Ep047: Unlocking the Secrets of Financial Growth with Kirk McLaren

And then Kirk also gave me an answer to a standard question. I ask of what do you wish you knew when you were 25 years old? And his answer is different than anyone else's I've heard. So Kirk brings a novel approach to outsource CFO and I really learned a lot about what's possible with a fractional CFO. So I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Kirk. Welcome to the podcast.

Kirk McLaren
Yeah, David, I'm so glad that you invited me here to talk to your guests and kind of explore backgrounds, that kind of stuff.

David Spray
Well, awesome, well, thank you for being on. So first off, I'd like to thank you for your service to our country. So, thank you for that.

Kirk McLaren
Yeah, that was a long time ago, back in 1991, and I was a long way from the bullets but literally left school, joined the army, became a behavioral scientist and that's how I ended up going from Houston, texas, you know, growing up as a young man there, and then dropped out of school, and that's how I ended up going from Houston to Washington DC and stayed here ever since.

David Spray
That's awesome, so let's get right into it. Talk to me about your company. Yeah, oversight. Cfo.

Kirk McLaren
Yeah. So the company started I mean roughly 30 years building mostly private business. I did some nonprofits and some quasi government stuff with the telecom industry and then, 30 years into, I started to notice that business owners oftentimes I'm the finest guy, I can see a clear opportunity, but the business owners were hesitate, they'd hesitate on making decisions and sometimes the fall through wasn't strong. And so I came to learn that a lot of business owners, their business becomes the monster of their own making. Right, they got all these hats on, they go on vacation. They're actually working remotely versus enjoying other things in their life like their family. And meanwhile, most CFOs including me, you know we occupied ourselves with financial management, the accounting operations, maybe treasury. If it's a bigger business, there could be like import, export taxes, kind of the things where your expertise come into play. We focus on those kind of things instead of alleviating the CEO's pain. So around 2015, I mean I kept getting hit in the head with things in life where, hey, maybe there's a better way, right, yeah, yeah, maybe, right, you know, things keep coming in and maybe I should pay attention to something here.

And so in 2015, it started to reimagine that the CFO's role as a true navigator with the CEO, and by this I mean you know, learning. You know, as a CFO, a navigator side by side with the CEO, learning how to help the CEO escape the owner's trap. Like you know, they were born. There's something that the CEO is really good at but they're oftentimes not doing. They're not focused on that area. So how do we help them focus on that area?

And how does, as a CFO, how do I collaborate with subject matter experts across the company, like like the CMOs and the salespeople and delivery people to help them obliterate the obstacles to growth? Right? So it's a broader partner than just the financial operation. And then you know, at the same time, while doing that, it's definitely those financial habits or profitability that allow us to see okay, where are we coming from, where are we going to? That was really the birth of the foresight CFO. It just kept seeing that business owner or private companies they get hung up, they're trapped, you know, by their business and so maybe there's a better way.

David Spray
That's where it all started, and so the foresight and the name means, I guess, looking forward instead of backwards no-transcript.

Kirk McLaren
Yeah, yeah, like, where do you want to? You got a business, you got into your business for a reason. What is your destination? Where do you want to end up? And a lot of times for me, I'm a big freedom guy. I mean, I want you know. I want freedom of time, freedom of money. I want freedom of purpose to do what I really care about, versus being tethered to some obligation that's not worthwhile. So that's the force.

David Spray
Don't forget the fourth. Don't forget the fourth freedom, freedom of relationship.

Kirk McLaren
Yeah, that's a big one right. So, dave, what does that mean to you?

David Spray
freedom of relationship, what it means associating, you know, serving who I want to serve, work with who I want to serve. So the reason I knew the fourth freedom was because I've spent many years in strategic coach, which is probably where you learn the four freedoms as well, I'm guessing, or from Dan Sullivan.

Kirk McLaren
Yeah, dan Sullivan, strategic goals are brilliant and so, but that's a key point when you can actually choose who you work with, you're both inside and outside. You know that's liberation, it is.

David Spray
It is, and so I know your tagline is that you're a growth CFO, and so I can appreciate that the looking forward has kind of one component. But then the growth CFO piece, you know, that strikes me as more unique, because that almost sounds like a blending of you know, being the chief revenue officer, if you will. So talk to me about how you are able to leverage that CFO role into you know, revenue growth.

Kirk McLaren
Yeah, and that's one of the five obstacles. It used to be the number one obstacle is how to help clients when new clients and closely behind that was the number two obstacle, which is keeping and growing existing clients. Now the number one obstacle is people. So we might want to talk about that in a moment. But, to answer your question, the growth CFOs are definitely CFOs. Right, we're not trying to become master, you know, with jack of all trades, master to none, but it's more if you have, doesn't matter about whatever the title. It is the chief sales people, the chief marketing officer, whatever title they have. In our world. The growth CFO works hand in hand and we have certain strengths. That doesn't numbers people, finance people, you know, are we minding the data? Like, oftentimes you have companies that are doing well and they think of all their customers as the same, like, hey, we need more, we have 14,000 customers. These are real examples, by the way. We have 14,000 customers. We need more of those. Really, you need more of those Because if you run the data, if you mind that data, using the skills that you know the CPAs and the finance people brings to the table, you actually find out.

You know the 80 20 rule plays out, where roughly 20% of your clients are producing 80% of that. You know the financial outcomes and those people love you. They love you, love work with them. You can do your best work with them. It's good synergies, you ring value. They want you to be paid well, it's great, right, all the way around. And likewise vice versa. The bottom 20% you're losing money. They don't like you, right? You don't get along. People don't want to go to work on that site. So when you mind the data kind of kind of coming in, you know how growth stuff will work with the CMO or the sales team. Hey, let's look at who can actually do our best work with using that data. Let's figure out who are these people. What is the voice of the client? Why do those people sign up with us? Why do they keep going with us and then align everything to that, like bundling services. Maybe there's cross sell ups, so maybe you can do even better work with them.

Pricing strategy you know a lot of times, you know, you know CEOs are private businesses. They're very risk adverse when it comes to pricing. But can we value price If you're making this kind of outcome for those best clients? Can you share that, that doing well by doing good and then aligning everything, aligning the the, you know lead generation, marketing, aligning the sales process to that best top 20%. And then maybe, once you get confident there you know this is not overnight do things step by step, crawl, walk, run, so that you're not betting the farm on any one decision, but you're making decisions with clarity, you're making phone calls with the clarity of the habits right, the financial habits, and then maybe the bottom 20%. That's you eating up everything you got. Maybe refer them to your competition, right, maybe you work with who you want to work with, that freedom of relationship. So that's kind of a picture.

An actual example would be a client that had had software as a service, kind of online platform 14,000 customers. Exact scenario you can't. I want more customers, do you? Really? Because we do the data and these people buy from you and keep coming back. These other people, man your calls, customer service, call centers loaded up with people who you will, customers, clients that you will never make happy. Yeah, how about right?

David Spray
So yeah, in fact, I believe the official name of that 80 20 rule is called the Pareto principle, named after an Italian economist from a long time ago. But you know, the most interesting part of the Pareto principle is when you take it to a second level. So if you look at, you know 20% of your customers are accounting for 80% of your revenue. Well, if you take the 20% of your 20% and the 80% of the 80%, you'll find that 4% of your customers are accounting for 64% of the revenues yeah right.

Which is even more powerful. It's interesting, the book. There's a guy that wrote a book called the 80 20 principle and I cannot remember his name. I can picture the book and he had an exercise where you would take your clients and rank them in descending order by like revenue or profit, and then you'd have a cumulative column, right, so your first customer counts, you're for 5%, your next one accounts for 4%, so that's 9%. And he had this exercise. You'd go through there and you would just see how many customers down you'd have to go to. You got to, like you know, a significant amount of your revenue. And it was really interesting looking at centers of influence and, like I discovered when I did that, like 80% of my referrals came from five centers of influence. Is that right?

And I realized I didn't even need to go into any more networking events. All I had to do is spend more time with those five people and you know these were the five people who I met with once a year.

So you're like wonder what happens if I met with them quarterly, just those five people. So anyway, so I'm always fascinated by that, the 80 20. And the other funny thing about that, I'm sure you know this it doesn't have to be 80 20, it doesn't have to add up to 100. It can be an 80 10 or a 70 20, or it's really just pointing out that there's these disproportionate outcome from you know, limited inputs, but anyway. So yeah, I always love talking to somebody about Pareto principle, but let's go deeper there.

Kirk McLaren
I mean, look what it just did for you. Wow, five relationships produce most of my outcomes.

So now if I wanted to, I could definitely put more attention to those folks right, because that's your bread and butter, makes total sense. Probably more will come from that. If you more attention, more outcomes, that kind of stuff. So in addition you essentially could work half as much. Don't do the things that are complete ways. Focus on those five and actually produce more. So now you got freedom of time. You got that freedom of relationship. You work with people, you really get to know each other.

David Spray
That's the irony, those five people were also some of my favorite five centers of influence too.

Kirk McLaren
Yeah, Beyond trust you really get to know each other. Your interest for each other becomes very sincere. They help each other to do well kind of stuff. But that's brilliant Liberation.

David Spray
Yes, yeah, I know those dance solvents for freedoms are really powerful, because that's what. That's why we become entrepreneurs is for freedom, anyway, yeah.

Kirk McLaren
It's funny because Matt contacted me from strategic coach and I'm pretty sure I'm coming in. I've been reading his books like who, not how, that kind of stuff, and so it's funny that he's been a big influence, that community, big influence for you.

David Spray
Yeah, I've been. I'm currently on sabbatical from strategic coach and, but I've been, I did a sabbatical before, but I guess I've got about 10 years total and just a wonderful. In fact, anytime I talk to somebody about strategic coach, I start thinking that my sabbatical should perhaps be over.

Kirk McLaren
Yeah, back years ago in previous life I worked for Richard Rossi, who's been a strategic coach. I remember when I was his finance guy questioning him on the investment time and money kind of stuff and it's not a big investment in money, but finance guy or someone questioning things. It may have learned a lot since then, yeah, but how important peer group and coaching is I mean night and day versus working in isolation for CEOs.

David Spray
For sure. Yeah, I would strongly recommend strategic coach, because it gives you a chance to think about your thinking. That's one of Dan's lines, so let's switch gears. So you and I have something in common We've both authored a book. Yours was a best seller, mine was not. So talk to me about the book. What's the name of it? When was it published? What prompted you to publish it?

Kirk McLaren
So the book title is called the Growth CFO Void. So that missing team member, right that basically the missing navigator to the CEO who's a pilot at the plane, and there were a number of things that kind of prompted. Like what I teach at Georgetown School Continues Studies, kind of a fun thing. I'm big on developing people A lot of times go beyond their self-imposed limits, so I love teaching and the geez man, the textbooks and resources for what business owners and business people really need, like what are practical financial habits? There's really the three practical habits that can change any manager's life Right, just clarity and confidence on where we're at and engineering that path going forward.

And the material on that was my book is not a textbook. There are more stories, that kind of stuff. I think that's how people learn and the material on that is like man, it's just overly loaded with jargon. Not everybody is designed to be a CPA. Most people are not designed to be a CPA and most people if you pull up a spreadsheet you literally put them into the checkout zone and so that kind of prompted I need something better. And then also telling our story, since we reimagine what a CFO is. There's plenty of CEO business owners who they know what a traditional CFO is. So this whole new role not redefining the existing role, I should say better, it's just a new concept. I needed a way of telling stories and case studies where they can start to see themselves oh that's what a better way might do. And that prompted it. And so, you know, teamed up with Forbes and they accepted my idea for the book and we published last September last year. Oh, that's great.

David Spray
So what are the three habits that you mentioned?

Kirk McLaren
Yeah, the first one is, across the company managers use the monthly financials like a scoreboard, okay, and a lot of times that's very awkward for them, initially because it looks like hieroglyphics. The second one is getting your hands around cash, so positive cash for both, like 12 week cash forecast, but also how about measuring the cash conversion cycle and see it and then comparing that to benchmarks, because maybe there's something there. And then the third one is we call it engineering profitability with a rolling 12 month budget, okay, and we call it actually a flight plan 12 month flight plan and it then also the multi-year flight plan, like how do we get if you want to end up at a certain place or destination? This has some visibility on how we're going to do that year to year. But the detail work is that third habit the 12 month rolling budget.

David Spray
Okay, that's you know. I learned something interesting about Tesla. You know, supposedly they don't use any budgets.

Kirk McLaren
Really yeah.

David Spray
What do they do they? They're all, apparently. As I understand it, they're all about innovation. Speed of innovation drives everything there, and I've heard they do like dozens of rolling improvements to their cars every week. Most car makers have annual changes. You know they save it up, but yeah, but supposedly they have no budgeting and every employee has, like, the authority to spend money to buy stuff that they think will, in will, improve the speed improvement, the speed of innovation. Anyway, that just happened to think of it, isn't that bizarre? One of the largest market cap companies in the world has no budgeting process, isn't that interesting?

Kirk McLaren
It really is interesting. I wonder how that plays out. So they're putting emphasis on that speed, to creativity and local ownership of outcomes Right, some?

David Spray
kind of way. That's what I thought.

Kirk McLaren
I don't understand. I wonder if they have forecasts for the business overall. I wonder. That's something that I'm going to make a note of the dive into. I'm always interested if there's a better way.

David Spray
Yeah, I wonder. So the guy to look up is a guy named Joe Justice, who's a lean manufacturing guru and he worked at Tesla for like four years, and he's who a lot of that data comes from. As far as no budgeting, yeah, it just sounds like a. In fact, I was so intrigued by when they opened their factory in Austin I live in Houston, I was. If they would have let me, I would have gone to work there for six months, just like for the hell of it. It just seemed like such an amazing place to work, but they probably wanted me there more than six months and I wasn't going to because I've got a buddy in Austin.

you know their kids are all grown. I probably could stay in a spare bedroom and but anyway, you're the first person I've shared my pipe dream of going to work in the Tesla factory in Austin.

Kirk McLaren
It'd be interesting in six months, right Because I'm sure there'd be learning not just beyond no budgets, I'm sure there'd be learning in mind, expanding somewhere.

David Spray
Yeah, so. So let's get into the stories. This is my favorite part of the interview. You've mentioned you had stories in the book, so, and I agree, stories, I think, are the best way to learn, illustrate a point. So what are some success stories that come to mind? Either from the book, not from the book. If you're allowed to share who the name of the person or company is, feel free to if you, if that's not appropriate, and they just need to be anonymous. But let's talk about some stories. What's one that comes to mind?

Kirk McLaren
What are my favorite ones? I'm going to keep the names anonymous because if I say something financial after I say a name, I want to respect confidentiality. And first I think back the last eight years with Foresight. You know the CEOs. I mean, these are remarkable people, right, they have an idea. Sometimes they have circumstances that force them into entrepreneurship. Sometimes they're inspired by an idea, sometimes they're just not corporate people and they want to do the same. And the conversation for nominal I've been humbled because they I knew they were smart. I mean, I've been around for a few days but you know, behind closed doors they really care about their teams and you know, capitalism gets a bad rap. But you talk to business owners, they do want to do well, they do want their team members to do well. Sometimes they're up to their neck and you know, can't even make payroll. Right, they're doing, they're putting payroll on its credit card, their credit card, right and emulsion in their house.

That's what they're doing and they really do. There's a just a decency that goes beyond what I would. I don't know people like it. Credit for mainstream.

So there's a CEO of a technology company when Amazon Web Service was coming out and moving companies from their internal structure, like you know, the financial industry, there's insurance industry and everybody else going to the cloud for all the benefits, and cool little company, I mean it started out. You know a bunch of software engineers and they're really good at what they do and you know we started out on the small side for us at the end of the point of two and a half million and quickly grew to five, seven and a half, 10 million and in way, imagine these engineers I mean there were times like, like early on, the engineers are getting ready for the big, you know, industry event and you know engineers want to do a good job. So they take everybody off billable projects and put them into prepared. I say everybody. They took like 20% of their top people off billable projects, put them into doing this event, which, okay, that makes sense until you find out what happened to the cash, right, you just man, right, and yeah, so, so, so that's where we came in like, oh, you know they're not making decisions, knowing that you got to.

Yeah, you want to fly the plane and at the same time, make sure there's enough fuel in the tank and you got to see options you know going forward. You know what if we do a versus B and be able to see, you know, profit cash to value the business, kind of stuff. So, coming in on that, what happened to cash situation where the owners literally put money back into the business to to make payroll because bill Bowers went down with no visibility into it. So how do you put those instruments in the place where you know? Teach engineers how to take ownership of their numbers. You know where they're at, like multi financials going forward, teaching them understand right if they go below a certain place and how to get them to a point where daily dashboard where they get where every employee across the company come in, log in in red, green, yellow, based on what they control, they know where to lean in that day and if something's not working they can speak up. So that's a better way of flying the plane versus, oh, no cash right.

David Spray
So what was you know kind of the outcome of that then? Did their you know amount of cash increase? Did their you know days, you know receivables outstanding improve? Did they recall some of the objective outcomes?

Kirk McLaren
Yeah, we literally put in those controls right, the daily dashboard, using the monthly financials. They took ownership of their 12-month rolling budgets. They control the historical plus, the forward. But by month three they're getting comfortable with the financial. At first, nobody wants to look at the financials You're keeping me from doing my job, that kind of stuff. You know we call it financial scoreboard, but it's financials. And then by month six, like man, I can't make a decision. Hey, I'm not making a decision on that event. So I see my financials, where I stand in regards to budget. What do I have? And so by month six, they're really.

You know, engineers tend to be better than most with numbers and for most people about three, they're kind of getting used to the habit. Month six is like, hey, I need to see my numbers before I can decide about that event and who I dedicate to it. And so the outcome overall is the company grew right, more visibility, profit was strong and this lot of tech companies are kind of built to sell mindset. They don't want to be the best versus the biggest. You know these kind of entrepreneurs and they want to at some point pass the torch. So that's on the flight plan. In this case that space, amazon Web Service became a hot property and it roughly two and a half years ahead of expectations. The business owner was getting multiple offers, competitive offers to sell at a price point above his target and that the valuation is that second payday. So now you got financial freedom. You know, beyond that day to day work. So that was the outcome.

We've become friends and last Saturday we were bike riding in Washington DC on the hill there. Yeah, you do something like that. That's that brotherhood. Right when you got the CEO, who's a pilot, and then the growth CFOs and navigator and man, you create some good friends.

David Spray
Yeah, now, that's some of my favorite people are my clients. So, speaking of that, so describe to us what the elements are of a perfect fit, or a strategic coach calls it a right fit client for you.

Kirk McLaren
The two, two things one mindset right, if a person has a learning mindset, like some of the things you and I are talking about here, that's going to be fun, that's going to be a good outcome because there is a better way and that will always be true. And you have smart team members with different expertise. And so learning mindset to be able to see something, make a decision, follow through, make adjustments, sometimes on version one of the rollout. Yeah, you know, okay, let's evolve to version two, but not changing some of the tactics, but not losing sight of the division, the mission and the purpose of the organization. So something that learning mindset is critical, both inside foresight and external. Like imagine, you know CFOs coming in who want to be a growth CFO. They have a fixed mindset, want to do status quo. There's nothing I can do to help them Ever Sure, and roughly one out of 17 financial talent can actually do this work. So it's similar internal and external. And we work in three person teams, right, so three minds are better than one and that's how we get beyond status quo and comfort zones and stuff. So it's a very it's a very confident way of working. And then the other thing is some level of revenue, like the, you know, for the full three person team doing work weekly at five million, it starts to make sense right?

We have clients going up, you know, from one million to two, 119 million in revenue. We do certain things for each of them. At below five million more of a. We kind of have a hybrid hands on and advisory. It's once a month where we look at the financial scoreboard and work on the business together. But a smaller business capacity is so limited For all the right reasons. There is owner trap issues because at a smaller business each team member is going to do more things and so. But we can help them even at a million dollars of revenue we can help them get. We have a clearer path, you know, by working on the business together and establishing a good financial habits early on. That's adjusted to the size that they're at. Like you know, one million dollar company is going to do financial practices very different than a 15-month dollar company or 25 million dollar company.

David Spray
So what would you say is like your sweet spot, you know revenue-wise, where you just really feel like you really can gel.

Kirk McLaren
Somebody coming in at that five to 20 million level and if they want to double or triple outcomes and maybe it's top line, maybe it's bottom line, but they want to double or triple outcomes that's a good bet, okay that is helpful.

David Spray
And talk to me about the three-person team. Is everybody on the team the same or do they have different skills that you're trying to bring together to serve your client?

Kirk McLaren
Yeah the team consists of. There's a growth CFO which is the front stage weekly interaction and collaboration and action with the client and their team. Then, somewhat behind the scene, there's a growth CFO partner we call leads, who's making sure that we're not stuck or seeing things. They're working somewhat behind the scenes. They come in maybe quarterly with the client, you know, just to make sure that it's broader. And then the third person is an analyst or a accountant, right depending on kind of what the business needs, and they're doing lots of legwork. Like, for example, we come in to a client, we do a financial health check to make sure we don't miss something useful, including looking at, you know, tax incentives like export and R&D and stuff. We're not the expert on that by any means, but we'll look.

Level one. You know what is there a possibility that's being done by the analysts and accounting team roughly 20 to 40 hours of laywork all backstage. We're not trying to put any more burden on the client. You know the CFO and their team, so that they have a case. We work, we have a multi-year view to your destination and then we plan in detail and follow through in 90 day sprints where your project may be level what we over or under you know on a day to basis and that's kind of the cadence, but it's a very you can imagine an account and accountant or analyst is going to see some things differently than a CFO and a CFO partner to say, huh, we're status quo, there's a bigger opportunity. This is the kink in the hose for this CEO.

We do the diagnostics in the areas of new client acquisition, people capacity. We've seen a lot of best practices, so we kind of have these. Let's look at from recruiting to onboarding, to that performance management. What's what could help these be even better for that to create a remarkable people environment that they want. Okay, so the team members sometimes it's the part of guy saying, hi, it's not here, it's here.

David Spray
Yeah, and then you said the front stage person another strategic coach term front stage backstage. So you've you've just absorbed all this. It's second nature to you. So what's the cadence that I hear you say weekly? Is that the typical meeting cadence, or is it twice a month?

Kirk McLaren
Yeah, it's for for the full service. You know companies doing five million plus where it's good fit. Every week we're doing a huddle at least 25 minutes is the calibrate and then the growth ceo is working with whoever the right person is in that in the client's company. Okay, get the outcomes they're looking for and that clue is developing the managers to use the numbers, and but that it's a weekly cadence for internally we're dedicated one full day. The growth ceo is one full day to each client, totally blocked off, dedicated in the zone, and there's roughly over the course of a year there's roughly a full second day with the other two members of the team.

You know that kind of thing, there's certain periods of the year that have more work and other periods that have, like the diagnostics, or there's more work for the backstage team members.

David Spray
Okay, no, that's that's really helpful and that's it. I've met other fractional CFO type companies, but the three person team seems seems like a unique concept. Well, I can't believe how quickly the time has gone by. A couple more questions. What do you wish? What do you wish you knew when you were 25?

Kirk McLaren
I wish I was kind of guy, very task-oriented, tell her to the desk driving outcomes. I wish that myself now could have said hey, Kirk, that's great, but you also get out there and meet remarkable people and develop beyond trust, develop a relationship with them, because that's how you're going to unlock the bigger purpose, the bigger impact.

David Spray
I really like that. I ask that question to most of my guests and some of the answers have a constant theme, but that's really a unique answer. Get away from the desk and go meet remarkable people, yeah.

Kirk McLaren
I mean even next week I've been working with a person by the name of Janet Hogan and she's in Australia. So just by the accent alone she's worth working with. And come to learn that this is recent right. I come to learn that the way I do vacation, I like freedom, so I go any place. I went to Venezuela years ago when I was in my twenties nothing better backpack lived there for a year.

I had no agenda, that kind of submit people, things, great things came out of including my wife, 26 years, married two boys, that kind of stuff. Never expected that going in, but I was there. So that's how I do vacation and I work with Janet Hogan. I come to realize wait a minute, janet, do you mean I can just travel places like next week I'm going to Florida. All week I have a few meetings that have no agenda. These are clients, prospects, partners. I just want to get to know them and you see me get excited. You mean that's work because it feels like vacation. You mean I can actually do that. So I've got lined up now one week per month I'm just going to no agenda line up meetings, meet people, kind of see where they are and what's going on.

David Spray
I'm more freedom involved in that, isn't it. I love the Australian accent. My iPhone Siri is an Australian woman.

Kirk McLaren
Yeah, so that's how the wisdom goes by, you can see with the Australian actor.

David Spray
Oh, you mean wait a minute, yeah, so yeah in fact it seems like if all the people from, I guess, the English Commonwealth the Australian seemed to me just to be the most freedom focused. I mean they just seem all about walk about. I think is their term to just kind of go wandering.

Kirk McLaren
Yeah, yeah, they do seem to value, like there's a level of individualism but also consideration for others that you need uniquely Australian, and I remember we had team members there in Australia and they would have. Yeah, I think they're agreeing, but they're not agreeing, they're just being friendly, they're just being wild, say wait a minute.

David Spray
How about that? So, kirk, what else? What did I not ask you that you wish I would have, as we're wrapping up, A good question.

Kirk McLaren
So I'm really excited. Like for me, the bigger here's one, the bigger purpose, right? Okay, yeah, I have a business. What's coming out of from the? From launching the book, I'm becoming the freedom guy. So you know, beyond reimagining the CFOs, actually going out and coaching people how they gain freedom, but more from a speaking, so speaking is becoming big. Right, I'm going out talk to groups of all sizes. The bigger purpose is like, like CPAs, you know, accountants have the CPA certified public accountant exam. So I would love the CR growth, cfo certification which every employee who comes into the business goes through that and they re certify every year. I would love to see that catch on.

And you know the bigger impact for financial people to go beyond tasks, how to become that beyond trust, that true navigator with the CEO. Because with the rise of the machine, with the machines doing more of the labor, more of the analytics, more of the tasks, like I think machines will do easily 80, 90% of what normal accountants, normal CPAs, do. So the best financial people, the ones who succeed, are going to have a great life or the ones who can take that last, the last mile of work and able to help other people across the organization and external use that information. Wow, you mean these are the customers. And then you brought up in more focus than that. That is the financial professional who's going to have an awesome life, the ones that are holding on to the past trying to compete with AI. Good, luck.

David Spray
Yeah, great, I agree. Well, that is awesome. So we talked about the bigger purpose, we talked about the history, talked about the three person team, talked about what a growth CFO is, talked about the book. I think we've really packed a lot of information into a little over a half an hour. Well, I really appreciate your time, Kirk. This has really been fun and I've enjoyed getting to know you a bit more. Discover the cradle principle commonality, the strategic coach commonality. This has been fun. I think we should continue this conversation offline in the future. What do you say?

Kirk McLaren
I would love to do that and I'm going to be in Houston soon. My son moved down there, the Army officer teaching at the University of all things. So, accident, that's not an Army duty either, but so I'll be in your neighborhood often.

David Spray
That sounds great. Well, we definitely need to get together. Well, hey, kirk, again, I really appreciate the time, and best of luck is you're helping these companies reimagine their future.

Kirk McLaren
Yeah, and David, thank you for inviting me to tell my story, because I don't get many opportunities to do this, so I thank you really so much.

David Spray
Oh, hey, my pleasure. Have a great day, Kirk. Thank you, see you.