Possibly the most important question for Business Owners – “What do you want your business to do for you?”
There can be many different motivations to becoming a business owner – the freedom, the passion of delivering something specific to you, doing good for others, to make money, to provide jobs for others. Motivations may differ but there are common threads.
In a recent conversation with our business partners at The CFO Centre it was fascinating to understand their start point when talking to business owners, and the simplicity was quite striking. The questions were simply:
- “Why did you start your business?”
- “What was your big dream?”
- “More time, more money, or perhaps more freedom?”
They urge all their clients to ask themselves the truly important question:
“What do you want your business to do for you?”
We therefore sat down with their Divisional Director, Paul Cooper, to understand more about the importance of identifying this, and the help that is available to support achieving it.
Paul said, “No matter what stage your business is at:
- Ensure you are clear on what you really want for the business and for yourself as an entrepreneur.
- Evaluate whether you have the personal skill set, or support structure in your business to achieve this, as this often entails growth with a whole new set of challenges.
- Business owners are great at what they do – the product they build or the service they supply – but will be less skilled in the intricacies of financial planning or financial controls, particularly through a period of growth.
Talking to Paul it was clear that while we appreciate many business owners are clear on why they started out on this journey, businesses do change, motivations change, and circumstances change. Continually reflecting on these questions is a real skill of a business owner.
So, what do you want your business to do for you? We continued the conversation with Paul to get some ideas on the support that is available.
With The CFO Centre being a leading provider of part-time Chief Financial Officers to ambitious SME’s with turnover of £1m-£50m, they are perfectly placed to discuss businesses scaling faster.
Paul commented, “Getting strategic expertise and knowledge can really take the pressure off so you can focus on the areas that need your attention or you have more interest in. When working with us, businesses can benefit in several ways and here are just a few:
- Having a specific and bespoke financial plan designed to deliver your ambitions is so important
- Having the support of a very senior skill set and experience usually only available for large companies can be invaluable and take some of the pressure off. This type of support is often a low-risk investment with no recruitment fees, and is immediately available with no tie-ins.
- In addition to having your own part-time CFO, you’ll have access to over 750 CFOs globally – bringing their collective knowledge and experience to solve any complex challenges you face.
- Surrounding yourself with people who are proactive and who share your focus on driving the financial plan to deliver both your business goals and your goals as an entrepreneur.
- We can also support your existing finance team with mentoring or providing a senior pair of hands to take on projects and tasks, for which they may not have the bandwidth or expertise.
What was really clear from the conversation with Paul was that opening yourself up to this type of support, or just having the awareness of what is there, can really save businesses time and costs of hiring and give them the skills of a senior CFO for a fraction of the cost! This can really accelerate you achieving your goals, and financial controls can often be the making (or breaking) of business dreams.
Ultimate Finance’s Head of Partnership Adrian Stalley concludes, “At Ultimate Finance we believe in the power of expertise and we are proud to have put ours at work to help thousands of businesses meet their ambitions with our range of funding solutions for more than 20 years. Our partners are strategically selected to provide our clients with the benefit of further experts in business areas that go beyond funding needs and working capital requirements. We are delighted to have helped keep businesses moving further through our partnership with The CFO Centre and to be able to showcase their expertise in their own field today”.
Our thanks to Paul and The CFO Centre Team for sharing their thoughts with us.
