Get to know Daryl La Fountain and some of his CFO opinions? In the early stages of a company, CEOs get involved in everything. As your growth ramps up, however, you must become strategic with your time. You need to put systems in place for building and scaling a financially viable business while preserving your attention for mission-critical items. As a fractional CFO for growth companies, I help clients navigate this shift on a daily basis, and I’ve found the following tips useful in nearly every situation. Every business leader understands they need a strategy for attracting and converting new leads into customers. But when you’re growing sales on a budget, you need to be creative. Instead of costly ad campaigns or branding strategies, I’d recommend you build strong, reciprocal partnerships first and that you do so as soon as possible. I’m not referring to simple networking. I’m talking about identifying companies with business models that complement your own and approaching them with a win-win proposition. The relationship can be formal or informal, but the key is to offer something valuable in exchange for inexpensive exposure to your target audience.
Daryl La Fountain‘s advices on improving your firm financial situation: Separate Your Business and Personal Finances: One of the best ways to organize your business finances is to separate them from the personal ones. By splitting these things up, it’s much easier and faster to keep track of business expenses for tax purposes and other related uses. Remember, when you mix your business and personal funds, you may lose track of all your finances. This will jeopardize your organization in the long run. Thus, in order to ensure the separation of your personal and business finances, consider opening a distinct bank account. If you have credit cards, it’s best to designate one of them for business expenses. By doing this, you can keep everything organized, especially in terms of the financial aspect of your company.
Just as your parents probably sent you off to kindergarten with high hopes of preparing you for success in a world that seemed eons away, you need to plan for your retirement well in advance. Because of the way compound interest works, the sooner you start saving, the less principal you’ll have to invest to end up with the amount you need to retire. Why start saving for your retirement in your 20s? Here’s an Investopedia example: You start investing in the market at $100 a month, averaging a positive return of 1% a month or 12% a year, compounded monthly over 40 years. Your friend, who is the same age, doesn’t begin investing until 30 years later and invests $1,000 a month for 10 years, also averaging 1% a month or 12% a year, compounded monthly. After 10 years, your friend will have saved up around $230,000. Your retirement account will be a bit over $1.17 million. Company-sponsored retirement plans are a particularly great choice, because you get to put in pretax dollars and companies will often match part of your contribution, which is like getting free money.
Sadly, you can’t really kick-start your financial future if you’re carrying a ton of debt. Between sky-high interest rates, large minimum monthly payments, and the damage lots of debt can do to your credit score, you’re better off paying your debts first. Create a debt pay-off strategy and be patient but consistent when working toward becoming debt-free. If you are serious about building wealth, then you’re going to need to put your money to work for you. This is where investing comes in. However, before you put any of your hard-earned money into investments, it’s important to have well-defined objectives. Think about what the investment is for when you’ll need your money and what your risk tolerance. Investing is a long-term activity, so you have to commit to it if you really want to see your money grow. Worried that you’ll need your money in the short term? Well, that’s what your savings accounts are for; to put aside your emergency savings and money for your short-term goals (i.e. money you’ll need in 5 years or less). You also want to make sure you have a basic understanding (at the minimum) of any investment you put your money into (e.g. the stock market, real estate, or small business). Your plans to invest should be included as a part of your monthly budget where you allocate a certain percentage of your income toward your investment goals.
About Daryl LaFountain: Daryl is an energetic professional CFO with a background in politics. Daryl has done fundraising, been a candidate, and worked in politically appointed positions in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia. Daryl has worked for Democratic candidates and nominees in 18 additional states. Are just entering the political realm and need some advice (Daryl has been there).