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Money Talks: When Should You Bring in a Fractional CFO?
Episode 7330th September 2025 • Make Space For More • Melissa Swink
00:00:00 00:32:32

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Episode Summary

In this episode of the Make Space for More podcast, host Melissa Swink interviews Shelby Ashley, a fractional CFO who specializes in helping business owners understand their financials and make informed decisions. They discuss the challenges of entrepreneurship, the importance of cash flow management, and the distinct roles of CFOs, accountants, and bookkeepers. 

Tune in to hear Shelby’s insights on when to engage a fractional CFO, the risks of ignoring financial planning, and the significance of building a strong team. The conversation also touches on Shelby's personal journey in starting her business and the resources available for early-stage entrepreneurs. You don’t want to miss these takeaways!

Key Highlights:

  • Discover the crucial difference between a CFO, accountant, and bookkeeper – and why you might need all three for your business.
  • Learn why understanding your cash flow is about more than just tracking expenses; it’s also about planning for sustainable growth.
  • Get the inside scoop on when it's time to bring in a fractional CFO to level up your business strategy.
  • Uncover how proper financial planning helps you escape the 24/7 work trap and build a business you actually love.
  • Understand the power of financial forecasting in making confident business decisions (goodbye, analysis paralysis!)
  • Find out why many business owners hit a growth ceiling, and how the right financial expertise can break through it.
  • Learn the strategic approach to building your dream team without breaking the bank.


About Our Guest: 

Shelby Ashley is a Fractional CFO who helps business owners get clear on their numbers so they can make smarter decisions and actually enjoy running their business. She’s all about keeping things simple, paying yourself well, and building a business that doesn’t run you into the ground. Shelby lives in Huntsville, AL but serves clients all over the United States. When she's not buried in spreadsheets, she loves hanging out with her husband and four year old son. Visit her website to get a free consultation and financial assessment at www.optimizedfinancialsolutions.com. Check out Shelby’s podcast here!


About Melissa:

Melissa Swink, Founder & CEO of Melissa Swink & Co., has a team of virtual assistants who provide administrative and marketing support for small businesses and non-profits.


Since 2012, Melissa and her team have helped more than 100 businesses grow through the services they offer, and she is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs create profitable, scalable businesses they love.


Her work is all about doing what works (and eliminating what doesn’t) and driving real, measurable results. Visit www.melissaswink.com to learn more! 


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Transcripts

Melissa Swink (:

Hi everyone, welcome to the Make Space for More podcast where we talk strategies for growing and scaling your business in a way that's authentic and aligned for you. I'm your host, Melissa Swink, and in today's episode, I am very excited to welcome a very special guest. She's a client of ours, she's a fractional CFO, and I can't wait to...

Talk with her, learn more about her business and how she helps her clients, and also help all of you take that information and be able to apply it as well. So Shelby Ashley, she is the owner of Optimized Financial Solutions. As I mentioned, she's a fractional CFO who helps business owners get clear on their numbers so they can make smarter decisions and actually enjoy running their business. We're all about that here on the podcast. I love all of that. It's just so aligned.

Shelby is also about keeping things simple, paying yourself well, and building a business that doesn't run you into the ground. She lives in Huntsville, Alabama, but serves clients all over the United States. When she's not buried in spreadsheets, she loves hanging out with her husband and four-year-old son. Shelby, welcome to the show.

Shelby Ashley (:

Thank you so much for having me.

Melissa Swink (:

Yes, absolutely. So there's so many things that I want to impact just in your introduction alone. But before we dive into all the things kind of business related, why don't you tell us just a little bit about you?

Shelby Ashley (:

Yeah, okay, so you've said a lot in my introduction, but like you said, my main goal as a Fractional CFO is to help my clients build businesses that they don't hate. Because I have seen so often in just throughout my previous work history of business owners that build businesses to try and escape the nine to five trap and now they're in the 24 seven trap. And I make it my mission to kind of get them out of that.

Melissa Swink (:

Mm-hmm.

Shelby Ashley (:

So I started out my career in public accounting and then I was a financial analyst in the corporate world for many, many years and realized that I really loved doing the work. I love painting pictures with numbers. Like I use numbers to tell stories. I tell my clients your numbers aren't good or bad. They just tell a story. And so really loved doing that. We had our son and then

Melissa Swink (:

my gosh.

Shelby Ashley (:

I kind of realized shortly after that, I don't really care for somebody else dictating my hours for the rest of my life. And so that's what kind of propelled me to do this on my own and help small business owners who kind of have that same mentality, but may not have kind of the business acumen in order to really grow and scale their business. And that's where I come in. You know, I just want my clients to focus on what they love doing best and let me take care of the burden of trying to strategize around financials.

Melissa Swink (:

love all of that, everything that you just said. And especially that we went from working the nine to five to the 24 seven, which is so true for so many of us. know I, you my first goal when I started my company and you you've probably seen this many times and maybe even seen this in yourself was my first number one need and goal was to replace my income, be able to keep paying my bill. And then it's like, once we hit that point, then it's kind of like, wait a second, I think I've just created a job for myself.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yes, it is.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yes, yes.

Shelby Ashley (:

Mm-hmm.

Melissa Swink (:

Eventually you get to that point where you're like, I can't go on vacation or at least fully unplugged because there's nobody else to help me. I'm doing all the things. businesses can become, I'm not saying this well. Let me start over. Businesses can become a cash eating monster also. Especially, it's so overwhelming. In fact, my daughter just interviewed me on the podcast, our last episode.

Shelby Ashley (:

I guess.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yes. yeah. yeah.

Melissa Swink (:

And one of the things she asked me was, what is some advice that you would give to someone starting a business? And I'm like, you are going to be absolutely inundated with everything you can be investing in and everything you should be doing. You you need to do all this marketing. You need to do all this networking. Like there's just no shortage of things to invest in and it's hard.

Shelby Ashley (:

yeah, it is. And especially at that stage, you get so caught in like analysis paralysis, like there's so many options that it's kind of hard to like just go take action. Cause you're like, well, I want to make sure I choose the best one. And you've only got two resources in business, which is time and money. So you're either going to spend money or you're going to spend your time. And it's, it's, yeah, it's always going to be a challenge as a business owner, determining what

Melissa Swink (:

Or both.

Shelby Ashley (:

you should be spending in each of those areas. And so it is really hard to just sit back and be like, okay, I'm just going to go forth and just take action and just do it. I'm especially guilty of this. Like I will weigh out every single decision and I'm just, very calculated like that. So the taking action part comes a little late for me, but yeah, it is hard as a business owner to kind of decide, okay, how do I need to be spending my time right at first? Because when you're in a job, you're told what to do.

Well now you're the business owner and you have to be making those decisions for yourself and hoping that you're going to get a payoff from them.

Melissa Swink (:

Yeah, 100%. And I'm also thinking about, I have met plenty of business owners over the years, especially in those early stages where the cash flow is a hard piece to get, or they're finding themselves, they know that they can't necessarily run their business based on the dollar amount that's in their checking account today. Like, can I go out and afford to invest in this, or can I buy that thing? And they're looking.

Shelby Ashley (:

yeah.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yeah.

Melissa Swink (:

But, you know, especially if they're in a feast and famine cycle where they've got a lot of work and then their heads down doing all the work and then work, you know, the projects wrap up and then they kind of come up for air and they're like, wait, now where's my next dollar coming from? Like, there's just so many things that you're sorting out, you know, especially in those early years.

Shelby Ashley (:

Mm-hmm.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yes. Yes.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And the cash flow aspect is just, it's not something that, you know, when people go into business, especially if you're in some kind of trade, like if you are an HVAC or electrician or something like that, like, you know that thing. That's what you were taught. That's what you learned. That's what you did. You don't know, you know, cash flow strategy and things like that. You just kind of have to learn.

until you can afford to hire somebody and planning for those feasts and famine cycles is crucial because you have to balance your time between, I'm doing it. I'm doing the work right now, but I also need to be keeping the pipeline full and having cashflow projections of, okay, I know such and such is gonna wrap up in on this date. How am gonna replace that money? Is it's so imperative. I mean, in forecasting and in all those future projections.

are just not things that people get from their bookkeeper or their accountant because accountants are focused on your past numbers and recording those and keeping you in compliance. But who do you really have to help you forecast your future numbers and see what your cash is gonna look like three months or six months or 12 months from now. And so that's what I love doing is really just putting people's minds at ease and helping them see what kind of impacts.

all these different decisions that they're weighing are going to have on their profitability and their cash flow.

Melissa Swink (:

Okay, so that is actually a perfect segue into one of the questions that I had too is, know, as a fractional CFO, you're not quite an accountant, you're certainly not a bookkeeper. Like how do you kind of fit into what the typical business is, I guess, accounting or financial team? Because I feel like when I talk with potential clients and clients, it's often, well, I have an accountant who does my taxes once a year, and then maybe they have a bookkeeper who ...

Shelby Ashley (:

Yeah.

Melissa Swink (:

kind of categorizes transactions and things. If we're lucky, sometimes they'll just respond, well, I have QuickBooks online. But we know that having QuickBooks online doesn't make you an accountant any more than Word makes you a bestselling author. So it's really interesting. we've got accountants and bookkeepers are very commonly known, but a fractional CFO, how do you fit into that picture?

Shelby Ashley (:

Yeah.

Shelby Ashley (:

No, no.

Shelby Ashley (:

Right.

Shelby Ashley (:

So I take what my clients bookkeepers and accountants have already prepared because they keep up with all the past numbers and I put those into my financial model that I go over with clients and using the past data, I project out what the future is gonna look like. And then when I'm on calls with my clients, we discuss different things that they're thinking about doing in the business and I show them the impact it's gonna have based on the projection that I've given them.

And so I work in tandem with bookkeepers and accountants. So they take care of the past numbers. I then use those to project out the future numbers.

Melissa Swink (:

Awesome, that's a really great simple way to think about it. Past versus future.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yeah, I always say, yeah, I always say if your business is a car, your accountant is like your rear view mirror showing you where you've been, but your CFO is like your windshield, like where are you trying to go? Yeah.

Melissa Swink (:

Yep, yes, absolutely. So now Shelby, what types of clients do you work with typically?

Shelby Ashley (:

I mostly work with service-based clients and that spans from marketing to, I'm trying to think, let's see, I've got several marketing clients. I know.

Melissa Swink (:

I put you on the spot. do the same thing when people ask me that question, except we have probably about, you know, between 40 and 50 clients at a time. So then you sit there and you go, well, because it varies so much.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yeah, yeah.

I know, let me go through the roster. I do have several marketing clients. For some reason marketing, I guess because the creative mind is so much different than the like numbers mind. I like working with marketing people because they know that like they don't want to do anything with numbers. I also have some trades because it's kind of the same deal with them. Like they went into business because they wanted to do that trade. They did not want to worry about numbers or keeping up with finances or anything like that. So.

Melissa Swink (:

Yeah.

Shelby Ashley (:

But mostly, I guess if I could give it a blanket, I would say any like service-based kind of business.

Melissa Swink (:

Got it, okay. And so I'm gonna go to the dark side for just a second here because I absolutely see the value in what you offer. But what are some of the risks that somebody might unfortunately encounter if they are not looking at their numbers from a forward thinking perspective, you know, on their own certainly, or definitely without the help of somebody like yourself, a fractional CFO. What are some of the pitfalls that you see or?

Shelby Ashley (:

Yeah.

Melissa Swink (:

Maybe some things that have happened to clients who wish they would have worked with you sooner.

Shelby Ashley (:

Well, the number one is running out of cash because you can be profitable and I've had clients that have come to work with me because they had profit on paper but they didn't have any cash in the bank and they couldn't understand why. But yeah, the biggest thing is everyone's biggest fear which is your business running out of cash and my work is to prevent that from happening. Not only prevent it but to help you have, you know, a cash surplus. But that is the biggest pitfall.

Beyond that, it's just small things like having to let go of team members. I mean, I've been fortunate that all the clients that I've worked with really truly love their employees and want to be able to give them raises and invest in them. And I've worked with people who, by the time they've come to me, are kind of bummed out because they've had to let key employees go because they just couldn't sustain them anymore. And it really affects people. And so that's one of the bigger ones too, is letting go of key.

key team members or just having to, you know, ultimately close the business altogether. And I think the biggest fear for business owners is having to close the business and go find a job, right? So, that's definitely what the risk that you run into if you're not staying on top of things. And if you don't have somebody on your team that's showing you, hey, here's what needs to happen if you want X amount in the bank.

Melissa Swink (:

Yes.

Melissa Swink (:

Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. That is very true. When you said having to close the business and go out and get a job, was, man, I don't know if I could go back to that. But you're right. Mm-hmm.

Shelby Ashley (:

you can't! i mean once you've yeah once you've worked for yourself you can't work for somebody else anymore like yeah

Melissa Swink (:

Yes, yes, exactly. mean, we won't go down that rabbit hole. I do know a couple of people who have gone down that path. And that was the best decision for them at the time. But I always think like, gosh, what if, you know, things maybe if you would have been able to secure that investor or what if you were able to get that cash flow where you needed it to be and you were able to pay yourself what you needed in order to support your family? I just think, you know, how many opportunities and I guess like

Shelby Ashley (:

Mm-hmm.

Shelby Ashley (:

Uh-huh.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yeah.

Melissa Swink (:

broken dreams have happened because this piece wasn't in order.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yeah, yeah.

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, and my mission is to prevent that from happening. Yeah.

Melissa Swink (:

I love that. Now, when do people typically start working with you? mean, ideally, it would be sooner rather than later as they're building their business and they have that, I guess I'm going to say mentorship from you as they're continuing to figure out their finances and what to invest in and how quickly to grow and all of those things. But ideally, when does somebody start talking to you or a fractional CFO?

Shelby Ashley (:

Mm-hmm.

Shelby Ashley (:

Ideally, it's once they're close to hitting the million dollar revenue mark because anything before that you're really just focusing on getting more sales. You might have a few team members, but really your main focus is on I've got to get more revenue. I've got to get more revenue. Once you've hit the million dollar mark, you kind of shift to, okay, you've probably got some kind of systemized revenue generation happening at that point. Now let's.

let's figure out how we're gonna get to the $5 million mark or the $10 million mark because that's gonna take a lot of scaling and a lot of hiring, figuring things out, what works, what doesn't. That's the optimal time to hire a CFO because you've got all these decisions that you're gonna have to make and now you've got somebody that you can bounce those decisions off of and see what's gonna happen to your profitability and your cashflow by making...

such and such decision, know, buying this piece of equipment or hiring this person. But before the million dollar mark, I mean, you're just focused on sales. It's really not in anybody's best interest to hire a CFO at that point.

Melissa Swink (:

Okay, that's super helpful to know. So anybody who is, say, at the six multi-six figure mark and they're working towards that million-dollar revenue goal, do you have any books or tools, things that you recommend for anybody who's not quite at that point, and they're ready to work with somebody like you?

Shelby Ashley (:

Yes.

Yes, have just a free download that I give people that are kind of in that space. And all it does in, it's a PDF that goes over everything, starting with leads all the way down to owner distributions, everything in your business that affects cashflow, not just profitability, but cashflow as well. And it just explains how these things are calculated and best practices in order to keep up with them. I give that out to as many people as I can, because it's very helpful. And then,

Melissa Swink (:

Yes.

Shelby Ashley (:

By the time this airs, I'm hoping I'll have it launched already, but I am launching a membership that's gonna have just templates and just monthly tools that people can use if they are in that range that will help them kind of get control of their finances without having to make a huge investment into a CFO.

Melissa Swink (:

That's fantastic. Okay, we will of course link your website in the show notes. so those listening can go check out your website, see the resources that you have available there.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yes.

Yeah, and that'll be my accountability piece to make sure I have it done and launched and ready so that I've got something to link.

Melissa Swink (:

Yes, I love it. I have done that on podcasts that I've been a guest on before where I'm just like, okay, when is this airing? All right. So you guys, we have to make sure that this new thing is ready to go by this date because I just promised it to the world. That's great accountability for yourself.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yes.

Yup.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yep, yep. I'm glad you asked me that.

Melissa Swink (:

my goodness. So I would love to shift gears a little bit and learn a little bit more about your business. So I don't even think that I am aware, but how, when did you start your business? How many years ago was it now?

Shelby Ashley (:

I started in March of 2022, so I'm just over three years old now. Uh-huh, thanks.

Melissa Swink (:

Okay, that's fantastic. Congratulations. You made it through the first year and then you're well on your way to five years, that five year marker.

Shelby Ashley (:

I did, I made it for the first year. Yeah, yeah, it was a very, very dry first year and now year two things started really ramping up and then now in year three, I'm like, my gosh, this is bigger than I could have dreamed, which is why I thankfully found you Melissa and got a BA, which has just been tremendously helpful.

Melissa Swink (:

Awesome. Yes, super grateful. I would love to learn a little bit more about, you know, kind of how you're building your team as you continue to grow as well. So interesting in that first year and, you know, certainly the first year is tough for everyone, I feel like. Yes, it's very rare that the first year is just like over the moon, like clients are coming from everywhere. I am thinking of one.

Shelby Ashley (:

yeah, yeah.

Shelby Ashley (:

yeah.

Melissa Swink (:

potential client I'm talking to right now. She happened to be a really big name in her industry. So when she left her employer, so many people just like went searching for her. That doesn't happen very often. She's in a very unique perspective. But on the flip side though, she now, and I'm sharing this because I think it is somewhat relatable, is now she went from, I mean, she had no experience being a business owner to all these clients and now

Shelby Ashley (:

Oh nice. Yeah, unless you're like a hairdresser or something.

Melissa Swink (:

like her back end, it's just like, how do I want to put it? Her back end and her operations need streamlining. They need some formal processes and systems because of course they're saying yes to business coming in the door because I mean, they're trying to, you know, she's trying to replace her income and all of that. But then there was no time to really set things up and kind of learn as you go and have that slower growth. So now all of a sudden she's like, I have

Shelby Ashley (:

Mm-hmm.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yeah, exactly. Yes.

Melissa Swink (:

a mess behind the scenes and I'm scrambling and I'm spending way more time than I need to to do basic things because we have no systems in place. We have no filing system. We have no workflows for these things. She's like, I've got five different email accounts. It's just, yes, behind the scenes it's kind of exploding. it probably doesn't feel like a blessing at the time. Sometimes having a slow first year is kind of a blessing as you're figuring stuff out.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yes.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yeah.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yeah.

my gosh, yeah, yeah.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, I was so I mean, nobody in my family is a business owner. I never thought that I would ever be a business owner. I mean, I was raised by a line of engineers like nobody owned a business in my family. Like you just went to work. So with me, it started out as just well, you know, we have our baby and I don't want to work for somebody else. I just want to work on my own time doing just like some freelance work. And then things started to pick up and I thought

Melissa Swink (:

I'm

Shelby Ashley (:

Okay, well maybe I can actually turn this into an actual business. And then they started picking up more and more and more. And I was like, okay, I need to like, I'm doing all of the work, everything down to like, worrying about my email domain and things like that. And then going out to a networking event, trying to find more clients, like I'm doing everything. I need help. And so really what prompted me to reach out to you was I really wanted to expand.

like my online presence because all of my business had come from word of mouth and I had a website but nobody I mean, I don't think anybody's ever been to it. I was like, man, yeah, now that I've got all these things that I need to create. But I was like, man, I would love to have like a newsletter and a podcast and all these things but I had no clue how to do any of that stuff. No clue how a CRM worked because like you said,

Melissa Swink (:

They will be now that you mentioned all these resources, right?

Shelby Ashley (:

you start a business going from a job or you're you only have to do that job. You start a business and you have to do all the jobs. So when Rose started working with me, I mean, she took care of all that. So now I've got the podcast that goes out weekly and then Rose posts something each day from the podcast. She sends out a newsletter. She sends out a blog. She cleans up my email, takes care of my calendar, like all these things that I no longer have to worry about. And it's just amazing. All I have to worry about now is

Melissa Swink (:

Mm-hmm.

Melissa Swink (:

Yes.

Shelby Ashley (:

going out and getting more clients and then serving the clients that I do have. So it's been great.

Melissa Swink (:

I love that, I love that. So before I forget to ask you this, because I wanna make sure that we absolutely capture this on the podcast, what is your podcast? Tell me about that.

Shelby Ashley (:

Sure. So my podcast is called Cash Flow Confidence. I launched it, I think back in January or February is when I launched. Could be a little bit later than that, but it just speaks to, it's very short, just like 10 minute bite-sized episodes, speaks to very specific things that business owners are dealing with and how that might affect their cash flow. The ultimate goal is I want people to love their business and I want them to, like the name suggests, feel confident about their cash flow.

Yes, I can do this. And so it's very empowering and it's very like actionable. Each episode I end with, okay, here's what you need to do this week. And if you want to experience this result, I talk about hiring practices. I talk about budgeting, just everything that, I mean, way beyond just financial stuff. But at the end, I kind of tie it into here's how it's going to affect your cashflow by making these decisions.

Melissa Swink (:

Sure, absolutely. I love that. So then, so you have, you know, our team, which we are so grateful for the opportunity to work with you. And I love that you have a VA who's just very versatile and can do a variety of things. She's got marketing background. She's got that organization piece for emails and such. Do you have any other team members that you're currently working with or that you would like to begin working with in the future as things continue to grow? Like who's on your wish list?

Shelby Ashley (:

Yes, yes.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yes.

Shelby Ashley (:

So on my wishlist right now is a CFO that works for me because right now I am both a fractional CFO and I'm also the CEO of a CFO firm. I just want to be the CEO. I don't want to be the one doing all the work as well. So right now on my wishlist is somebody that can just completely take care of client work for me. That way I can just go out and focus on getting more clients and kind of just feeding the conveyor belt.

Melissa Swink (:

Yes.

Melissa Swink (:

Mm-hmm.

Shelby Ashley (:

but so right now, it's just, me and Rose and she's, she's amazing. Like anything like creative even because I'm not creative whatsoever. And I'll stare at a landing page for six weeks. But, but now that I've got all that taken care of, it's really opened the door for me. Like, okay, now I can start hiring actual like fulfillment side and getting clients taken care of. And then eventually get to where I can put a salesperson in place. And then this whole thing just kind of.

runs without me and that's the end goal. Yeah.

Melissa Swink (:

Yes, I love that. I love that. A salesperson is something that's high on my list as well because I'm still doing all of my consults. I'm having conversations with potential clients and I enjoy that. And I also recognize that I'm the only one doing this for my company. So that risk is there of me being the bottleneck.

Shelby Ashley (:

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally. And I mean, you have to do these things. I mean, if you were somebody starting out with just a ton of capital and you wanted to start a business and you immediately put people into place, you would, I don't feel like you would get quite as much traction as opposed to people who were having to bootleg each and every job because now you know how that job needs to be done. You know what to do and what not to do so that when you're training this person, you're like, okay.

Melissa Swink (:

Yes.

Shelby Ashley (:

stick to this, let's don't do this. Like, you know what works for your business. So you do have to start out doing it all yourself, but eventually, you know, you get to where you can start replacing yourself and, and yeah, so.

Melissa Swink (:

Mm-hmm.

Melissa Swink (:

Yes. Yes, I love that. I love that. So when you think about things, so we're talking about team and certainly you've shared a lot of things of like, here's what I have seen people do that works well. Here's some of the things I wouldn't recommend. Are there things that you personally have invested in as you're growing your business or you've seen other clients invest in that maybe didn't pan out as well as you would have thought, or maybe they didn't quite get the ROI?

that they were intending. I'm just curious.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yes, I've seen clients invest in different kind of lead generation strategies that maybe weren't the best for their particular business. I had a client who took out a bunch of billboards and they were a B2B service, so billboards were not really like, it just didn't pan out. Right, right. and so that one, things like that and...

Melissa Swink (:

Sure, yep, that's typically B2C, business to consumer. Yep.

Shelby Ashley (:

I've seen people who, when it comes to hiring, they don't really put the right people in the right seats. So what I mean is like, I've had a client who they were almost a capacity. So had a ton of work coming in, but they, a ton of revenue, they weren't keeping a lot of that revenue when they first started working with me. And so they thought it was a sales problem. So they put a sales person in place and now this huge influx of work has now started to come in. Their team is already at capacity.

Melissa Swink (:

Mm-hmm.

Shelby Ashley (:

And so they really like a lot of stuff had to fall by the wayside. so knowing things like that, like when to hire for what position is really important. And so I always say if your business is like a bucket, if you have a bunch of holes in your bucket and you just keep pouring more water into it, it's just going to keep on leaking out. So you've got to make sure your bucket is, you know, leak free before you start. Yeah. Before you start bringing more revenue into your business, make sure it's not leaking out anywhere. So.

Melissa Swink (:

Yes.

Melissa Swink (:

That's a perfect analogy.

Shelby Ashley (:

Things like that, just yeah. I've worked with enough now and even in my corporate career, seen things like these where I can be like, okay, pump the brakes. Let's see what this is actually gonna look like later on down the road. And then with the one that brought on the salesperson too early, I showed them, I was like, worst case scenario, if this person just absolutely sucks at their job.

Melissa Swink (:

Yes.

Shelby Ashley (:

they're still gonna bring in likely this much in revenue. How are you gonna keep up with it? And they're like, no, it'll be great. So yeah.

Melissa Swink (:

Yes. Yes. Again, paying attention to profit, revenue, but not necessarily how that's all going to impact the business through cash flow and resources, capacity, and all of that. That's

Shelby Ashley (:

Mm-hmm.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot that goes into it. I'm not just a, there's a lot of CFOs that they'll just say you need to hit such and such margins because you're in this industry and that's the industry standard. Like I wanna make sure that my clients are building a business that they love. And if you're stuck having to work a lot more than you thought you were going to, or you're making bad investments, it's not gonna happen. You're gonna grow to hate it and resent it.

And so that's why it's so important to have somebody to kind of act as a sounding board, not just financially, but when you're making decisions like that.

Melissa Swink (:

Right. Well, that's a perfect segue, Shelby, because you also offer a free consultation. So for anybody who's listening and is going, okay, I'm at that point where my business is really growing. We're approaching that million dollar mark. I think that I do need to have a conversation with Shelby because I need somebody who can kind of help me figure out who my next key hires should be and how we need to make sure that we can sustain the growth that's coming forth, not just...

Shelby Ashley (:

Yes.

Shelby Ashley (:

Bye.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yes.

Melissa Swink (:

bringing in more and more revenue because to your point, and I would highly agree with this, that's the biggest focus at this point. And then it's like, okay, now how are we setting all of this up? How can somebody find you and have a conversation with you?

Shelby Ashley (:

Yes.

Shelby Ashley (:

so I'll give you my email to link in the show notes, but I do offer free consultations. Just email me and reach out to me. it's completely free. And then I also, once we've talked a little bit, I offer a free financial assessment, which is where I take your prior two years of numbers and I throw them into my financial model. And then together you and I will get on a zoom and I'll show you kind of any trends that I'm seeing or any red flags or opportunities for growth. I do this completely for free because.

It just allows me to show people how I work instead of just tell them. So yes, I do offer a free consultation and a free financial assessment.

Melissa Swink (:

I love that. Thank you so much, Shelby. I really appreciate you taking the time to join the podcast today and share with our listeners just some of the stories about you and starting your business and some of the things that you've been choosing to invest in, where you've been spending your time and money, but then also what you've been seeing with other business owners as well. It's always nice to get some insights as to what's working and what maybe we should be.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yeah!

Melissa Swink (:

aware of pumping the brakes a little bit before we just continue on and just doing more more and more because that's not necessarily the answer.

Shelby Ashley (:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And thank you so much for having me.

Melissa Swink (:

Absolutely. We'll be sure to link your podcast in the show notes as well, because I think that sounds fabulous. I'm going to definitely check that out as well and add that here so I get the updates when you post new episodes, because I think all that information will be very helpful for me personally and our team as we're continuing to grow as well.

Shelby Ashley (:

Okay.

Shelby Ashley (:

Absolutely, yeah.

Shelby Ashley (:

Of course.

Melissa Swink (:

And thank you to our audience for tuning in to today's episode of Make Space for More. We will be back next week with another fantastic guest. We have several guests scheduled to be on the podcast sharing their stories, their knowledge, and it's all intended for us to grow our businesses beyond ourselves, but also in a way that's authentic and aligned because we don't want to be building businesses that we don't like and then want to figure out.

where's the exit or to be burned out in the process. So really appreciate everyone joining us as well. And we will be back again next week. Have a wonderful day, everyone.

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