SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Welcome to the Cut the Tide Podcast. Hello, I'm your host, Thomas Elfric, on a mission to help you cut the tie to whatever it is holding you back from success. Now, you have to define the success yourself. If you don't, you're chasing someone else's dream and you're gonna be angry, lonely, and living in your office in your house. Joke. It's a good option, though. Today I'm joined by Carl Meyer. Carl, how are you?

SPEAKER_00: 0:20

Very good.

SPEAKER_01: 0:21

Good to be here. It's Carl with a K and Meyer M-A-I-E-R. So if you guys want to go stalk him, uh Carl, before we start, just tell them where they should stalk you as you're talking here.

SPEAKER_00: 0:32

Oh, LinkedIn is the place. So yeah, LinkedIn slash in slash Carl K Meyer.

SPEAKER_01: 0:39

Carl K. Meyer. All right, Google it, M-A-I-E-R. All right, Carl, who are you? Where are you from? And what is it you do?

SPEAKER_00: 0:46

I'm Carl Meyer. I help companies grow and manage the cash, get the cash or manage the cash they need to do that. So kind of a CFO for hire. And I operate out of Houston, Texas, but I I work with companies all over the US and actually all over the globe. I had a company in UK and Dubai and the US all at the same time. Crazy. And so yeah, that's a little bit about me.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16

So now there's there's a handful of fractional CFOs. I've seen ageism just creep into the Gen X and the young baby boomer groups. And they're basically like, screw it. They don't actually need me full-time. Everyone knows it. Um why you? Why why should they pick you? Give me the uniqueness of Carl Meyer.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36

Yeah, actually, I love working with other fractional CFOs on projects because my focus is either capital raise, rapid growth, all the systems and processes that go into that and managing the cash and then the uh you know buying other companies or merging in and all the uh all the fun stuff that goes with that. So I'm your CFO for all the crazy stuff, not so much the cool monthly reporting stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 2:04

Not for the run rate, it's for getting getting it done. Yeah. So if you're broke and you have no cash, you can't manage it to hire him. Very good. Unless you have a little bit of cash to hire him and he can go raise. Yeah, it would be illegal to promise your fee based on what you raise. CP violation.

SPEAKER_00: 2:20

Yeah. We'll work out those details. We'll keep lawyers at bay, and it'll all be good, and not buy any uh SEC or any of those laws or anything. He'll find a way, guys. Right, right. Yeah, we can we'll keep it all above board, and we got uh lots of tools at our disposal.

SPEAKER_01: 2:39

So um how do you define success?

SPEAKER_00: 2:43

Uh for me, I was talking to a friend at uh breakfast today, and he's uh kind of in the lending banking kind of world, and he was you know, we're talking about like business owners and when should they borrow and should they grow? And you know, what I said to him, you know, is like, well, there's a lot of business owners out there that you know they they own their car, they own their house, it's all paid off, they take nice, you know, vacations, the kids' school's paid for, they get a little money saved up for retirement. I mean, they're good. And they may have a you know, a company that's doing 2 million in sales or 20 million in sales or 200 million in sales, and it's you know, the one may, you know, vacation on a$30 million ranch, and the other one vacations in a you know timeshare in in Puerto Virta, you know, different standards, but you know, to me, that's kind of you know, success as I view it is you know, can you take a little vacation, enjoy your work, and not have the stress of things not meeting your expectation? So yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:55

I like that. It's not a control of your calendar, it's control of your uh your enjoyment of life. Let's say it that way. It's like choose to go airstream or you choose to buy a ranch for 30 million so you can enjoy it for the weekend. It's crazy. I don't want anybody else there, it's mine. That's that's well, by the way. If you could just write a check for 30 million, it doesn't even change the left two numbers of your overall existence. Awesome. Bad and good for you. Uh tell me about your journey a little bit and maybe a couple of the eyes along the way you've had a cut to to get to that success that you just defined.

SPEAKER_00: 4:30

Yeah, I've had a couple little uh diversions in my journey over the years. Uh worked corporate for a while, got pulled into the family business, had some great growth. We grew 5x in the first three years I was there and did all kinds of cool CFO stuff, ERP systems, more bank loans, all that great stuff. And then my dad fell in love with inventory, so that led us in a different direction. Eventually, I I went off and did some other stuff. So that was a that was a big kind of cut the tie moment. Um, then uh I took a CFO job with another company. Man, we grew like crazy great, great CEO, owner of the company in 7X in four years, but then he got sick, like never ever come back into work again sick. And his wife took over, and men and the same employees, customers, all that, and the company went down faster than it went up. So there was another okay, we uh pulled a ripcord and parachute out of here. So that was another one, and so I I've I've had several along the way, so it's been a fun tool.

SPEAKER_01: 5:44

But what's so what's been the biggest tie that we've got to cut? Like, for it, like, is it just a realization of instability, or like what's the what's the one you're like, I have to let this go to be successful?

SPEAKER_00: 5:54

Well, I could be so after that that second CFO job, I took a fractional CFO role through a regional accounting firm. So, you know, they've got lots of clients, they like the CFO stuff to offer to the clients, so it's a great fit. But after doing that for several years and kind of building up the playbook, I kind of realized that the limits of the accounting firm, they've got all their rules and how you do this, how you do that, which are important for a CPA firm, but it just weren't a fit with the type of things I was trying to do with raising capital and rapid growth. And, you know, there was no way for me to take kind of a piece of the upside in there. And so kind of coming to terms with I'm gonna have to let go of that steady paycheck and the big firm's marketing and all those things, is that that was a that was a pretty big cut the type moment for me.

SPEAKER_01: 6:54

What have you discovered about that steady paycheck? Have you found that uh I don't want to leave the witness here, but have you found that maybe that was a falsity or something you bought into, or or have you really like no, it was it truly was stable.

SPEAKER_00: 7:09

Like let's take uh uh yeah, I was actually had lunch with a guy yesterday, and we were also kind of talking about that, and he's on his own, and we're talking about a friend that took a full full-time role, and I was like, well, you know, from a CFO perspective, not like, oh, I'm doing the books kind of as a controller, but really a CFO is tends to be projects, you know, and we're gonna implement a system, we're gonna raise capital, we're gonna merge or whatever it is, it's a project. And I was like, unless you you're with a really, really big company, hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue that has a just an endless supply of projects, a CFO is a you know, it's a two to three year project at best, even if you're full-time. So it's which lumpiness do you want? You know, okay, I've got three years of a study paycheck, and then I've six months plus of looking for a job, you know, or I can be a fractional CFO, and you know, I've got five or six clients, and I lose one, maybe even lose two. So my income drops, and that's kind of lumpy, but it didn't like go away, and it doesn't take me six months to find a new one. So um it's which kind of lumpiness do you want?

SPEAKER_01: 8:31

Right. And the upside of a fractional is at some point you're very busy, but you're making two and a half times what you might have been making.

unknown: 8:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 8:38

And and and then when you have the six-month law, you can choose that or just be like, Well, I can I can take a breath uh as well. So I and I and I think the the stresses of having multiple incomes maybe not fully added up to the other one, or it's also more fun, too, I think. But I I love that. Uh I love the concept of it. Getting there is one thing. You know, as sitting as a fractional CMO, it occurred to me I probably should connect with more fractional CFOs since they hold the budgets, and I know my value proposition is significant relative to what most people offer. So I'm like, eh, I think I'm gonna have to reapproach myself of who do you work for and how do you bring me in? We're right. Right. Because the truth is, like, there that's part of your role is hey, how do we make the money work better to get more sales at a more effective ROI? Uh I I get that equation all day long.

SPEAKER_00: 9:25

Yeah, it's a win-win to work together. Love working with fractionals, uh, fractional CFOs, CMOs. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 9:34

Awesome. Um tell me a little bit about uh what you're grateful for today.

SPEAKER_00: 9:40

Well, I I'm grateful number one for my health, number two for my family, and number three, that it's a pretty good world when you can make a living without like lifting stuff and carrying stuff around. So I saw my grandparents, you know, my grandfathers worked with their hands, and as they got older, it it got tougher. And so I'm I'm really grateful to be able to help people keep their businesses from running into whatever trouble or helping them grow to a certain point. So I'm I'm also grateful that I'm able to do that, do things that help other families and business owners.

SPEAKER_01: 10:19

I love that. And do you feel grateful for the kind of the time of available to you, like just in in general from like your family, like that you're choosing who you get to work with and when you get to work with them?

SPEAKER_00: 10:30

Right. Right. Yeah, that is a a really, really powerful thing. You know, my wife and I have access to a little vacation place up on the lake, and so we were able to spend three or four days up there, and we had, yeah, we were both working remotely, but we had the flexibility to do that. It wasn't like, well, the boss says I gotta be there Monday morning and you know, nothing I can do about it. It's like, okay, well, we're gonna stay up for the weekend and we'll drive back Tuesday. So there you go.

SPEAKER_01: 11:03

I love that. Did you discover uh any of the things like uh after you made a move and you have the scary kind of you had a good sound like like you had a natural opportunity available, which typically in my experience, when people are they have that, they have a skill set that's sought out, and people have just been waiting for you to get bored or wherever you are. Uh but have you discovered anything along the way that you didn't realize you were gonna that you enjoyed or that was like, oh man, I didn't know it was gonna be like this.

SPEAKER_00: 11:28

Yeah. Yeah. Um the marketing aspect is something that I've certainly been learning. The finance acts aspect uh is something I feel really, really confident about. And the the management, which goes hand in hand with the the finance, is something that I've found a lot of little things that kind of share with business owners and managers that can help them move their business ahead. And it's kind of ancillary to what I do, it's not the main thing that I'm doing, but it's like it's another way I can be helpful. And and that wasn't really something that I'd I'd been able to do through the accounting firm or even just seeing the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01: 12:15

Yeah, that that's great. And it's it it's those little discoveries you're like, oh, that's it's kind of nice. I find those interesting. Uh if you could go back though on your timeline at any point, you know, when would you go back? What would you do differently?

SPEAKER_00: 12:28

I I would leave the accounting firm probably after two years instead of four. So, you know, it's I I'd really learned what I needed to learn at that point, and I just really didn't jump off as as quickly as I might have.

SPEAKER_01: 12:47

So yeah, and that's a common response, right? I wish I would have done it earlier. The flip side of that is would I've had enough information? It sounds like for you, it's like, oh, I definitely had enough to do it. It just it was a matter of doing it. Um that's that's important. Do you have a do you have like a favorite favorite, but uh maybe for the okay, let me say it this way for the CEO that should hire you. What would be a book they should read?

SPEAKER_00: 13:13

The for CEO to hire me, you know, I guess there's a couple things that I'm that come to mind. You know, one is they are gonna have a concern about getting the cash they need. And that might be new cash, debt, equity that to make a project happen, or it could be let's make sure we maintain the cash in the business so we don't run out of cash as we're as we're growing or going through the turmoil of I mean, the economy's kind of in a little bit crazy state right now. So that's kind of why they come to me. And then when they do come to me, the thing I'm looking for is are they open to a couple suggestions? It's not like, oh, whatever I tell them, they're gonna do. But are they, you know, are is there a degree of openness to some new ideas? That's I think that's really important.

SPEAKER_01: 14:12

That's a really good perspective to give to them because if they're coming in telling you what to do versus being open to what you're doing, uh have you been in the spot where you've you've just declined an offer to work with CEO because you just the problem is the CEO? Yeah, last month. Were you in it, or is it during your kind of due diligence to take it on?

SPEAKER_00: 14:34

Uh that one I stepped into it. I was like, well, I know there's some risks here, but we got to an inflection point. I'm like, okay, we we've gotten you here, but at this point, I should move on. You know, I'm not I'm not really adding value at this point. So, you know. Um, yeah, and it it wasn't, you know, maybe it was upset. It just like, okay, well, yeah, that's a good point. See ya.

SPEAKER_01: 15:01

You know, pack up your shit and get out of here. Don't let the door jump there. Then you leave the door open for sure. Like, oh you know, just just see you can get out of I mean that's only only fair, I believe. Um what's the what's the worst business advice you've ever heard?

SPEAKER_00: 15:19

The worst? Um well I I literally heard a guy one time say, Yeah, I I lose money on every unit, but I'm gonna make it up on volume. You know, and it's like, did you really just say that out loud?

unknown: 15:36

Really?

SPEAKER_01: 15:36

Yeah. Was this plan to raise money, build a Ponzi scheme, and then just cash out? I mean, like that that's the path there.

SPEAKER_00: 15:43

I it must have been because it went over my head. I was like, you're selling a product, not a service, not a financial, you know, you're not trying to get market share. It's a come on, I, you know, it's like, good luck with that dude, you know. You know, so uh, you know, and yeah, there's all kinds of of misconceptions people have. I've got a turnaround certification, so I've helped people deal with like uh bankruptcy, or hopefully before they get to bankruptcy, things are really tight. And one of the big misconceptions there is man, I just need to sell my way out of this problem. And it's like, well, slow down, slow down. Let's let's just talk through that real quick. Because, you know, what happens when you you sell another product? You know, you've got to pay people to do more work, and you've got to maybe pay vendors. Um, and then you're gonna sell it to the customer, and the customer's not gonna pay you for 30 or 60 days. So is your cash actually getting better or worse when you grow sales? And it's like what I think we may actually need to do for a while is reduce sales, focus on the high margin customers, and get some cash so you don't go out of business, and then we can work on start, you know, trying to grow in fact. That's another common misconception.

SPEAKER_01: 17:11

I I'm a small business, but I will tell you, I had a touch of ADHD medicine and a realization that though I liked having my teams full time, I really do. It was no longer an advantage to the company to do that. So we we we had an original model where we just pay for what you get done on the team and it was fine. And then we went to, hey, I'll just do it full time every week, the same. And then then you realize later, like, man, you know, it's it's just but then you look at other stuff, and all of a sudden I think I knocked out like 72% of operating costs without losing performance. We automated some things, did some stuff. And now it's like, man, running the company is a lot easier because I need a lot less cash to be able to pay myself and and keep the team around because customers come up, customers go down. Now that's an accordion that breathes with it, right? And I was like, uh, I wish I would have done that two years ago. And you're describing something now. It's like also I you you focus on your best customers of hey, how can I expand with you? How can I add value? And when you do that, all of a sudden it's like, oh, well, they accurate, you know, add on 20% more whatever. You're like, there's zero cost of sales, it's about the same delivery cost. You're like, cool. So it's just it's it's a really good way to build cash reserves um without and you get rid of all the dead weight stuff. I mean, that's part of your uh your role. So I like it. Yeah. I probably should have gotten a CFO. I probably should have hired you two years ago. You're like, dude, what are you doing? What is it?

SPEAKER_00: 18:36

That's right. Yeah. Every, you know, not moving as quickly as you should, not making those decisions. I mean, that's stuff for everybody, you know, whether it's leaving a company, cutting kind of cutting the tie, or is it you know, going out and finding that resource, whether it's a CFO or CMO or you know, whatever it is. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 18:54

Maybe uh one question here before you kind of wrap it, but how's AI impacting the fractional CFO world?

SPEAKER_00: 19:01

For accounting, you know, it's definitely you're seeing more and more things that AI can do here and there to record transactions. Accounting systems are getting smarter. Uh, for the CFO role, you know, it certainly was a great resource to make the CFO more efficient. You know, the the AIs at this point, who knows what they'll be in a year or whatever, but at this point, it they can help make me more efficient at doing the tasks I do, you know, whether it's writing pitch text or it's researching in potential investors, um, even with the uh like implementing ERP type systems or accounting systems, there's a lot of the AI can make my job easier and I can do things faster.

SPEAKER_01: 19:52

Yeah, and it's all on how you leverage it too, right? It's like you can overdo it.

SPEAKER_00: 19:57

Uh right. And but it's it's tricky to use properly. I mean, I'm seeing more and more of these prompts, AI prompts, that are two and even three and four pages long to tell the AI this is what I'm trying to do, and this is what I need you to how I need you to think about it, and then come back to me using this two-page long description. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 20:21

There's some there's some good technologies too, like uh Google Notebook LM, where if you you uploaded all the information you know about your services, your product, like everything, it'll only look at that and you can query it. Um, and actually from a company standpoint, if they put all their stuff there, like say from sales or marketing, then people can query it to ask questions so they don't have to go to HR or they have to go to and it something like that is so helpful and useful, and it's relatively easy to do as long as the data going in is controlled to some degree. So I think there's some there's some self-service models that at least can help people that move forward faster, say it that way, carefully. Um, if there was a question I should have asked you today, and I didn't. What is that question?

SPEAKER_00: 21:03

Um so we've hit a lot of the key questions that uh I think uh we should have hit, uh, talked about. Um I guess what's the results of you know what Doc given helped companies achieve? And I think that'd be uh a key one. And what I've seen is that a number of companies I've worked with have doubled their sales in two years and or kept going beyond that. So uh that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01: 21:32

I mean, because that's how you get hired. Because I think a lot of people think CFO costs, and I and I don't think people, and I know I'm one who would be like, Well, why do I need that at any stage? Well, well, if the right CFO is then they should be able to identify a way to make money. Um, I think a question I probably should ask you is when do you borrow money? Because it I'm a I've I'm a debt-free kind of person. I hate having a mortgage at 3.5% interest. I I mean people are like, you should never pay that off. My if I have enough to write a check for this mortgage to get paid off, it's getting paid off because it assumes a model where there's always money coming in. But you can make 364 payments, you missed the last one or close on that last payment if you couldn't afford it. Like right. I mean So what do you borrow? What do you what do you borrow as a business?

SPEAKER_00: 22:16

Yeah, that's a two-edged sword sword. So, you know, yeah, and with a mortgage, I mean, if you can pay it off, I'm with you.

SPEAKER_01: 22:23

That's a great based on your primary house.

SPEAKER_00: 22:25

If it's an investment property where there's leverage and you're you know there's a fine, but not not to your exactly the point is you've got to also look at your opportunity if you're in business and you're like, well, I can grow at 15% a year without borrowing, but I can grow at 40% a year with a little bit of debt. Wow, maybe we need to look at that debt a little more seriously. And it's a number saying I run scenarios all day, and I'm gonna run a scenario with no debt and run a scenario with that and say, What do you think?

SPEAKER_01: 23:00

Here's the thing about 60% of all numbers and stats are made up on the spot. I heard it was 63%, but that's okay. It's going up now, 64. That's the biggest thing, right? Is if if someone goes, hey, listen, go take your$20,000 line of credit and go do this with it, I'd be like, what's your certainty on that? And and the truth is, and and I run into this as people, because I'm on the lead gen side, is you shouldn't be using money to borrow to experiment. Uh, you shouldn't even run an ad to experiment. It should be a mechanically like a uh a capital machine. You're gonna go spend 30. And I'd even say don't even borrow it because you're still paying for the money. Like go build your capital machine. Now, if you have the ability to be like, hey, listen, let's go go buy a cat, let's go acquire this company, let's go borrow a hundred million to go buy a hundred million dollar cash flow. That's a that's a smart thing to go do. Because you just get you can't just screw it up for two years in that model and you can do around, right? So there's there's there's things I would do with that, but I would like, you know, if you're in the services, I'm not buying any marketing agency because they're all built around a founder, like that'd be dumb, right? So so I I agree with you. Like, you know, it there's a time the buying cash flow. I I have to say you'd agree that at any point that's smart as long as it enables your strategy and your brand or whatever else, right? Right. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. I like that.

SPEAKER_00: 24:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:22

So I'll believe that. Uh, who should get a hold of you? How should they do it again?

SPEAKER_00: 24:27

Yeah, LinkedIn, great way to get a hold of me. Um LinkedIn slash in slash Carl K Meyer. You know, message me, follow me, check out my uh videos there. So love to love to talk to you. Um, you meant, hey, mention the podcast, and I'll give you 90-minute free consultation.

SPEAKER_01: 24:48

It's too long. Guys, you only get 30. I'm cutting that down. He's wasting his time. You only need 30. You gotta have an exit strategy. You can you can put a 60-minute buffer, but if it's a if it's a shit show, you don't get in the full 90.

SPEAKER_00: 24:58

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:59

Yeah, yeah, you'll get me serious. But yeah. My 15-minute meeting is actually an hour. It's a secret idea. If I like, I'll be like, I got extra time. I'll cancel if you will. I should write a real short book, Mastering the 15-minute meeting.

SPEAKER_00: 25:13

I love it.

SPEAKER_01: 25:14

That'd be great. There you go. Thank you, Carl. I love it, man. Thank you. I appreciate you getting on here. Uh, thank you. My pleasure. Listen, anyone who made it to this point, I'm always thankful that you made it this far and listening. Uh, if it's your first time here, uh, I hope you come back. I hope this is a first amending. Get out there, go cut a tie to whatever's holding you back. Uh, define your own success because you're chasing someone else's dream if you're not. Thanks for listening.