[LEXIE LEE] The Married Entrepreneurs Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Bomb Mom and Grow A Group Practice, go to www.practiceofthepractice.com/network. [RON LEE] Welcome to the married entrepreneurs podcast. This is Ron Lee [LEXIE] I am Lexie Lee. [RON] We are professional counselors and serial entrepreneurs who are married [LEXIE] To each other. [RON] Thank you for joining us as we explore the business of life and the life of business [LEXIE] Today, we are so glad to have Mimi Jeannotte, who is the owner of Bismarck Consulting and also just like an awesome person. Mimi, tell us a little bit about you? [MIMI JEANNOTTE] Oh, well that’s a cool intro. Thanks Lexie. I have been in accounting for a lot of years. I have a big appreciation and passion for accounting. A lot of times when people hear that I’m an accountant, they think taxes, tax returns, April 15th, but for me, that’s pretty far from what I do day in and day out. So I’ve spent my, coming up on 20 years before I know it years of career working for pretty large public companies, some private equity companies and I’ve usually run their finance functions. I also work on their governance and compliance, public company compliance, so filing financial statements with the Securities Exchange Commission, a lot of big words there, but really what I do is make sure that big corporations are doing what they need to be successful and in compliance with whether it’s NASDAQ or another regulatory agency is telling them to do. That’s my day in and day out. It doesn’t sound very exciting, but I love it. So I’m excited to be here and talk about that today. [LEXIE] We are so glad that you’re here too. [RON] Mimi you explained a little bit what a CFO does. Is there any more that you could explain into that? Exactly, what it is, the job title, describing it and things of that nature? [MIMI] That’s a great question because I think if you don’t work in accounting or finances your day to day, your bread and butter, you might just think a CFO is maybe a figurehead or gosh, a really expensive paycheck sometimes. You might think, especially if you’re starting your own business, you might think I could do that myself. So I think that’s a great question is what the heck does the CFO do? I really look at the CFO role as there’s three key pieces. The first one is transacting your business, you know, are you paying your vendors? Are you receiving cash timely? Are you giving credit to the right people? That may sound like pretty basic things that you might already have a bookkeeper doing, but a CFO is really going to optimize that and really focus on what are your business risks in transacting.? The second thing that I think is really important to understand that a CFO brings to your business is reporting. How do you make a decision if you don’t know how much money you’re making? So the fundamental information that’s going to go into your decision making will typically come from your CFO or the team that that CFO builds. I think that’s so critical in that a bookkeeper’s going to give you here’s the cash you have, here’s your AR, but a CFO’s going to say, why aren’t we getting that cash faster and here’s some ideas on how we could get that cash faster. Or why are you selling to these customers because you’re actually losing more money selling to those customers. Sometimes the decision is actually saying I’m not going to sell to those customers and then by doing that, you’re going to make more money that’s. So that’s the second thing that a CFO brings to the table. Then really the third is that future growth. What’s your five year plan look like, what’s your 10 year plan look like? That could be anywhere between in five years I want to double my business or in five years I want to sell my business. A CFO can help you build what’s your vision now? Where are we today and what are the steps that I need to take? So I think those are three critical pieces that a lot of times an entrepreneur or maybe a more younger company and their growth path might say, I can do that myself, because I’m going to save money. But I think really what you’re losing yet, you might save that paycheck, but you’re losing all of those things that you might not get paid by your customers quickly. You might be selling to the wrong places. You might not be optimizing your systems, those types of things. So you really have to take a look at, am I saving that paycheck or am I losing money, not being efficient? [RON] I love the word that you use systems, because as you were describing that, what it really boiled down to, and what I heard was that your generalized accountant just like you hand them a handful of paper, they crunch up some stuff, exactly what you give them. What you do is you really dig into someone’s company. You really try to figure out what’s going on, why it’s not working, where it is working and then honing those systems to ensure that the cashflow’s working right. [MIMI] Yes, and I talk about sometimes with customers, clients that I work with is that you have this vision of 30 years ago, your CPA rolled up in a little broke down Honda that’s duct taped together and they were the number cruncher or the bean counter. A lot of times they’re passed over as not impactful. I think really the role of the CFO today is incredibly impactful because what businesses need to think about is where our systems technology and process is going. Because if you are selling something and your sales guy doesn’t have your business app on his phone or his iPad, you are already behind your competition and the CFO plays a huge role in those, the role out of those systems. Do they interface with your accounting records? Do they interface with your bank, those types of things. A CFO is really going to be integral and how you’re up to date as well as it could even be a competitive advantage. Your sales team hits the ground with this great technology, whereas maybe your competitor is still writing triplicate sales orders, those types of things. So where we are today, that being counter, in the duct taped Honda that’s really more of your bookkeeper today. You give them all the receipts and they do the bookkeeping, but really your CFO is the person who’s like, here’s this really cool app that comes with our new version of great planning, software, QuickBooks, whatever you’re using and you just bolted on and wow look at what we’ve been able to [LEXIE] Well, and something that you said struck me, I’m sorry, you talked about, I got lost, Ron, with your part. [MIMI] No worries. [LEXIE] Well, and I think it’s elated. So often we are bootstrapping things together and we’re trying to do all those things ourself. How do we know when it’s time to start thinking, okay, I can’t wear these hats myself. [MIMI] I think that’s a great thing. I see that in really big businesses where you have a department that somehow is filling a hole that isn’t their wheel set. You might have a marketing team that is pulling together their budget all by themselves with no finance partner. Is that really what you want your marketing team to waste their time on? I say, waste, yes, budgets are important, but they’re wasting their time because they need to be out designing your webpage and are thinking of advertising strategies. That’s what you hire your marketing team for. So I think the heart of your question, Lexie comes back to, am I, as the business owner or the person who’s running this business, am I wasting my time trying to do something that would be someone else’s wheel set? I think, too, is that we don’t realize we’ve stepped into that space until we’ve wasted too much time, and we’re not out meeting customers or doing our marketing role. Or if you started a business because you’re really great at washing cars and you spend your time trying to keep up with your books, you need to hire a bookkeeper. That can be a scalable example. So if you started a business, because you’re really great at helping clients do this, but you start to find yourself well, now I’m trying to run my business plan and that is taking away from my client, you’re not making the most amount of money because you’re spending too much time trying to run your business. You need to get back to what’s the heart, the heart is you’re great at clients, that relationship. It’s hard to see that too so trying to take yourself out of that is what is taking up my time every day and if it is bookkeeping decision making, trying to figure out how much money we made, where are we going in five years, writing your business strategy. If those are the things you’re spending too much time on, I think you’re at the point where you start to look at that CFO role. [RON] Is the CFO role a fulltime gig? So if I’m a beginning company and I’m just getting started, but I realize I don’t have decent systems, is a CFO someone I can just hire for — [MIMI] Yes, for small businesses, what you can also, so someone like myself if I get to plug my business at all someone like myself, who’s got a lot of years of experience, but perhaps you don’t want to pay me a full paycheck. You just want me to come in two days a week. That is a great way to warm up, get your feet wet with the CFO. It also gives you the opportunity. Is this going to be valuable for me before I commit to someone’s bread and butter or salary, finding a consulting business that could say, can you rent me a CFO for two days a week or three days a week? Or maybe just have a CFO come in and look at my business and say, should you hire a CFO? Those are some of the things that someone who’s like myself or other consulting CFO businesses can help you decide. I think you’ll also find that it’s possible you’ll bring in a consulting department like that. They’ll say maybe not a CFO, but yes, a controller. So that’s a really good distinction, is that you don’t want to go all the way to the most expensive solution right away. You might be at the point where a controller, so a controller role is usually the person who sits right under a CFO and they’re heavily focused on governance. A controller would focus on, are we spending this money like it’s our money? Are we spending this money like it’s fun money? A controller really gets to the heart of that. Are we recording things right? Are we spending the right things? Are we looking at what’s in our receivables that maybe no one has paid us in six months? A controller will get some of those fundamentals. Maybe you aren’t at the point where you’re looking at your five year strategy. It’s possible you could take a, maybe a more baby step before you go all the way to CFO. [LEXIE] That is a great piece of information that I really didn’t even think about how to step it. So I love that. I want to switch gears a little bit. I know that you and your husband are both entrepreneurs and that you’re fairly new into both being self-employed. Can you share a little bit what that has been like for you? [MIMI] The tears and the tears, it’s hard. Yes, so we have been, we always joke, we’ve been pay checkers for most of our career. Only in the last, I would say about six months, have we both taken the leap to start our own businesses. The funny thing with me being an accountant, I’m doing the books for both of our businesses and our farm that we also have as well as trying to work my, stay up to date with my clients and do a good job at what I do. There’s times where I tell Rob, my husband, I say, you can’t give charitable deductions on your pilot gas purchase because I don’t have the time to break that out. He loves to give charitable donations. I don’t fault him on that, but he now goes to pilot and says, my accountant gets really mad at me. So instead of telling the clerk, no, I don’t want to donate, he says my accountant, I said, well, that probably sounds better than my wife, told me not to do this anymore. So that’s definitely, and I think our struggle too, is how do you push your spouse or tell your spouse not to work so hard when it’s your paycheck? Like I want him to work really hard. I work really hard and then that translates most, if you’re lucky to have dollars in your bank account, but it’s really hard to reel that in or tell your help your spouse make that decision? How do you tell your spouse you’re working too much because it’s now our business? So that’s something that we’re struggling with right now. He probably needs to tell me not to work so much but at the same time I’m trying to help him balance his stress level. So it’s definitely a new paradigm for us in general. [LEXIE] Well, and I think what we have found is that it becomes really important to carve out time in advancing, okay, we’re going to say this is time where we are taking care of ourselves or this is time when we’re focused on just our relationship because that time can so easily get filled in there’s that analogy of the professor that walks into the classroom with a glass jar and he puts big rocks in the jar and fills it up to the top and he asks the class, is there, can I get more in? They’re like, no. Then he reaches and he grabs pebbles and he pours those in. That fills up the space and then he does sand and then he does water. If you start with the water, you don’t have room for anything else. So those rocks, those big things that you want to start with. Those are your relationship and your family time and you plan that first. The work is almost like water and it is going to fill all the space anyway. Or maybe work or is the pebbles, but making those priorities is an important thing. So tell me what it has been like with doing two businesses and you have kids and family. How does that go into? [MIMI] It’s a lot. Right now it’s busy, what we call busy season in the accounting world. So even though I’m not doing taxes, we do have annual financial statements. I’m working for two clients right now, so keeping everything straight, high quality performance for my clients, balancing kids, we have our farm, which probably sometimes I think it runs itself because I do not take responsibility for the amount of animals that I continue to purchase, even though I should not. Then the two businesses. I’ve my biggest thing has always been weekends are mine. I do have to admit that work’s creeping into that a little bit, but for the most part in the year, that’s a lot of what my guiding principle is weekends are mine. I say my meaning the family. So I personally balance the weekends are mine concept, which I do not have work email on my phone. We used to do foster care when we lived in Vegas and over years ago, and I found myself in the middle of Target with six kids under seven years old, trying to check work email with a cart full of stuff I don’t need at Target. I thought one of these kids is going to get stolen, run away or I don’t know, CPS is going to come to Target because I’m trying to read work email. I finally realized like, for me, I don’t have work email on my phone. I think some entrepreneurs would probably say, wow, that’s too far. I can’t go there, because they’re constantly managing their business or need to stay at, but I feel like if I’m driving in my car or my tractor supply, if I’m with my kids, there’s nothing so important that needs to interrupt it by having email on my phone. So that’s my big weekends are mine and no email on my phone are probably the two things I do to keep sanity. But then also buying animals is the third thing that I do to keep my sanity. [LEXIE] I don’t think I’ve heard very many people say buying animals is my coping skill. [MIMI] Yes. I couldn’t sleep the other night and we purchased two emos. So I say, we, my husband will say that is not me, but it’s a hundred percent not his fault, but yes, I definitely fill some of my stress. I mean, some people online shop for shoes, that’s how you manage your stress or other coping mechanisms that’s mine. [LEXIE] So tell us the animals that you have on your farm. [MIMI] Oh, it’s so fun. That’s way more fun than do you need a CFO? We’ve got emos, wallabies, alpacas. We’ve got horses, donkeys, goats, rabbits, chickens, turkeys, Guinea. Gosh, I think, I don’t know if I said dogs. I’m sure there’s something I’m forgetting, but yes, that’s super fun. One of the reasons why I just feel so blessed to be able to work from home. So definitely a fun balance. [LEXIE] So what animal has been the most surprising to you because some of those you didn’t own in the past? [MIMI] Yes. I think alpacas are the most surprising. They were my dream purchase, one of those animals that we worked our way up to. I’ve always been a huge fan of rabbits and I feel like alpacas are just gigantic rabbits. I think demeanor, diet, numb level of softness. They just so much remind me of bunny rabbits. I think they’re just so cool. Then the surprising part about it is I feel like they eat as much as bunny rabbits, which you wouldn’t think because they’re so much larger, but from a cost perspective, I think they’re really manageable on your budget. Like, oh man, I just totally took that to the accounting place, but yes, they’re manageable on your budget. [LEXIE] Managing your coping skills and keeping the budget in line. [MIMI] Totally, totally. So yes, it’s been, it’s definitely been a new adventure, starting our own businesses this year and trying to figure out that entrepreneur balance and dealing with kids at the same time and whatever else comes your way. [RON] Now, give me the name of your company again. [MIMI] So yes, Bismarck Consulting. Right now we’ve been focused on public company compliance and governance, but I would love if anybody wants to reach out about this topic — [RON] My next question, are you taking new clients? [MIMI] I’m pretty busy, but May, after we get all of these 10 cases finished up, I would love to really help somebody, new clients look at, do you need a CFO? I can help review your business, if you want me to come on board, whatever, I am pretty flexible, love to talk and share. I’ve specialized a lot in a culture, team culture, company culture, turning teams around with low morale, those types of things. So definitely could come in and help oversee any of the stressors that people might have with businesses. [RON] So if clients wanted to reach out to you, how would they get to you? [MIMI] Oh, that’s a great question. Maybe I’ll send my email to Lexie if she could post that rather than me saying it off right here. I appreciate it. Love to hear from anybody who likes this topic. [LEXIE] Yes, we’ll have it in the show notes. Well, Mimi, thank you so much for visiting with us today. It was a fun conversation. I think you have just an amazing life and thank you for sharing that with us. We look forward to meeting up again. [MIMI] What we didn’t tell our listeners, I’m going to later. [RON] Have a great day, Mimi. [MIMI] You too. Thanks. Bye. [RON] Bye, bye. [LEXIE] Thank you for listening. Time is our most valuable resource and we appreciate that you shared your time listening to us. If you enjoyed our show, please rate us or give us a review. You can share this episode with someone that you think may benefit. You can find more from us at marriedentrepreneurspodcast.com. [RON] This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.