“The type of person that we had to look for to be a virtual CFO is completely different than the type of person that we looked for to be an accountant.” Jody Grunden
My guest today is Jody Grunden. Jody is the CEO and co-founder of Summit CPA Group, a fully distributed virtual CFO firm. He has authored two books, Digital Dollars, Cents, and Building the Virtual CFO Firm in the Cloud. He won multiple awards, including recognition of Tony’s Top Innovative Practitioner by cpa.com.
In today’s episode, Jody will discuss what he’s done to position his organization in a way to compete in the accounting profession uniquely.
Our accounting company was set up to do things differently from other accounting firms. We did the flat fee, which allowed us to get rid of the hourly billing entirely and significantly cut administrative costs. We created a subscription-based billing where our clients got a bill and got the money zapped out of their account every week. We started working remotely in 2013, and the business has evolved with the idea of taking risks and doing things that no other firm has ever done.
The type of person we had to look for to be a virtual CFO is entirely different from what we looked for to be an accountant. Accountants think and act entirely differently where they are risk-averse and very to the books. The personalities for virtual CFOs include risk-taking, the ability to communicate well with people, high EQ, and helping people solve their problems. We developed a program internally to help that client or CFO and educate them on how to communicate their messages.
It took eight years to figure out how to price my products and know that people would pay for them. The key is pricing it right to pay your employees well, have happy employees, and ensure that the customers are satisfied. To have a solid base to give your customers, it takes a lot of trial and error and listening to feedback from clients.