The fundamental deliverable of the Fractional CFO is the monthly CFO call. I like to think of it as our Super Bowl - it's what we've been working toward all month and it's where we deliver value to our clients.

I've had a ton of coaching sessions with other Fractional CFOs who wonder, "What should I be doing the rest of the month?"

It's during the rest of the month that we gather the crucial insights that empower us to deliver a world-class CFO call.

It's through the work that we do the rest of the month that we earn our stripes.

Today, I'm going to share some ideas on how you might spend the rest of your month preparing for the best CFO call possible.

What a Typical Month Might Look Like

Let's assume that a calendar month has 4 weeks (yes, technically, the average month has 4.33 weeks, but let's just roll with 4 today!). 

Each of the four weeks has a specific theme that will help you prepare for the coming CFO call.

Generally speaking, we conduct our monthly CFO calls on Week 3. That allows for sufficient time for the accounting to be closed out and for you to do your analysis.

For this blog, we'll start our monthly journey on calendar Week 3 and progress through each week of the month.

WEEK 3: The CFO Call

As I mentioned earlier, Week 3 is kind of your Super Bowl week. 

Two big things should happen during Week 3.

First, you should send the client your agenda for the CFO call about three business days before the call. In the agenda, you should share your thesis or major idea for the call and the key ideas or issues you plan on discussing. You should ask for feedback on these issues and ask if there are any other pressing issues that the client wants to discuss.

This is a very important step in ensuring that your priorities and the client's priorities are in alignment. It also goes a long way in ensuring that you don't get blindsided by a fresh, new problem on the call that you were completely unaware of and unprepared for (this is NOT fun when it happens). 

The second big deliverable for Week 3 is the CFO call itself. If you want to know more about the CFO call itself, check out THIS YouTube video or The CFO Academy.

WEEK 4: Projects, Deep Dives, Action Items

During your monthly CFO calls, there will frequently be some follow-up items that you need to dive into.

Examples of those are wide-ranging:

• Pulling sales data from the CRM
• Crunching numbers to determine trends
• Evaluating asset lease vs. buy vs. rent decisions
• Helping put together an employee bonus structure

I have found that Week 4 is the best time to focus on these projects because of how dense the rest of the month tends to be. 

This is also a great time for you to complete any action items that you agreed to take during the CFO call (see Week 3).These might include pinging the bookkeeper with questions, reaching out to the CPA about a tax strategy, or working with the controller to resolve a question about the WIP report.

WEEK 1: The Check-In Call 

I DESPISE the idea of a check-in call (almost as much as I despise the idea of a Follow-Up call)

The reason the idea of a "check-in call" ruffles my feathers is because most people handle those calls like this:

Hey (client), I just wanted to check in and see how things are going! 

And then the client responds like this:

We're good. Nothing much is going on.

Well, that was a waste of everyone's calendar space.

There are actually some really important things that should be happening on the Check-In call:
• Cash flow updates
• Operational updates
• Tactical financial discussions
• Progress towards action items (accountability)

The Check-In Call is your mid-month conversation to help ensure that you're up to date and caught up on all the things that are happening in the business and to make sure that actions are being taken as planned.

WEEK 2: Preparation

Week 2 is essential!  

In Week 2, you'll typically spend most of your time on client work—as many as 5+ hours per client.

Week 2 is when you review the books, conduct your FP&A magic, review your notes from previous CFO calls, update forecasts and projections, prepare the CFO Report, consider your clients' personal and business goals, put together the agenda for the CFO call (see Week 3), and develop the narrative for the call itself.

Preparation is crucial, and it's only through this preparation that you can deliver a meaningful CFO report.

Confidence is Earned Through Preparation

Even though the CFO call is delivered in Week 3, significant work has to be done throughout the month to prepare for the call. Waiting until the last minute to get it all done will show.

One of the questions Fractional CFOs ask me most frequently is, "How do I gain more confidence on CFO calls?" 

My answer is always the same: Confidence is earned through preparation.