everything was kind of I don't want to say spoon-fed to you, but
• 14:24
  it was like so clear what you were supposed to do, and you just followed
• 14:28
  directions and then you got an A. I was like, okay, like that was.
• 14:33
  Ha ha.
• 14:34
  That was way easier because yeah, the just the lecture part versus having to just
• 14:38
  sit and read everything on my own. So I actually went when I went to
• 14:43
  AM Commerce, I went online. So that was so easy for me. I was like,
• 14:48
  I'm very used to teaching myself, right? So
• 14:51
  Yeah.
• 14:52
  it was no big deal for me at all.
• 14:54
  It's kind of funny when you think about college, like they give you the answer
• 14:58
  in the class and then see if you were paying attention on the tests.
• 15:02
  Yeah.
• 15:04
  And that's it. That's the whole
• 15:06
  Exactly.
• 15:06
  thing. Then you get a degree.
• 15:08
  Yeah. And and I did get I think I got a Bachelor of Science in
• 15:13
  Business Administration, I think is what I got, something like that. And then I ended
• 15:18
  Okay, okay.
• 15:19
  up getting a certificate from ACC for the CPA.
• 15:22
  Gotcha. Okay, okay. What is the first job out of college? Do you go W
• 15:27
  two?
• 15:28
  Well, I went so many, went to so many colleges. so I worked for my
• 15:32
  I worked
• 15:33
  Fair.
• 15:34
  for my dad early on, and then that was, you know, while I was in
• 15:39
  school. And then I had a slew of other just random jobs. I had I
• 15:44
  worked in drug testing, so my friends would call me Abby P hands, like Edward
• 15:49
  Scissor scissor hands. And Then when I finished my bachelor's, I got a job. I
• 15:54
  had been in construction for like six years, working in construction, doing office roles. And
• 15:59
  then when I got my bachelor's degree, I was like, I'm ready for my big
• 16:04
  girl job. Like, this is gonna be so challenging and just really fun. And it
• 16:09
  was one of the easiest jobs I've ever had. they just wanted somebody with a
• 16:14
  degree, I think. And There was a lot of redundancy in my role. There was
• 16:19
  basically two people doing the same job. And I was like, guys, you do not
• 16:24
  need me. Like, this is, you should fire me. and that has always been my
• 16:29
  mantra, which was makes you very suited for consulting because a lot of times it's
• 16:34
  in the client's best interest to get to graduate, right? And
• 16:38
  Right.
• 16:39
  so, Yeah, I as I I started that job in like September and by January
• 16:44
  I was enrolled in the CPA program because I was like, how do I not
• 16:50
  do this?
• 16:51
  Right. Right. Okay. and I forgot to ask, what business did your dad run that
• 16:55
  you worked for for a little bit?
• 16:58
  He sold engine rebuilding equipment. So
• 17:02
  Okay.
• 17:03
  that that industry sort of went away. and that is a big sort of part
• 17:09
  of my story too. the fact that his business failed and that I, you know,
• 17:16
  I worked there, right? I saw everything that happened and the the cash flow, you
• 17:23
  know, challenges and Yeah, just sort of the just the slow death of that business
• 17:30
  and ended up affecting, you know, our family. My parents split up. And so yeah,
• 17:37
  it's it's that's a huge part of who I am too, and working with startups
• 17:44
  and trying to see around the corner and help keep them thriving is a is
• 17:51
  a big piece of what I do.
• 17:55
  And I imagine there's a fair amount of scrappiness that comes along with that of
• 17:58
  all right, tough tough times are coming up, cash is gonna be tight, let's figure
• 18:02
  out what we can do with what we've got kind of thing, right?
• 18:06
  Yes, I have said that to clients before, like it might be time to, you
• 18:10
  know, kind of go into financial into the financial turtle shell and just weather this,
• 18:15
  you know, for a little bit, especially if they're you know, early stage CPG is
• 18:20
  not necessarily going to be cash flow positive and profitable. they might be trying to
• 18:25
  raise money and so and maybe that's taking longer than they expected. So it's like,
• 18:30
  okay, yeah, let's make a plan to get through this period and then. we can
• 18:35
  decide, you know, what we want to do.
• 18:38
  Okay. Okay. So tell us about starting your own business. So you have kind
• 18:41
  Mm-hmm.
• 18:43
  of the entrepreneurial spirit your whole life. You've seen businesses succeed and fail along the
• 18:47
  way. what was the decision to start your own business as a risk-averse person?
• 18:52
  Yeah, and I I guess I probably shouldn't say risk averse. I mean leg legality
• 18:54
  type of things, risk averse. Yes. I'm not the most risk averse person that you'll
• 18:57
  ever meet, certainly.
• 18:58
  Okay. Sure.
• 19:04
  so I had always kind of thought that, you know, obviously my history. I was
• 19:08
  in full corporate mode, right? But I had always kind of felt like I wanted
• 19:13
  to do something I knew I wanted to do something on my own eventually. I
• 19:17
  just didn't know when. It was like, okay, once I kind of feel like I've
• 19:22
  stopped growing, right? I'm not learning as much as I have been. because I was
• 19:26
  drinking from a fire hose for a really long time, right? and it was great.
• 19:31
  I loved it. I was growing like crazy and just getting to work with amazing
• 19:36
  smart people and learning all the time. So One thing that a a couple of
• 19:40
  things happened. So I had read your money or your life, which is a book
• 19:45
  I really enjoyed. just kind of talking about like how much money do you really
• 19:49
  need? When is enough enough? And just not being on that like hamster wheel of
• 19:54
  more is better forever, because you're selling your life, right, for that money and taking
• 19:58
  that away from hobbies and children and family and all the things. So, but that
• 20:03
  wasn't the tipping point. I came home from a walk when I was listening to
• 20:08
  that and told my husband he needed to quit his job because he was less
• 20:12
  happy
• 20:13
  Ha ha ha.
• 20:14
  than I mean, I was very happy still. And then I read I the books
• 20:18
  is a theme with me. I I read a lot. We love read we were
• 20:23
  big readers in our family. I read the invisible life of Addie LaRue. And my
• 20:28
  it was like the same month that my husband was actually quitting his job, which
• 20:32
  I think he prepared for like a year and a half. And so it's like
• 20:37
  he's finally
• 20:38
  Wow, good for you.
• 20:39
  gonna quit his getting to quit his job, his big plan. And I kept doing
• 20:42
  it. I'm
• 20:43
  Yeah.
• 20:44
  like, I think I'm gonna have to quit my job too. Because
• 20:46
  Yeah.
• 20:48
  this book was, and it would probably have happened anyway, but the book, I won't
• 20:52
  spoil it for anyone. I really recommend reading it, but it in essence, the book
• 20:57
  is about the fact that there's So many possibilities for your life, right? That you're
• 21:01
  not taking advantage of. there's so many different paths that you could have taken, right?
• 21:06
  Like the road less traveled type of thing, and just how fragile that sort of
• 21:10
  is. And it of course made me grateful like for my family and things I
• 21:15
  don't want to change. But then it also made me realize like. Everything else is
• 21:19
  not set in stone, right? You can change it. And so I read that and
• 21:24
  some things had been going on at work and I was like, you know what?
• 21:28
  I think I need to quit my job too. And he was like, What? Because
• 21:33
  we have three
• 21:34
  Ha ha ha.
• 21:35
  kids. And that was like the month he was putting in his notice, and I
• 21:39
  was like, I know, I know it's crazy. Never mind, you know. And I'm like,
• 21:43
  Yeah.
• 21:44
  I'm just gonna get a new job, you know, I'm not gonna start my own
• 21:48
  company, but it turns out the perfect job doesn't exist.
• 21:51
  Yeah.
• 21:52
  for me, because I had a lot on my wish list. And so
• 21:55
  Okay.
• 21:56
  I tried, I did put old college try, but nowhere really checked all my boxes.
• 22:00
  And so I was like, I guess I'm gonna have to start my own thing.
• 22:05
  And I'm like crying.
• 22:07
  Yeah.
• 22:08
  I'm like, he's like, it's fine, just do it. And I'm like, no, I can't
• 22:12
  do that to the family. So
• 22:14
  Yeah.
• 22:16
  There are scrappy aspects of what I did, certainly, because I posted on LinkedIn every
• 22:20
  day for the first like 600 days that I started my company. I was like,
• 22:25
  I've got three kids to feed. Like I started this company with no clients. You
• 22:30
  can't moonlight, right? When you're working for a consulting firm. it's not like you could
• 22:35
  just pick up a couple clients on the side. So I had zero clients. I
• 22:39
  basically was like, here I am. Does anybody need this?
• 22:43
  Yeah.
• 22:44
  And just kind of crossing my fingers. I had a very small like ten ninety-nine
• 22:50
  situation, just a few hours a week that I had sort of lined up for
• 22:56
  cash flow in the beginning, but nothing really outside of
• 23:00
  Wow, okay. all right, so at this point, starting basically blank slate, right? What's what's
• 23:06
  kind of like the version of a ramen noodle dinner when when cash is being
• 23:12
  conserved, we'll say.
• 23:14
  Yeah, so I because I work in consumer products and a lot of food and
• 23:19
  beverage, hazard of the trade is we don't really do crummy food. we like organic.
• 23:24
  We like organic
• 23:26
  Makes sense.
• 23:28
  food, we like very nutrient dense food, but I would say a basic, relatively inexpensive
• 23:34
  dinner, which I actually had for lunch.
• 23:38
  Nice.
• 23:39
  today leftovers was would be like a jar of marinara, a bag of green peas,
• 23:46
  and some pasta. Right? 'Cause you
• 23:49
  Okay.
• 23:50
  get your protein, you get your yeah, some vitamins and it's not expensive.
• 23:56
  Okay. I when you led with a jar of marinara, I was picturing you're dipping
• 23:59
  something into that, but this is actually like a meal.
• 24:02
  yeah, sorry. I do that with cheese sticks, with mozzarella sticks. For sure.
• 24:09
  Okay. All right. That makes sense. That definitely makes sense. Okay. Okay. how'd you get
• 24:13
  your first client? You said it was the it was what it was the s
• 24:18
  the spice ginger beer was the first client. How does that happen?
• 24:22
  Yeah, so I had posted on I think that she said she found me. the
• 24:28
  co-founder found me because of a comment I had posted on like an industry post
• 24:34
  saying something, I don't know what, but there was some s a like an industry
• 24:40
  group for founders, and she saw that I had commented on it and saw my
• 24:46
  headline saying like whatever it was at the time I helped C BG Founders with
• 24:52
  finance or something. fractional CFO for CPG Founders. And so she was like, I think
• 24:59
  recognized that I seemed very early and was like, ooh, I'm gonna get her while
• 25:05
  she's starting
• 25:06
  Yeah.
• 25:07
  out. And yeah, I did that project for eight hundred dollars. So I mean
• 25:14
  That's pretty good in the beginning. That's not bad.
• 25:16
  my goal at that point wasn't to make a ton of money. It was to
• 25:22
  get some practice, get some reps, and get a review. Ideally a
• 25:28
  Yeah.
• 25:29
  glowing review at the end. That was really kind of like me's just starting the
• 25:32
  flywheel.
• 25:33
  Hundred per yeah, you gotta prove it first to the world, but also to yourself
• 25:36
  of like somebody paid me
• 25:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:39
  to do this thing that I'm trying to do. I don't care if it was
• 25:42
  one dollar or ten million dollars, like okay, ten million maybe, but like eight hundred
• 25:46
  bucks is pretty good. My first client was fifty. You
• 25:49
  wow, yeah.
• 25:50
  just need somebody to be like, here, I believe enough in you that I'm gonna
• 25:54
  show some monetary investment.
• 25:56
  That's like 60 ramens though. That'll keep you going for a little while.
• 25:59
  Exactly. I was fine for the month. Exactly. I had some PB and J sandwiches
• 26:05
  over the sink. I was doing fine. Okay. with your plan, 'cause it sounds like
• 26:11
  you have the plan, potentially a scrappy beginning. did you have to change your ICP,
• 26:17
  your ideal client at all, or were you always locked into this client profile?
• 26:23
  I was always locked in. So people were
• 26:25
  Nice.
• 26:26
  like, Do you want some work? Do you want some like bookkeeping? Do you want
• 26:30
  to work for this CPG industry adjacent sort of person, service provider? I was like,
• 26:35
  No. I was like, I'm not doing services. I'm not doing non-CPG. And I never
• 26:40
  did. Ex I did have one client that was a copacker. But they also had
• 26:45
  their own brand. So it's
• 26:47
  Sure. Okay.
• 26:50
  still CPG. and everything they produced was CPG. So yeah, I was very stubborn about
• 26:56
  that. And I had many moments of doubt, like again, crying, telling my husband, should
• 27:02
  I just take something else?
• 27:05
  Yeah.
• 27:06
  Like, should I start doing bookkeeping again? you know, get back into accounting, or at
• 27:10
  least like to shore up. And he's like. I mean, we're okay right now, like
• 27:15
  let's just give it a until X date, right? Like 60 days before you decide.
• 27:19
  And I was like, okay. And then I'd show up the next day and be
• 27:24
  like, Are you sure? Yeah, like I'm like, but that's where
• 27:28
  That's how it goes though.
• 27:30
  I go. Cause he works from home too and works for himself. So, you know,
• 27:33
  I'm like, babe, I need to some shoring up.
• 27:35
  Yeah. That's how it goes. Yeah. It's you can go through the entire entrepreneurial roller
• 27:41
  coaster in an afternoon and then you'd repeat it the next day.
• 27:47
  Yeah.
• 27:49
  during those early days when it was your husband's birthday or like an anniversary or
• 27:53
  something like that, did you have to do anything like a non monetary gift where
• 27:58
  you do like a a you know a really well written card or like do
• 28:03
  you have any scrappy present exchanges?
• 28:05
  No, I mean we're not very we're not very like bougie people in general. It's
• 28:10
  not like we're buying usually buying each other like something s or always buying each
• 28:15
  other something really expensive anyway. Sometimes we're just like, just here's a a card that's
• 28:20
  super frequent for us. anyway. But we didn't really go on a ton of I
• 28:26
  would say we didn't and we have three kids, right? So there was a certain
• 28:31
  amount of like We needed the businesses to do what they needed to do at
• 28:36
  a minimum level or like I would have just gotten a job, right? So there
• 28:41
  was and and because of my education and experience, my clients prepay, right? So I
• 28:47
  was never in the position where I had like zero dollars in the bank or
• 28:52
  even close, right? Like I I typically would have a good amount of money in
• 28:57
  the bank, a little bit and and less than that on a credit card, right?
• 29:02
  But just gave you some float and you know, my clients pay on the first
• 29:08
  of the month, for the month. We have very flexible payment I'm sorry, we have
• 29:13
  flexible contract terms because our clients are s are early stage startups, right? Like in
• 29:18
  the in in it's always like, well, what does that mean? I would say average
• 29:23
  two to twenty million. but cash flow can be a real challenge. And so, I
• 29:29
  never wanted to do something where they were like locked in for a year. I'm
• 29:34
  like, sorry, you you have to stay with us. Like, I'm like, how
• 29:39
  Right.
• 29:40
  does that end? They like get on the call. I'm like, you really need to
• 29:45
  cut costs. They're like, I tried. you know, so Yeah. So I would never make
• 29:50
  someone s you know, stay with us. But so on that side we're very flexible,
• 29:55
  right? But on the flip side, we do require payment at the beginning of the
• 30:00
  month just so we know that we can pair people and like we're not gonna
• 30:05
  be upside down in the business. So I never really have I have not had
• 30:10
  cash flow challenges, you know. In the business for that reason, it's like I was
• 30:15
  I ever really ran low on actual cash. That doesn't mean I was always super
• 30:20
  profitable. Like I might have a really bad month and be like, you know, but
• 30:26
  that's when I start to worry, not when cash gets low, right? Because I want
• 30:31
  the cash flow, not just the cash. so if that helps answer that question.
• 30:36
  Yes, definitely. And it leads me to the next one. What are those main KPIs
• 30:41
  that you're focusing on with clients?
• 30:44
  Yeah, so we are focused on contribution profit and contribution
• 30:49
  Okay.
• 30:50
  margin, which because a lot of you know, some businesses might be able to focus
• 30:55
  on gross profit. We can't because there are incremental costs, incremental slash variable costs within
• 31:01
  the CPG industry that are below the line, right? They're not gonna be in gross
• 31:08
  profit, which is just, you know, revenue minus cogs, gross profit. They are going to
• 31:14
  be down in like variable selling and fulfillment, variable marketing. And as you sell more,
• 31:20
  those costs are going to go up. And so when we're modeling and when we're
• 31:27
  tracking our progress, we want to be able to see how we're doing on that.
• 31:33
  And then everything below that rate is more so fixed overhead. so we like to
• 31:40
  track that. We like to track overhead coverage. Right, those types of things. and I
• 31:46
  really wrapped a lot of this up in my cash fight framework, which is a
• 31:52
  by the way, a free download on our website, the cbgcfo.com, if anyone's interested. so
• 31:59
  it's the conversion cycle, having an alert level and tracking, you know, having cash flow
• 32:05
  forecast out several weeks. Your shelf pricing, which we measure contribution margin, contribution profit, the
• 32:12
  we shipping and fulfillment to do the H, financing,
• 32:16
  Okay.
• 32:17
  inventory levels, gross margin, overhead, and trade spin and marketing. So we're tracking a lot
• 32:23
  because there are so many ways that CBG founders can have cash drained that we
• 32:30
  like to keep an eye on all of that. Every month.
• 32:35
  And they lose the cash fight because as you know better than most people, cash
• 32:39
  will kill more businesses than anything else, or lack of cash, I should say.
• 32:44
  Mm.
• 32:45
  Okay. Okay, so from the top. So two words, cash fight, conversions, alert, shelf pricing,
• 32:54
  shipping and fulfillment. for cash
• 32:58
  Yeah.
• 32:59
  and then financing, inventory, gross margin, overhead, trade spend. Okay. Okay. So
• 33:06
  Yep. And it's the the downloads pretty educational around like why does it matter, how
• 33:10
  to calculate it, right?
• 33:12
  Okay.
• 33:13
  Without going into great detail on that end of things.
• 33:15
  I mean, look, I love public math, but we will spare the listeners.
• 33:19
  Mm-hmm.
• 33:21
  Okay, this is awesome. Yeah, everybody go download that. Cause I think one of the
• 33:23
  most common things that I talk with businesses is
• 33:25
  Mm.
• 33:27
  what matters to your business? And some people, like just give me revenue and profits.
• 33:31
  Like, all right, cool, like great start, but there's more to it. Like, how do
• 33:35
  you get revenue? What takes away from everybody that leads to profit? Like, let's go
• 33:39
  a little bit deeper. And so this is a good framework, the cash fight framework.
• 33:43
  That actually works as people's sort of guiding scorecard, if you will, I would imagine,
• 33:47
  right?
• 33:48
  Mm-hmm. Yeah, we're like red or green. And why?
• 33:50
  There you go.
• 33:51
  You know.
• 33:52
  Okay. D and there's no yellow in there. It's just a good or bad.
• 33:56
  It's usually it's it's usually red or green. I will say sometimes I have orange
• 34:02
  or yellow and actually those are usually ones that are green technically, but I have
• 34:09
  thoughts and I'm not a
• 34:12
  Ha ha ha.
• 34:13
  hundred percent happy with them. Like if you're just raising a bunch of money and
• 34:17
  it's and it looks like you're, you know, okay on cash, but it's like you're
• 34:21
  not actually cash flowing. And we have no real plan beyond a certain point. I
• 34:25
  might be like, I'm not gonna mark that green, right? Like
• 34:29
  Right.
• 34:30
  technically the formula says green, but I'm gonna just put a little asterisk there. Or
• 34:36
  something like if gross margin is good, but you're not burdening your inventory with labor
• 34:42
  and you manufacture yourself, right? Something like that where it's like technically fine, but also
• 34:48
  Remember we're gonna work on burdening inventory with labor and this could change.
• 34:54
  Yeah, you're kinda fudging the numbers. Not intentionally, but like it's not the full actual
• 34:57
  Yeah.
• 34:58
  pist story. Yeah, yeah. Okay.
• 35:00
  Yeah, which is where my value comes in, right? Because anybody can do math.
• 35:06
  Ha ha ha.
• 35:08
  it's not, it's not like and I it's a free download, right? It's not like
• 35:13
  I'm gatekeeping this stuff, but that's really where the value comes from is what are
• 35:18
  we not seeing in these numbers? You know, what's outside the numbers, or like what
• 35:23
  does which one's important? Which one do we work on first? And And what do
• 35:28
  we do about it?
• 35:30
  Yeah. Yeah, this is a much more advising partnership than something like bookkeeping. Yeah, okay.
• 35:36
  Okay. all right, let me hit you with some lightning round scrappy for sophisticated questions.
• 35:42
  So in your own business, have you had to play the credit card timing game?
• 35:48
  We wait till tomorrow to charge something because that's next month's statement.
• 35:53
  No. I may have done it when
• 35:54
  No? Okay.
• 35:55
  I was young in my personal finances, but no, not now. Like I
• 35:58
  Okay.
• 35:59
  said, we always I always made sure I had cash. If if I can't do
• 36:04
  that in my business, I feel like that's not great. I don't I can't I
• 36:09
  shouldn't be CFO.
• 36:10
  Fair. Yep, you gotta drink your own champagne there. Okay. any early on clients where
• 36:14
  you're like, this is gonna be super easy, fun project, whatever, and that client ends
• 36:19
  up losing you money.
• 36:21
  yeah. Or
• 36:22
  Yeah.
• 36:23
  or I just have the extra time and I'm like, why wouldn't we do a
• 36:27
  good job on it? We have capacity, no one else is paying us, so let's
• 36:31
  just
• 36:32
  Ha ha ha.
• 36:33
  make sure that we do a really good job on this. But yeah, there are
• 36:37
  things that I just didn't scope well. Most of the time I knew that going
• 36:42
  into it, right? Just that it was something I wanted to do. More work for
• 36:46
  us is better because we get more practice and more reps and more learnings and
• 36:51
  more testimonials and all the things. But yeah, there are definitely projects that I made
• 36:56
  like, yeah, nothing per hour on.
• 36:58
  Gotcha. Okay. Okay. speaking of testimonials, have you ever gotten a testimonial from a family
• 37:04
  member?
• 37:05
  For my business? No. No CPG founders in the family.
• 37:06
  Okay. Okay. Fair enough. this is a sort of related one. So obviously the shirt
• 37:14
  now, the website, the logo, almost like a seventies backdrop. Is there a story behind
• 37:22
  the logo creation there?
• 37:25
  yeah, I I mean I like retro. When I went out on my own, I
• 37:30
  had I so at my company, my W-2 job, we got bonuses on August 1st.
• 37:35
  Okay, so I'm waiting. I got a $10,000 bonus, plus or minus. Okay, here's my
• 37:40
  money. I'm starting my company, right? Because I was at least gonna wait until I
• 37:45
  got my bonus before I would quit my job. You know, just I felt like
• 37:50
  I owed that to my family. So I at least gave my husband six months
• 37:55
  after
• 37:56
  that's pretty good.
• 37:57
  he started hers. I mean started his, I mean. and yeah, so I started with
• 38:03
  $10,000. I think I spent like $4,000 of it on branding.
• 38:09
  Okay.
• 38:10
  But here was my thought. I I had a very clear vision of what I
• 38:14
  wanted to be, how I wanted to look, what I wanted to do. And it
• 38:20
  was extremely important to me, knowing how important branding is to CPG, that I looked
• 38:26
  the part.
• 38:27
  That's good point.
• 38:28
  So I just had this like conviction around it. I don't know if it was
• 38:32
  the best idea or if it even mattered. you know, if people even really cared.
• 38:37
  But yeah, I was, I was very, I I had a very fixed vision on
• 38:42
  how I wanted to look. I was like, I want it to be like CTA,
• 38:47
  like I was like, no culture appropriation, but kind of you know, fun Ciet like
• 38:52
  texture and colors. And she was like, Are you sure you don't want like gray
• 38:57
  and gray and blue? And I'm like, No gray. Like, you know, like yeah,
• 39:02
  Like every other accountant? Heck no.
• 39:05
  she sent me some initial colors and I was like, no, this is not. And
• 39:11
  so not because she wasn't capable, but because, you know, it just didn't maybe fit
• 39:17
  her idea of like a professional services firm in finance, right? But to me, I
• 39:23
  knew that I wanted it to look more like a brand than like a yeah,
• 39:30
  finance person, like a CPA firm, which we're not a CPA firm.
• 39:35
  Exactly, exactly. The the last name and last name in the blue and gray text.
• 39:39
  We've all seen a hundred of them and I don't remember any of them. I
• 39:44
  have some that are clients and I'm I do remember them, but like yours stands
• 39:48
  out and the CPG CFO is a very like it's three three three like it
• 39:53
  there's a lot of thought that went behind it and it sounds like it that
• 39:57
  four thousand initial capital was definitely well spent, I would say.
• 40:01
  Yeah, I haven't changed. I mean everything's had
• 40:03
  Yeah.
• 40:04
  pretty much stayed the same, so it's lasted me.
• 40:06
  That's pretty good. Yeah. Take me inside the office. How many monitors do you use
• 40:11
  at the desk?
• 40:12
  Just two. Yeah.
• 40:13
  Just two? Okay. Are they the same make and model monitors?
• 40:17
  Yeah.
• 40:19
  Hey.
• 40:22
  I mean I have a laptop. So that's one. I don't have two extra. So
• 40:22
  only one extra. Yeah,
• 40:23
  Yeah. Okay. okay. Okay.
• 40:28
  so only two screens, I guess I could say.
• 40:31
  Okay.
• 40:32
  no. This screen is the screen that we had that went with our desktop computer
• 40:39
  that we bought together. Probably, gosh, I don't know. We've been married. 15 years. I
• 40:47
  want to say we may have bought it before we got married. Probably did, yeah.
• 40:54
  So it's very old.
• 40:57
  Okay.
• 40:59
  It has no it's not like matte, it's shiny,
• 41:02
  Okay, yep.
• 41:04
  which is not like desirable, you know, but it's fine. I'm like, I can see
• 41:09
  it. So that that's
• 41:11
  It gets the job done, that's the scrappiness.
• 41:13
  yeah, that that side is scrappy. We're not spenders,
• 41:16
  Okay.
• 41:17
  right? Like we may we we have the same TV that we got before we
• 41:22
  got married. Right, we're not, I'm like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. You
• 41:27
  know, like that is my mantra. I get very irritated when I have to replace
• 41:32
  electronics because oftentimes they are more complicated and less capable. And I'm like, what is
• 41:37
  this? Why are there so
• 41:39
  Yeah.
• 41:40
  many buttons? I don't know.
• 41:41
  Yeah.
• 41:42
  I bought like the old lady washing machine when I went to like Lowe's several
• 41:45
  years ago. There was all these buttons and they were like, this is the one
• 41:49
  that I I was like, I don't know. They're like, this is the one that
• 41:52
  we sell the old ladies. Do you like this one? I was like, that's better.
• 41:56
  Much better. Yeah,
• 41:57
  You're like it's still a little advanced, but I'll take it.
• 42:00
  yeah. I was like, I need the agitator. Like that's a it's
• 42:03
  Right.
• 42:04
  part of the washing machine. So yeah.
• 42:08
  man, this is great. anything really unique in your office?
• 42:15
  I have plants.
• 42:16
  A trinket. Okay.
• 42:17
  so a big like it's actually a a wardrobe for like tiny apartments like that
• 42:22
  don't have closets. So it's
• 42:24
  yeah.
• 42:25
  got a few shelves and then like some poles or whatever that you can hang
• 42:30
  plants from. I have my I have like my yoga mats and my like a
• 42:36
  rattan sort of It's a lot of rattan in here and plants.
• 42:41
  Okay.
• 42:42
  A lot of plants and rattan in here. and macrame, planter holders and things. the
• 42:48
  other side of my room is very different from this side. And also we have
• 42:55
  an entire wall that's mirrored.
• 42:58
  Okay.
• 42:59
  it wasn't my choice, but it was here when we got here and we haven't
• 43:02
  taken it down. So one in
• 43:04
  Okay.
• 43:06
  The entire other side and so I I don't usually turn my camera around because
• 43:10
  then like you see like my whole
• 43:12
  Right.
• 43:13
  setup from the other side.
• 43:13
  Okay. Partially a jungle, partially a mirror wall. Okay.
• 43:17
  Yeah. I'll send you a picture. You can put it in the in the show
• 43:21
  notes.
• 43:22
  I mean, this is the duality of humans. You've got the complete scrappiness. It's a
• 43:26
  mirrored wall, but it ain't broke, so we're not gonna fix it. It's a 20-year-old
• 43:31
  TV, but she has built a plan and she has completely stuck to the plan.
• 43:36
  I'm gonna say mostly sophisticated, Abby. Definitely, definitely some dirt under the fingernails on the
• 43:41
  scrappy side though, too.
• 43:43
  Yes.
• 43:45
  we'll go with an 80-20 sophisticated and scrappiness. Thank you so much for coming on.
• 43:49
  This has been an absolute blast. what do you want the folks out there to
• 43:54
  know? Anything you want to promote?
• 43:56
  gosh. no, I mean I don't have anything special happening right now. I I actually
• 44:03
  I take that back.
• 44:06
  There we go.
• 44:07
  So if you go to my LinkedIn, and maybe you can put it in the
• 44:11
  show notes too.
• 44:12
  Yeah, we will.
• 44:13
  I did a video recently when I was in Buenos Aires to visit my team.
• 44:18
  So we did an all hands in Argentina because half my team is there and
• 44:23
  another the other is a digital nomad who just happened to be there. And I
• 44:28
  was like, well, I should come too. Like, why
• 44:31
  Perfect.
• 44:32
  not? We can all be together. So we went there and we did a little
• 44:37
  video shoot where we were planning to put it in like a full house sort
• 44:42
  of themed video. And so I think it's really cute. Elder millennials will get it,
• 44:47
  but that is our just like a fun thing that we did with our team
• 44:52
  because I will say that I talked about like the flywheel of clients wanting to
• 44:57
  work on clients that are doing good things in the world and how that makes
• 45:02
  us want to show up for work. It also attracts really good people, right? Who
• 45:07
  want to work with those clients. So it's this really nice flywheel of wonderfulness and
• 45:13
  Yeah.
• 45:15
  my team is amazing and I feel like I'm so lucky to work with them.
• 45:19
  I'm so lucky to work with my clients. And then we're just all lucky to
• 45:24
  be here together. It's like I just kind of was really, really picky on everybody
• 45:29
  that I was kind of putting together in this kind of container. And so anyway,
• 45:34
  it's just a cute little video with our team and that we shot and it
• 45:39
  was funny.
• 45:40
  That's awesome. And I will give you credit. It is much more than luck. That
• 45:43
  is a plan that is executed. You said no to early jobs. You laid this
• 45:46
  out so that it would be this flywheel of wonderfulness. Congratulations. I'm I'm super jealous
• 45:50
  that you've been able to do this and I'm
• 45:52
  Thank you.
• 45:54
  a fan and I'm looking forward to staying in touch.
• 45:58
  All right. Well thank you, Jack. I appreciate you having me on. It was fun.
• 46:01
  Awesome. Thanks, Abby. Stay data driven, everybody.