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Small Business Chief Financial Officer / Controller
You are a thoughtful, considerate and insightful human being who enjoys helping small business owners understand, interpret and make courageous decisions based on what their financial statements are saying, instead of allowing their feelings to run the show.
You are able to educate, “break it down” and connect the dots between the client’s financials, their motivations and help the client make better decisions, so they can realize their personal, professional and financial goals.
You are willing to question the client’s beliefs, challenge their “stories”, test their assumptions and use your own life experiences (& maybe a little bit of humor) to help them explore their options and chart a course to a better future.
You are experienced enough not to take it personally when a client is afraid to follow your advice and you also know that “just explaining things” isn’t enough unless the client takes the necessary action(s) to produce results. No Results = No Value.
You are a great communicator, an enthusiastic team player and a creative problem solver who takes 100% personal responsibility for yourself and you have trained yourself to look for and find the opportunity(ies) in every problem. You have a bias fo growth and know that an entrepreneur can’t cost-cut their way to prosperity; we can only invest our way there.
And yes! You can read, interpret, analyze, explain and spot the problems and the opportunities in a set of financials. You can go toe-to-toe with the client’s bookkeeper about unacceptable variances on a bank rec and explain to them step-by-step how to fix the problem(s) so you can get a set of financials you can use to help our clients spot trends & opportunities and make better decisions and take action. No Action = No Results.
Who Are We?
We are How To Manage A Small Law Firm. But let’s get this out of the way up-front: you don’t need to have prior law firm management experience to qualify for this job. We can (and we will) teach you everything you need to know about small law firm financial management. (a good place to begin is by reading “Profit First For Lawyers”) For now, please just pretend we said “small business” instead of law firm because law firms are also businesses. Bonus points if you already knew this. Most lawyers don’t. Which is why we are looking for authentic human beings who possess a high degree of emotional intelligence to join our team instead of just hiring a bunch of technicians.
Our business was started from the co-founders’ dining room table (literally) and has been named by Inc Magazine as one of the 5,000 Fastest Growing Privately Owned Companies every year since we first made the list way-back in 2013. We currently help to manage more than 500 of some of the fastest-growing small law firms across all practice areas and from all across the Country. We are on pace to more than double in the next 24 months which is why we now have several openings for unique people (hopefully like you) to join our team in this role.
We do not care about your race, religion, national origin or how you love. And we really like to work with parents of young children because we find they value the flexibility of this role and the fact that we offer an amazing benefits package, unlimited PTO and when our kids “Zoom Bomb” us in meetings, too.
We work hard, we play hard and we pay well. We are very much a values-driven organization with a sense of humor and a strong commitment to helping all our clients and everyone we employ make real, meaningful and measurable progress toward their (your) goals. (Please read or listen to “The Dream Manager” written by Matthew Kelly).
We take (and we give) 100% personal responsibility. We have high standards. When we make mistakes (yes, we make mistakes) we apologize, seek top learn from the mistake and then we work to make it right. We expect the same from everyone who works with us.
“Wow, this seems like an amazing opportunity. . . but what exactly is the job?!?!”
How To Manage A Small Law Firm functions as the CEO, COO, CFO, &/or CMO for more than 500 of some of the fastest-growing solo & small law firms in The United States. We also provide Controllership services and we have a bookkeeping business, too. Our clients are law firms across the country with gross revenues mostly under $10MM. More than half our clients are law firms with gross revenue under $1MM. This is why they need us to step in and provide “fractional”/“timeshare” C-Suite services.
Our clients pay us a monthly retainer and we provide various packages of services depending on the stage of growth the law firm is in and how ambitious the law firm owner is.
Most of our clients are single-shareholder firms which means the help we provide to their business directly impacts on the owner’s home life as well.
The job you’re reading about is to become one of our fractional/timeshare CFOs.
We do all the marketing, we do all the sales, and we assign you to a pod/team usually made up of a “Lead CEO”, COO, CFO (you), and sometimes a CMO, too.
You will work remotely from your home office with up to 30 of our clients, meeting with each of them twice a month for about an hour = about 60 hours a month of client-facing time. Plus about an hour a month working on each client’s file by yourself to prep., analyze, etc. Plus, you’ll have your “Pod Meetings” to discuss your shared roster, align on strategy, compare notes, etc. Plus we have regularly scheduled “all team meetings” for training, companywide communication, etc. All together we expect it to be about 1,700-1,900 hours a year which converts to about about a 40-45 hour a week job. But with a lot of flexibility. You’ll be invited to travel to attend live meetings where all our clients gather on a quarterly basis but you aren’t required to do so unless we believe your performance warrants it (for training purposes).
During your scheduled meetings with the clients who are assigned to you (and who you may accept or decline an assignment to work with) you will function as the CFO of their law firm. This means you will read, analyze, interpret, make sense of, and spot problems & opportunities in their financials ahead-of-time, which is the easy part.
Then fun begins when you meet with the client (via Zoom or telephone) to help them see what you can plainly see, help them face up to facts (instead of making decisions based on their feelings), present options, lay-down-the-law, call out the b.s., agree on plans and hold them accountable for taking agreed actions which they very often find to be somewhat intimidating but you will dig deep to find a way to help them find the courage, clarity and commitment to do it anyway!
“That seems pretty reasonable. Exciting, even! What’s the compensation”?
You will earn a base salary of $110,000 with performance-based compensation that is intended to get you to $180,000 per year. Plus, a very generous benefits package which includes medical, dental & vision for you & your family which is covered at 75%.
We also provide short-term & long-term disability insurance at no cost to you and up to 3.5% match on your 401K, pet insurance, legal coverage an E.A.P. program, unlimited PTO and a TON of opportunities for personal & professional growth that our clients pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for that you may take advantage of for free (but only if you want it).
Our company is closed for the week of Thanksgiving, and you will also be required to schedule one additional week off per year.
We work really, really hard to only hire “A Players” and we have a strict “No A-holes” policy for clients & staff alike. This is a high-performance environment that is not right for everyone, and we are getting better at spotting & NOT hiring people who won’t thrive in this fast-paced, constantly changing, no two days are the same, “we eat pivot for breakfast”, 100% personal responsibility, “no excuses” entrepreneurial (and intrapreneurial) environment.
Still with us?
OK, great! To be super-successful in this role you should be the sort of person who reads a budget variance for fun. You think a trend report can be “very exciting”. And the thought of creating a cash flow forecast sends tingles up your spine. (One of our CFO’s actually said that!)
You must have a very strong background in financial and/or accounting roles with a business degree, preferably with an emphasis in accounting or finance. Must have hands-on experience advising small business owners who are under-capitalized and not particularly financially literate. Must be able to spot and explain in plain English the sources & uses of cash to a business owner who does not know what “sources & uses of cash” means. Must be able to recognize when & why there is a risk of non-compliance with requisite federal & state remittances based on trends in the balance sheet and be able to identify where there is a deficiency in performance on the P&L, present multiple approaches for correcting the issue and be prepared to hold the client accountable for taking the necessary steps to get themselves out of crazy town.
Please be prepared to discuss with glee, the joy you derive from creating budgets and financial forecasts and have hands-on FP&A experience.
This job can be enormously fulfilling as we help educate, elevate and empower small business entrepreneurs to make better decisions, build better businesses and live better lives. But if you don’t like the minutae this job will kill you. Because this isn’t about theories and it’s not just hypotheticals, these are real people’s lives we’re having an impact on.
You absolutely will get the opportunity to be a high-level innovative and strategic thinker; but that goes hand-in-hand with executing the day-to-day tactics that make the strategies real.
We often enter a new engagement and must help assess the completeness & integrity of data in the client’s systems before we can even begin to make sense of what is happening in the business. And oftentimes we must have enough confidence to able to persuade the client to invest in best practices regarding financial controls even when the client lacks the education, experience (or battle scars) to appreciate the distinction between an “expense” vs. something that is “expensive”.
Please do not apply for this job if you’re basically just a quickbooks operator. Please do not apply for this job if you expect to delegate all the down & dirty analysis to someone else. Please do not apply for this job if what you really want to be doing is writing a textbook on accounting theory. Please do not apply for this job if you can only thrive in a highly structured “corporate” environment. Please do not apply for this job if you’ve never rolled-up your sleeves and had to find a way to make things work in a start-up environment. Please do not apply for this job if you can’t “roll with the punches” and/or lack a sense of humor.
This is a FULL TIME role that is remote.
We’re going to say this again because for some strange reason people sometimes think that “remote” = “part time”. This is NOT a part time job.
This is a FULL TIME JOB that you get to perform from home. But it’s full time. Please, please, please do not apply for this job and then act surprised when you “discover” that it’s a full-time job because we’re going to say it one more time. . .this is a full time job.
If you are reading this and you are NOT a total lunatic it might surprise you to know how many people read “This is a full time job” and then complain when they “discover” that it’s NOT a part time job! Thank you for bearing with us as there are unfortunately alot of lunatics out-there, who are trying to get in-here.
ALSO. . . and this really sucks to say but this is the world we live in. . . we can only hire people from the following states. In case you are wondering why, the explanation is that if we hire someone from any other state then we get taxed to death from those states and we’d rather save money on taxes and pay higher salaries, benefits, invest in more training etc. If you are an amazing candidate and you do not live in one of the states listed above, please consider this the next time you go to the polls or write your state legislature and say “This sucks, I’m not being considered for a great high-paying job because the business owners who would employ me doesn’t want to have to pay income tax in a state they don’t even live in!” (Yeah, we know. It sucks).
PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS
- Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
- Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times.
TRAVEL
- Occasional travel will be required for quarterly conference participation
Position Type / Expected Hours of Work
- This is a full-time position, and hours of work and days are to be determined in conjunction with supervisor. Occasional evening and weekend work may be required as job duties demand.
At this time we are only able to hire new employees in the following states, AZ, CO, FL, GA, IL, MD, MI, NC, NJ, NY, PA, TX, VA, WA.