In this cost-effective episode, Manny Skevofilax, CFO of PORTAL CFO Consulting, shares how he uses the lessons he learned working in the back office of his parents restaurant and throughout a success career in the financial industry to help business owners grow profitably.
You will:
– finally be able to make sense of your P&L, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement
– learn how to transform financial worry into peace of mind, and
– grow your business more profitably than ever
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello Hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the Secrets of The High Demand Coach Podcast and I am here with yet another high demand coach. Yay a high demand advisor, Manny Skevofilax is a consultant and speaker that helps his clients successfully navigate the challenge is of growing their business and this keyword profitably, right growth for the sake of growth is no fun, but growing profitably is what he’s all about. Since 2003, Manny has helped businesses enhance their results by using his expertise and experience in strategic planning, financial statement analysis, operations, operational development, and team building. His consulting firm, firm portal CFO Consulting has attracted clients from diverse industries across the United States and abroad. Well, Manny, I’m so excited to have you here today. I’ve been looking forward to our conversation. And before we get into kind of some of the work that you’re doing with your clients right now, in some of the patterns you’re seeing, I want to hit rewind for a second and talk about what was happening before and what were you doing before you jumped into this world? And what ultimately led you to make the leap into coaching, consulting, advising full time?
Manny Skevofilax
Okay, well, Scott, thank you for having me. You know, I grew up in the restaurant business, my parents immigrated to America from Greece. And as a lot of the immigrants did back in that era, you know, they worked hard, save their money. And in my parents case, they started a small restaurant. So very early on in life, I got exposed to the economics or the restaurant business, you know, how do you how does it? How do you determine what to charge? What does it cost? How do you make a living in there? What are all the risks? So that was really the humble beginning. And I found that I had a knack for it, I was I was attracted to it, it kept my interest. So from that, humble beginning, I worked through school, and then I ended up going into banking, because I made the decision to change from the restaurant business, and go into a more professional, you know, line of work, corporate line of work. I worked as a banker for nine years, I went through a training program that trained me on financial statement analysis, which is what I use in my career. And then I left in all my consulting acts. And for the last 20 years, I’ve worked as a consultant.
Scott Ritzheimer
Wow, fantastic. So fast forwarding, that it’s been 20 years now, what would you say some of the most important work that you do for your clients today?
Manny Skevofilax
I help them realize that they don’t have to have a degree in finance, they can continue to focus on their trade, and they can plug in help as they need it. That’s the most satisfying thing is when they understand that, Hey, it’s okay to plug this person in for you know, for a CFO, hell for marketing help for this help. I don’t have to do it all myself.
Scott Ritzheimer
And how would you? How do you help them kind of walk between because there is a certain amount of you need to know enough at least to pick the right person? Right? Because I mean, you and I know from being in this industry, that the folks who are the best marketers, are marketing themselves as a coach or consultant aren’t always necessarily the best coaches and consultants. So how do you kind of draw the line between what they do need to know themselves? Right, it’s just kind of pay to play to, you know, it’s part of getting in the game of entrepreneurship versus what they can trust and trust to someone else?
Manny Skevofilax
That’s a great question. 90% of my clients, Scott are great at their trade, and only that 10% of them, in my experience, have some kind of idea about the financial aspects of their business. And I’m not going to be able to learn your business model 100% The way you know it, you know, this is your, your baby, your experience. Yeah. So I’m going to rely on you to share with me what your comfort level is, you know, a lot of people are not big fans of delegating, you know, that they have to slowly learn that, hey, you know, it’s okay. So they go at their own kind of measure pace.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah. And, and so, as they’re going at their pace, they’re doing their trade. Right. One of the key points that I kind of picked up on in your bio is helping them grow their businesses profitably. Right. So I would assume very few people come to you because they have too much profit. Right? I assume that many, not all necessarily most come because they’re having some kind of a challenge with their profit. What, what would you say? Are the reasons why folks initially call you in and and the second part of the question would be, what is it that you end up finding underneath that original question underneath the surface?
Manny Skevofilax
In my opinion, they’re calling me because they have questions about the financial world. are being of their business, there might not necessarily be anything, you know, wrong. They just have questions, and they want to turn to a financial professional. And in my opinion, what I give them is peace of mind. They have told me that over and over again, Scott, and it’s the last thing that I expected to be given the business owner peace of mind. One of my clients referred to me as their business therapist, which I was like very, you know, honored by now SiteGround, I never thought about it that way. So it’s peace of mind. And then when you get in there, you’re going to teach me the odds and ends, I’m going to have a basic idea of what your particular business is, you are going to educate me on the particulars, the nuts and bolts, and then we’re going to use your financial statement, we’re going to analyze it together. And that’s what I’ve been taught. I’ve had great teachers and mentors in my career, we’re going to analyze that together and say, Okay, let’s look at your revenue. What what is the mix of revenue? How much money do you make off of everything you do? Does that make sense? And then we’re going to do the same exercise for your expenses. To you, are you getting this bang for the buck? That you’re expecting for all the expenses you have in your business?
Scott Ritzheimer
So peace of mind such a big one, right? Because I think of all of the things, the one that’s most likely to keep folks up at night might be kind of like people problems, right? Especially when you’ve been working with folks for a long time, or you work with family that that’s, that’s, that’s challenging, but very, very close, if not above that, is financial stuff. And even if it’s going well, what’s what I found drives a lot of folks to lose sleep at night is they they just don’t understand it, right? That you go through high school, and no one teaches you how to read a p&l, right? You hear about a balance sheet, and it’s like this, this makes no sense at all. And there’s just a fear from the unknown that comes in that? How would you say, as you’re seeing peace of mind show up for them? First, where do you feel like it comes from right, as you’re doing this work? And then to what does that do in, you know, kind of in their life and in their business? Once they have it?
Manny Skevofilax
You know, in my opinion, Scott, I make my living by answering the phone. So I try to answer the phone all the time, when a client’s calling, if they have something that’s really hard on their mind. They’re welcome to call me anytime they want. So have them pick me up on it. They’ll call me up at 10 o’clock at night on a Saturday, because they had something that was bothering them, I gave them a quick answer that they needed. It gave them that peace of mind and put their fears at ease. So I think that’s the biggest thing is the don’t let that thought linger in their minds too long. You know, give them a reasonable response a quick one if you can.
Scott Ritzheimer
Right. Right. And a second part of that is what does what does that peace of mind do for folks? Because I, you know, I would assume, and maybe I’m wrong with this, but I don’t think people come saying, hey, I want peace of mind. Right? They want financial advice they want to understand, but what they get out of it is peace of mind. And so I would assume they probably takes them by surprise a little bit as well. But how do you see that showing up in their lives? Once they’ve achieved it?
Manny Skevofilax
You know, there’s so much there’s so much pressure on the business owner, you know, you’re you’re responsible for so many things, you know, your employee, your employees, you know, your efforts in the community, there’s, there’s, there’s a lot of pressure. And then there’s a rule of thumb that says for every employee that you have, there’s 10 people that depend on that employee. So if you have 10 employees, 100 people are depending on you. That’s a lot of pressure. And when they can check, you know, it’s hard enough when you have sales and the difficulty and ups and downs of the sales process. Have you throw in ups and downs on the financial side, it can be overwhelming. So if you can at least help them check that box that you know what, all these efforts, all this time that I’m putting into my business, it is paying off every month, I’m seeing it in my financial, and actually the real test is I’m seeing it show up in my bank account. Right brings them a sense of relief and satisfaction.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, yeah. Now you’ve been doing this for a long time. You’ve looked at a lot of financial statements, right? So I kind of imagine this is the picture that goes through my mind as I’m thinking about you sitting down with a client’s kind of like the matrix, you know what I mean? Like they’re looking at that thing, and it’s just a bunch of gibberish and like, looks like Japanese characters and it’s all in green and they have no idea what’s going on and, and you’re, they’re seeing the whole thing play out. So what are some things that you find that you see inside of a financial statement that a lot of business owners miss?
Manny Skevofilax
One of them, and I’m sorry to be a little technical. You know, if you take a distribution out of your company, it doesn’t show up on your p&l. So for example, if you your p&l shows that you made $20,000 that month, and you took a $10,000 distribution, it’s not going to show up. So you’re going to think there was 20 available, but the reality was it. That’s a little sneaky one that you have to know is going to show up on your cash flow statement.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah, it’s fascinating, because I think you’re right with us. I mean, it caught me off guard, when I was first looking at ours, when I was, you know, co starters, but little businesses, they live and die by cash, right? It’s just, you know, it’s relatively simple is good cash in cash out and, and the, the, you know, the p&l seems like, it should explain that, right? It should explain, you know, cash in cash out and in, you know, 80 90% of the time it does, right, you pay your, your phone bill, and it’s cash out, you make a deposit from a sale, and it’s cash in but distributions. The loan repayments, things like that don’t show up on there. And it’s a big point of confusion, especially for small business owners. So is there a simple way that you could explain what’s on a p&l? What’s on a balance sheet, what’s on a cash flow statement?
Manny Skevofilax
Sure. Let’s take the p&l first. So the p&l is going to show you how much revenue you brought in let’s just take it for simplicity’s sake for one month. For the month of March, how much revenue came into your company, and how much expenses went out, which led to the bottom which is hopefully profit, better be profit and not loss. So that’s it. That’s that’s your little scorecard. They’re what came in what went out what was left, the balance sheet is a little more complicated. I like to explain everything very simply. So there’s three components of a balance sheet, your total assets, your total liabilities, and stockholders equity. So what I share with the business owner that doesn’t have you know, a finance degree is your assets are what you own o w n, your liabilities are what you owe, oh, W E. And what’s left in that stockholders equity is is yours. And that helps. That helps them. Yeah, there’s this fantastic contest as saving cash flows is a whole different animal, because it’s complicated. I remember when I was first starting out, I had a cheat sheet up in my cube, you know, to explain, you know, what the red was versus the black. I mean, there was the only way I could do it. I’m a visual learner. And it was very confusing. In short, and sweet, a statement of cash flows is going to show you the business owner, how your money is circulating inside the company, and whether or not you have enough cash to run that business successfully, or whether you’re going to need cash, you’re going to see it on that statement of cash flows.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic. Yeah, Fanta does an excellent, excellent description. I know. Thank you. Yeah, it’s just overwhelming for folks getting into it, because none of them seem like it because you need all three, right? And none of them actually tell you the whole picture, you really do need all three to make sense of all of it. And, and I wish I you know, frankly, I wish our school system did a better job at preparing people for it. But I love that they’ve got folks like you who can come in. And this is a point I want to make. One of the things I love about the way you’re articulating this is you’re making all of it really simple, right? Sometimes, you know, if you ever hire a coach or consultant or advisor, and they give you explanations that you don’t understand, find another one, right? Like find someone who can speak to you in a way that you understand and that because he can’t get the peace of mind, even if they give you all the right answers, but you don’t understand that you don’t trust that you understand that you won’t get that peace of mind that Manny is talking about. So I love I love the way that you’ve articulated that.
Manny Skevofilax
Thank you, Scott.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic Alright, so here’s a question I like to ask all of my guests and and it’s this what is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing that you wish everybody listening today knew?
Manny Skevofilax
All right, in my opinion, it would be that you can continue to be profitable as you grow your business. That’s there’s no reason why you should all of a sudden start losing your money and start losing money in your Is that in blame at all, and the fact that I’m growing fast. So there’s no reason for you to lose money as you’re growing, you can monitor everything you need to monitor. And you can continue to stay profitable as you grow that business.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that is so true. It’s, you know, it, it’s very possible to not do that. But it’s not necessary to do it. Right. So I love that because one of the things this is a little pet peeve of mine is the whole loss leader thing. It’s like, well, Ubers doing? Well, Uber has a billion dollars of funding, and you don’t, so I love, you know, the vast, vast, vast majority of businesses are funded by the quarters found in your couch, you know, not the big investment bankers and VCs around the world. So in that case, especially, it’s so important to preserve cash. And it’s, it’s, again, going back to this idea of peace of mind, right? If you get the thing that you want, I want to grow my business, but it comes at the cost of profitability. You know, it that yeah, it’s very, very confusing for folks. So I love that such a great point, I want to turn things around for you a little bit, I’m gonna have you take off your advisor hat here for a moment, your CFO hat, I’m gonna have you put on your CEO hat. As principal of Portal CFO, I’d love for you to talk to us about what the next stage of growth looks like, for you your business? And what challenges do you think you’ll have to overcome to get there?
Manny Skevofilax
Okay. My business model, I refer to it as a traditional business model for lack of a better term where, you know, you would somehow some way, get a lead, and you would make a phone call, and then you would go out and meet that human being in person, and you would develop some kind of, you know, hopefully good rapport, and then the relationship would, you know, proceed from there. So that’s how it was. Now, how it is with technology is a whole new ballgame, especially with the acceptance of these zoom meetings, which by the way, they’ve been around for 30 years, they were very complicated to use, only big companies are using them. Now, we have some simple tools. But I found that it’s hard to build the same kind of rapport with a solely online relationship. And I’m trying to do my best to, you know, kind of get with the plan the program here and try to do a better job of increasing my online visibility, and trying to establish relationships solely online. Yeah. Wow. And that’s, that’s the big challenge, you know, to do. And then, you know, it’s hard I find to establish the same kind of trust.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. And isn’t it interesting that you can is kind of similar last point, but you can get what you want and not what you need, right? So someone over zoom can get your insights on their p&l Right? Just as easy as anybody else. Like there’s there’s virtually zero lost in that. But do they leave that conversation with the peace of mind that somebody locally or you know, in person would get, you know, there’s, there’s just something about that offline conversation, if you will, that actually brings so much of the so much of that intangible but very, very important value so. Well, thanks for sharing with us. I think that’s a challenge that a lot of service providers and professionals are faced with and it’s always nice to know that you’re not alone. You know, it’s it’s nice to know there are other folks doing the same thing. And so with that, Manny, it was just an absolute pleasure having you on the show I loved just the insight and simplicity about the way you you took really complex things and you made them simple for us and that’s not easy to do. So I thank you for that. I’m so glad that you were here and for everyone listening and watching your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope this conversation was this helpful for you as I know it was for me, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Manny Skevofilax
Manny Skevofilax is a consultant and speaker that helps his clients successfully navigate the challenges of growing their businesses profitably. Since 2003, Manny helps businesses enhance their results by using his experience in strategic planning, financial statement analysis, operations, organizational development, and team-building. His consulting firm, PORTAL CFO Consulting, Inc., has attracted clients from diverse industries in the United States and abroad.
Want to learn more about Manny Skevofilax’s work at PORTAL CFO Consulting? Check out his website at https://portalcfo.com/
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