Episode Transcript

Please note this transcript was generated by AI and contains errors including missing and misspelled words.

[00:00:00] Meryl Intro: Hi there and welcome to the podcast. I'm your host, Meryl Johnston. The Lifestyle Accountant Show exists to help today's accounting firm owners build successful firms while also living a healthy, happy life without sacrificing sleep, your weekends or time with loved ones. Today, I'm talking with Luke Templin, a CFO who's got a number of different businesses on the go.

He runs a fractional CFO firm, he's building a software product called FinDaily, and he also writes two different newsletters that are within the accounting industry. He also spends most Fridays doing something in the outdoors with friends, usually golf or fly fishing. When I heard about how Luke is spending his Fridays along with running multiple businesses, I had to invite him on the podcast.

[00:00:53] Luke Soundbyte: Yeah. So I tried to block off almost. Every Friday that I can of late, it's been a little harder just because, uh, I took on FinDaily at the beginning of the year and have two kids. But most Fridays I spend time doing something outdoors with friends and I've just been really attentional about it. Like it's really hard to get on that my calendar in the firms and the business owners I've worked with.

I've just watched so many people just get burnout on working too much and not enjoying the fruits of their labor that. I've just been really, um, conscious about spending time doing what I love to do. And, and the, the message keeps ringing louder and louder. I just joined a mentorship program, and constant messages, essentially not to Be attached to your business.

I mean not to be attached to anything.

[00:01:46] Meryl Intro: Today we're covering a range of topics related to the multiple businesses that Luke's running. We start with the fractional CFO business and talk about whether it's the outsource CFO's role to hold the bookkeeping team accountable. Why Luke only takes on eight CFO clients at a time, his approach to value-based pricing and how it anchors his price to net profit improvement.

in the business that he's working with, why he charges for an initial assessment, or what we call a financial health check at BeanNinjas, how he's building a daily writing habit and the benefits of data driven writing, and we also explain what that is. And then we dive into his thought process around the pros and cons of trying to scale either the CFO business, the software product, or the newsletters.

All that and more coming right up on the Lifestyle Accounted Show.

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Hey Luke, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me. So we've got lots of things to cover today. You run a newsletter for accountants. You've got a software app that you're building. And then you also have a CFO practice. Got a lot of experience with CAS. So we've got, for the Australian listers, CAS is similar to bookkeeping or management.

But, but let's dive in. I believe you've been involved in running four different CAS practices. So maybe we start there with a bit of your background.

[00:04:08] Luke: Yeah. So I got my start doing very traditional public accounting as an auditor for about five years. Uh, didn't think I'd ever do public accounting again, went into private industry as a controller, but really with the role of a CFO, uh, loved it.

And then got approached by a partner that he, he saw very early on that, uh, the advisory side of accounting is where they needed to be. And so he made an offer for me to come try and start a fractional controller CFO role. So I did that with, uh, it was a two, two office firm, um, ran very traditional accounting side of the business and then also grew that advisory side of the business.

That firm got acquired by a top 100 firm. Uh, quickly made it to the higher ups what I had done at that firm. So I ended up launching, uh, the Firmwide CAS team. Um, and so did that for a few years and then a headhunter reached out and said, Hey, this local firm wants to do the same thing that you've done at this.

These other two firms, you want to help us? So when did that COVID hit became the COVID stimulus expert really fast. Then we got back into more of the fractional CFO work that I loved. Um, got approached with a non solicitation non-compete about, uh, a little over a year into that. Um, had already built six figures, book business recurring.

Didn't really want to sign it, um, because I had a bad experience at the last firm with a non compete when I left. Uh, I had a client that essentially said it felt like I abandoned them because I followed it to a T. So started consulting some people, um, few people were like, Luke, sounds like you kind of want to go out on your own.

And I was like, yeah, I think so. So finally, uh, took the plunge and created my own fractional CFO firm, uh, from scratch. I was, I was fortunate enough that most of those clients I'd built within that CPA firm were my personal relationships. A couple of them weren't and the partners were like, you should just stay with Luke.

We can't serve what he's doing. So yeah, that is a quick rundown of those four different service lines.

[00:06:28] Meryl: I'm intrigued with the first time that you built the offering. So at that first firm. And so that was your first attempt at it. You'd be, you'd been in the industry in a controller CFO type role. How did you go about building that practice?

Cause it was part of that convincing clients that they needed CFO services. And was it CAS and CFO or just CFO? What did the service offering look like?

[00:06:55] Luke: Yeah. So it was, when I started, they were doing very, what I call traditional write up. So, um, Very after the fact, pretty much only doing accounting with the end result being a tax return.

There was a few clients right at the beginning that were very interested. They wanted more. Quickly realized that their books just weren't up to date enough for me to do what I really wanted to do. So I took a, went off the deep end on accounting automation. How do we make this more real time so I can do what I want to do?

There was clients where it was very easy. You could, you could find really quickly that, hey, they wanted this, they needed this, where should I start? And then there would be the partner, the, the tax manager that would come to you and be like, hey, this client has a problem. I think you can help them and then you'd go to that client and be like, Mm, I don't really want my help.

And what I, what I've discovered over the years, um, is that the pain of the accounting is usually greater within the accounting firm than it is in the client's mind. The client has put it out of their mind. And so there was, there's always that with CAS, um, and I have, I've discovered over the years change management is really hard.

If that person doesn't want to change, good luck, both in the accounting firm and the client.

[00:08:17] Meryl: So to skip forward to the firm that you're running now is, do you offer CAS or it's just the CFO side of things?

[00:08:23] Luke: Just CFO. We have one client where I say we do light bookkeeping, but it's a medical research doctor and it's cash basis.

Um, so they have some internal people doing bill pay, they have a third party billing, and then we just sit on top of the QuickBooks file, update the bank feeds and do the bank recs. But other than that, we don't do books. Um, I think all of our clients except for that one have, uh, some sort of outsourced bookkeeping arrangement that I've either established for them through relationships I have.

Or they had one prior to me starting.

[00:08:57] Meryl: That was going to be my follow up question. So we, we've had a team member at BeanNinjas went off and started a CFO business called Trimline. And so we own part of that. And so we see the challenges. He's constantly getting dragged in or trying to set some boundaries around for him to do the CFO work and the financial modeling.

He needs accurate. Uh, reports and for him to do monthly meetings if the bookkeeping is too slow, then he can't add value in the meeting. So he's constantly torn as to should he just take on the bookkeeping himself to make sure that it's done accurately and done consistently so that he can do the CFO work at scale.

Or he's trying to match them with different providers. But then if you have all different providers, he's finding the results are different, um, in terms of how they're coding things, how they, how they do it, which also impacts him. So I'm wondering how you manage, um, if you're not taking care of the bookkeeping or Kaz, how that impacts your workflow in doing the CFO work efficiently and on time and accurately.

[00:09:57] Luke: Yeah. Yeah. It's a hard challenge because bookkeeping is a very shiny object that I know if I did it, I could. Do it pretty well, decent money at it, but I don't love it and I don't want to manage it. And so I, I've, I've avoided it, um, since running my own firm. Um, I've had to have a couple of hard conversations.

Um, had to fire bookkeepers, find new bookkeepers. Um, we have another one right now where the owner knows they need something else. So. Um, I've, and, and sometimes it comes down to budget. Um, it amazes me. I've, I've sent outsourced bookkeepers to clients and I know they do good work. They'll get a quote back for two grand and my client will be shocked.

And I'll be shocked because I'm like, I'm charging you two grand and they're going to do way more work than I am. Um, but it's, it's that, that, um, what's more valuable to them. Um, unfortunately, most of them see bookkeeping as a unnecessary evil or a necessary evil, I should say. Um, but yeah, it's a challenge.

Um, I try to hold the bookkeeper accountable. That's kind of a role I see playing, um, and giving them a date like, Hey, we need to meet by usually the 15th, um, at the earliest. Um, 21st at the latest, when can you have me the books and hold them to those dates? And in the last bookkeeper, we had a fire, it was just consistently late.

Um. And, and I let the client know that the client had a long relationship with this person. Um, so it wasn't an easy conversation on their end.

[00:11:37] Meryl: Yeah. Something that we've noticed over at Trimline is where we do do the bookkeeping, the longevity of the client sticks around for longer, because I think it feels harder to move bookkeepers and CFOs.

Whereas, particularly if they're having seen some clients that are struggling in this economy, they're looking at what, what can they cut? Well, the CFO is easier to cut. then the tax compliance or the bookkeeping. So I've noticed a little bit of that for sure. What are you, what are you noticing on your side?

[00:12:08] Luke: Oh, you're way more, you're way more, you're way more sticky. I actually, I, uh, woke up to an email this morning of being cut by a client and it was. We love what you're doing and I knew it was coming. Cash flow was getting tighter and tighter and they just couldn't increase margins as much as they tried.

Um, and I'm, I'm the first to go. Um, I had another client where, same thing, like I had to fire myself. It's like, guys, you're running out of cash. You can't take on any more investors. Like, I gotta go. You gotta keep the bookkeeper. So yeah, it's, and that's why it's always a shiny object. Cause it's like, well, I'd still be doing some of this if I did the bookkeeping.

[00:12:46] Meryl: So it sounds like you set pretty good boundaries about what you do and don't want to do. And I know that you carve out time in your week to play golf or to go fishing. So could you talk a bit about what, what you do outside of work and how you fit that into your work week? And then I've got some follow up questions around what you're saying no to, to let that happen.

[00:13:07] Luke: Yeah. So I try to block off almost. Every Friday that I can. Of late, it's been a little harder just because, uh, I took on FinDaily at the beginning of the year. I have two kids. But most Fridays, I spend time doing something outdoors with friends. And I've just been really attentional about it. Like, it's really hard to get on my calendar.

Um times when clients can't get on my calendars. Like when I got back from Vegas, like I was playing catch up. So I had to, uh, I mean, I got two rounds of golf and in Vegas, so I had to, uh, free up some time, but I've just in the firms and the, the business owners I've worked with, I've just watched so many people just get burnout on working too much and not enjoying the fruits of their labor that.

I've just been really, um, conscious about spending time doing what I love to do. And, and the, the message keeps ringing louder and louder. I just joined a mentoring ship program and constant messages, essentially not to be attached to your business. I mean, not to be attached to anything, really, because if you identify as I am the founder of FinDaily, and FinDaily's not there anymore.

I mean, you can lose your self purpose. That is, um, kind of how I came about that. And it's not easy. It's, it's hard to set those boundaries, uh, but in CPA firms, I never set those boundaries and I got burnt out doing it.

[00:14:37] Meryl: So, what are the, are there some other things that you say no to? So, you've mentioned that you don't take on bookkeeping work generally, you've just got that one client, trying not to take meetings or schedule work on Fridays, are there other things that you do that, that help you, um, maybe you've, you've got a, I don't know if you have, do you have a cap on the number of clients that you work with at a time?

[00:14:58] Luke: Yeah, I say a fractional CFO, um, can't take on more than 10 clients. I've, I've traditionally kept it, uh, um, eight, um, just because of pricing. I've been able to keep that number lower than the 10. That's kind of been the biggest thing that and I mean, value pricing has been key. So I know what essentially a floor for me is on the money I want to make and the clients I want to take on.

Um, And the time I want to spend and then trying to figure out, okay, how do I sell it for more?

Yeah, a lot of it is just listening to what the owner is trying to solve and then trying to attach an ROI to it. So my default is, okay, if I'm going like my ultimate goal is to increase profitability, like most people I'm talking to, like that's what they're striving to do. Now they might say I'm wanting to hire a new marketing person.

Well, increasing the bottom line. It's going to help hire that person. Uh, and so attaching like what my investment is as a percentage of revenue. So I usually look at like what's 2%, 3 percent increase and the bottom line look like and try to sell that as what they're investing in. I like it. Yeah. It's easier said than done.

[00:16:24] Ad Roll – Tax Valet

Meryl: So are you able to do that in the sales process? Because I imagine you need some information to, to be in a position to, to lay that or lay out that kind of case.

[00:17:28] Luke: Yeah. Yeah. So my, my sales approach is really a lot of questions and listening on a discovery call, um, then getting access to typically a QuickBooks online file or a zero file, um, to take a quick look to get an idea of what an assessment would look like.

Um, and so then I put a proposal forward of what an assessment looks like. So essentially, it's doing an analysis on three years of financials. But during that analysis, I'm getting a look behind the scenes. So I'm essentially getting paid to do a proposal is how I've always structured it. You charge

[00:18:04] Meryl: for that, the assessment?

Yeah. Yeah. What do you call it to the client?

[00:18:08] Luke: Just an assessment. You call it an assessment? Yeah.

[00:18:11] Meryl: Yeah. Yeah, I like that approach too, to get to, because I think it creates a commitment with you too. It's a, it's a much easier thing to sell if it's a smaller. It's not a recurring, there's no ongoing monthly commitment.

It's just a one time thing, uh, trying out working together. We've reverted back to that at my firm Beanagers. We, we use not to, but we're back doing that again. Now that, that paid, we call it a health check, but fly cause it gives us a chance to. To pick apart all, all the errors and issues that we find, uh, particularly with e commerce accounting.

There's a lot of common mistakes and then to go back to explain, well, this is how we solve this. And so it makes the, it seems to make the, that jump to commit to a monthly fee easier. The conversion rate is better when we do it like that.

[00:18:58] Luke: Yeah, that's a good point you made. Um, and that's how I pitch it too.

It's a trial. You get to see how I work. I get to see how I work with you. And we make a decision at the end of it. And at times I've pitched it, money back guarantee, like, if you're not happy with the results, there's no risk.

[00:19:15] Meryl: And so how do you structure your work week? Because I know, so it sounds like Fridays is a day for you in the outdoors, but you've got a couple of other things on the go.

So you're managing the, the eight or so CFO clients. You've got a software business, which I wanna dig into a bit. And then you're also writing, is it two newsletters?

[00:19:32] Luke: Two newsletters, yeah. Yeah.

[00:19:35] Meryl: So are you doing, are you doing, working on different things on different days or how do you, how are you structuring your week across all these different projects?

[00:19:41] Luke: Yeah, so I'm, uh. It varies, but Mondays is the development side of things. So that's the Finn Daly side of things. So it's. Um, getting the development team going. Um, so I have a fractional CTO that oversees, uh, an independent developer and then a development team. Um, so we do that. Kind of check in, see how things are going, what progress is being made.

Talk about any future updates. Um, try and make contact with customers to get feedback. Uh, because to me, like, I don't want to build things just to build them, because I think they're cool. Like, I want accountants and customers to love whatever we're doing. Um, Tuesday through Thursday, that's kind of the, the core of, of what the work week looks like.

Um, it varies depending on clients, like some are on a monthly cadence, some are on a weekly cadence. There's only one on a weekly cadence, uh, my largest client. Uh, and then, so those vary just depending on, on the week, but those are, those meetings take place. Um, Tuesday through Thursday, my weekly client, I meet, I'm at their office every Thursday.

Um, and then writing. So I try, I don't always do it, but I try to write 15 minutes a day. And that has done enough, um, has accumulated enough for me to be able to put out newsletters. Um, and in that writing, it's doing social media posts as kind of like a proof of concept and expanding on ones that are good and then turning them into newsletter form.

[00:21:17] Meryl: That's a writing technique that I learned in, so I did the Ship 30 for 30 writing course a while ago and that's exactly what they talk about, data driven writing, where don't go straight away and write a 3, 000 word blog post that nobody cares about. Go and test the idea first. So instead, yeah, start with a tweet or start with a short LinkedIn post or a poll and just gauge interest and throw out lots of those.

Things and see what's resonating, if it resonates a bit, okay, maybe that could be a 500 word article I was really hitting. If, if it goes really well, then that could be not just a long form piece of content, but maybe that could be a course or, or something larger. Uh, I suppose a a a bit like software learn, learn what people are interested.

[00:22:00] Luke: Oh, for sure, first, but I love the concept of MVP, uh mm-Hmm. , minimally viable product, as you well know. Um. with anything. I think just getting something out there and getting feedback is way more important than putting together some perfect plan.

[00:22:17] Meryl: Absolutely. I think it applies to so many parts of business.

So that's interesting that you've been able to keep your CFO work to It sounds like three days a week. Are you ever tempted to, to scale it? Because it seems like you're deciding to allocate time elsewhere. And I, from what I know of you, I bet you get opportunities that, I mean, you could grow it into a bigger business if you wanted, I'm sure.

[00:22:40] Luke: Yeah, I've been mulling that one around for about a year now. Um, that was actually one of the biggest things, uh, going to Connect that I wanted to get answered. Um, I came away from Connect, um, With the answer of I'm going to scale it. Oh, interesting. Yeah, um, but it's, it will be an interesting model. Um, I want to take, I think I heard Logan Graff say this, um, make it more of like a Entrepreneurship, where it's like, they're not, they're not dedicated to me, essentially almost like I'm guiding them to take on their own firm and how that looks, I have not flushed out yet.

[00:23:23] Meryl: Right. So you're talking about the CFOs. intrapreneur. at your firm to learn the ropes, um, to then move on. It's an interesting one because when I heard, because I respect the decision to stay small, I made a different decision at Beanagers to scale it, but we don't do, we pared back advisory because we found it too hard to scale.

So, we found bookkeeping. Yeah, because it was relationship based. So we found bookkeeping, particularly in one niche with one tech stack, that was, it's not easy to scale because e commerce accounting is complicated, uh, but it was easier to scale, whereas we found advisory very hard to scale because we needed accountants who also had experience thinking like business people to, to provide high level advice.

So we actually scaled that back, uh, because it meant our top level people We're not growing the, we want them spending their time growing the firm and not actually building financial models. So it was better for us to have them selling something repeatable that, that our team could deliver on. I'm interested, uh, to hear, it sounds like you're in the early stages of thinking that through, of what scale

[00:24:33] Luke: could look like.

Yeah, yeah. And, and the biggest decision maker is, With a solo firm, like losing one client is a pretty big ripple effect and minimizing that ripple effect is, I mean, the only answer really is to scale.

[00:24:51] Meryl: Because you've got different options. If you've got a newsletter, you've got the software company and then you've got the CFO.

So why not focus on scaling something else instead of the CFO? Or, or, or the flip side of that is, yeah, why is that the right one to scale?

[00:25:10] Luke: Yeah. Um, it's the easiest, but we, we said scaling advisory is hardest, but, um, it, it, scaling advisory is hard. Um, but to me it's the easiest to do right away. Um, definitely still working on scaling the newsletter and FinDaily.

Um, Part of the reasons why I did that is they're more scalable with less of me and, um, I've spent the last probably two years tinkering and figuring out like, how do I scale without scaling my hours? And that's why, um, talking about like, uh, entrepreneurship, um, makes the most sense for me because I feel like that in a sense has the less risk and less involvement of me in theory.

[00:26:05] Meryl: So with that, I mean, we can do some brainstorming on the podcast, but what would that business model look like? So would that be a young CFO coming in and you're helping them to build their portfolio and taking a cut of their revenue? Yeah. Is that

[00:26:20] Luke: the model? Yeah. Yeah. Essentially, I, I've got the brand. Um, I'm helping them.

I have a brand with some marketing going, um, essentially helping them with all the crap while they focus on the craft.

[00:26:35] Meryl: Right. So that would be a good fit if they're good at the craft, but they haven't necessarily got a marketing engine that's bringing in leads. Maybe they don't want to build the back end, billing, the other mechanics that go on.

[00:26:48] Luke: Yeah. Yeah. So I love marketing and sales and I have found most people. In our profession, do not.

[00:26:58] Ad Roll - Liveflow

Meryl: Well, let's move into FinDaily. So could you talk about what it is, what the product is and, and how that all came about?

[00:27:58] Luke: Yeah, so FinDaily is, um, an automated financial digest tool. So it sends a daily, weekly email, um, and you can customize it with whatever you want. But it connects to either QuickBooks Online or Xero, so you can pull in accounting data.

It connects to your bank via Plaid. Um, via Zapier and essentially connect to 6, 000 other apps, but the main use case is like an Excel or Google Sheet where like KPIs are stored. Uh, so it's like a word editor. You can write whatever you want and then you pull in little links, uh, just to pull in the data from those different, um, databases that you want to come in in this email.

Um, so it's a really quick. Easy way to stay top of mind with your client without really doing much. Um, so it was designed within Realize. It was the brainchild of Jason Statz. Essentially, he was running a multi million dollar CAS practice doing a lot of bill pay. Um, and he realized that The people doing bill pay were logging into their client's bank.

Then they were going and running two or three reports and QuickBooks before they ever pay a bill. And so that's how FinDaily started. It was like, okay, how do we automate that? And then FinDaily came in to, um, realize And I was one of the beta testers on it and about 40 beta testers and I loved it because probably the most impactful report that I provide clients is just a weekly snapshot of what's going on in their cash.

I have found, uh, entrepreneurs understand it the best because it's money in money out. Um, most entrepreneurs look at their bank accounts. Profit first gets a lot of hate in our industry, but I think it solves a really important problem and that's simplifying cash flow. So entrepreneurs, um, can, can understand what's going on in their business better.

And so when I first saw FinDaily, it's like, Oh, this is kind of like all this combined together. It's way more automated. Um, it's simple, it's clean. Uh, so Jason. Never, never took Fendayly public, so I approached him like, Hey, can I take this out to the public? I'd be willing to buy it from you. So at the beginning of this year, I took it over from him and have been running it since.

[00:30:29] Meryl: And so what is running, running it look like these days? You mentioned that you work with the development team to, I assume, continue building features. What else is involved in running a software business?

[00:30:40] Luke: A lot of outreach, trying to get as much feedback as possible, which It's hard. Accountants are busy.

There's a 15th every month. They have some, some silly thing called a deadline that I, I know nothing about. Um, but it's fun to, uh, getting to hear, like getting to meet other accounting firm owners and hearing what they're doing, sharing my story. Um, while at the same time trying to build a product that helps us both, uh, has been a lot of fun.

Um, it's a different world, um, than the accounting world. Uh, I, I joined an accelerator program, uh, that invested 100, 000 into FinDaily. And that was eye opening, um, essentially doing a 13 week sprint to gain customers and pitch to investors with, uh, eight other founders. It was a, it was a different world.

[00:31:38] Meryl: That would have been a great experience. Yeah, it was. I imagine it would have been tricky if they were working, if those founders were working full time, but you've got limited time carved out for you to work on FinDaily, especially kudos for prioritizing. Golf and those other things, too, because I imagine it could be easy for it to just take over if you try to build this software startup.

What was that like? How did you go with the sprint and try to focus and still have balance?

[00:32:03] Luke: Yeah, that was tough. There was less Fridays, for sure. Um, the first thing I asked the person running the program is, Has anyone else done this with a second job? I'm like, Yeah. And they just give back half the money they didn't finish like, Oh, that's reassuring.

Um, but my, the people in my, uh, cohort were quite impressed. Um, cause I was, I think there was two single founders, me being one of them. Um, they're impressed I was able to keep up with them plus run my business as well. Um, but pretty fortunate on the fractional CFO team, our side to have a team, um, that was well oiled before going into that.

[00:32:48] Meryl: And so you mentioned doing a lot of customer calls to try and explore pain points. What are you doing to, is it a, is it available as a paid product? It is. As well now? Yep. Yeah. And so, what are you doing on the marketing side of things to get new users?

[00:33:07] Luke: Yeah, part of it, uh, newsletter, um, talk about a little bit on social media, um, and, and I don't love it, but it works from time to time, cold outreach, um, it's, I, I can't do cold calls, but I, I do, uh, enjoy writing a funny cold email.

Yeah. Amazing. Now the people on the other end might not think so, but

[00:33:32] Meryl: I occasionally will open a cold email. I normally it's just delete, delete, but occasionally I do. And I wish I'd been saving them because it must have been something that caught my attention that even though I knew it was a cold email, I still opened it.

[00:33:44] Luke: Yeah, there are a couple of them that I'll reply to if they're good enough.

[00:33:49] Meryl: And so let's talk a bit about the newsletter side of things. So could you explain what the two newsletters are that you're

[00:33:55] Luke: running? Yeah, so, um, I write one called The Cass Cachet. And so that started because I was getting a lot of questions about my past experience and current experience.

So I was like, well, might as well write about it. See where that goes. Um, so still do that today. Um, try to do it semi monthly. Don't always hit that. Um, but with sponsors, I'm more, more regular than, uh, in the past. Um, but it's been fun. There's a lot of, uh, support and love around it. Get a lot of engagement.

So that's, that's cool. Um, and then the other one, the mind of the CFO. So I was writing a blog and then I watch a lot of like YouTube, like how to get better both in business and personal and reading a lot of other blogs. And so I kind of meshed the two together in that newsletter. It's kind of my ideas from a CFO business side, but also some of these other things that I, I'm learning from as well and sharing.

And so that recently went on pause for a little bit because I started, uh, writing for ink magazine and anything you write for ink, you can't publish for two weeks. So I had to build up a couple of articles before I started my newsletter and blog back up. And

[00:35:17] Meryl: what are some of your inspirations or what are some of the bloggers or YouTubers that you follow?

[00:35:21] Luke: Bye. Um, Jason Staths is probably the biggest one, um, that kind of influenced me into starting. Um, Justin Welch is kind of who I follow the most on content creation. He has a really good newsletter. Um, his whole premise is Was kind of what started me thinking about, okay, how do I spend less of how do I do more with less of me and his whole, I don't know if you've ever followed him, so, um, I think he's doing close to a million dollars as a.

Solo Opener, um, was pretty inspiring.

[00:36:00] Meryl: So are we going to see you on YouTube soon, branching out from the newsletter business?

[00:36:03] Luke: I don't know, um, video has never been my thing, right? Uh, like I do loom videos, um, gotten really good at doing them with my team and not worrying about editing them. But anytime. I have to do a video for like a promotion or something like that.

It, it does not come easy, but I know I probably should do it. I just don't enjoy it yet.

[00:36:33] Meryl: I'm in that cap. So I feel like video is the future. So that's a skill set I need to learn. And I like podcasting, so I like the talking. But the video just seems like a whole other world of pain. It's the lighting.

Right. It's the camera angle. If we got this, if we got that, all that messing around, try to make the video look good, doesn't sound fun. And then editing the video. I mean, I probably hire an editor, but even knowing what to do to make it look good, just that whole process doesn't sound that fun. I prefer, would prefer to write as well, but I feel like video is the future.

So. At some point, I think I'm going to force myself to, to try and learn.

[00:37:08] Luke: Yeah, and it didn't help that I asked Stats how much he spends on his videos, and I don't remember the number, but I was like, whoa! But he's like, that's not where I started, and I'm like, yeah, I get it, but.

[00:37:22] Meryl: And so much time too. I had him on the podcast a little while back and part of it was him breaking down his content creation process.

And I was asking about his team too. And back then I think he just had one assistant producer and he was doing everything. So one video could take a whole day to do the scripting, the planning, the editing, thinking, well, I need to get a bit more organized if I'm going to spend a whole day on one video.

[00:37:45] Luke: It's a lot of work. He's impressive the amount of videos he cranks out.

[00:37:51] Meryl: His output is impressive. I always see him at different, at different conferences and I think, how are you able to create so much content when you're at a conference every week? You're not even at your studio.

[00:38:00] Luke: And that's, and, and that's one thing I took from him, um, on my writing.

And I think he, I think it comes from, I don't know who the writer is, but it's called second brain. And his note, his notion, uh, that he has set up for ideas. I have something similar to that after I saw his, um, and that helps because I'll have an idea that's not fully flushed out, but have somewhere to store it has been, it's been a game changer.

[00:38:29] Meryl: I did that course, um, a couple of years ago, building a second brain by Tiago Forte. And I found it, yeah, I found the concepts useful, but the system was so time consuming, I've found, that, uh, read something in a read later app, take some notes, send it, push it over here automatically, then you've got this massive list of ideas, need to go through those, um, expand them.

So I think the concept is really good. Possibly I overcomplicated. And so I have not followed through with the system. So this is a good reminder to revisit it. And maybe a pared back version of that is good. Cause I, I think it is important if you, cause you have ideas randomly. It's not when you sit down to write that the ideas pops into your head.

So having a place that you can store those and then also work on, on pieces, if they're not ready to. to publish. That is actually something I find harder with writing because I prefer to sit down and do the outline and then afterwards come back and just write it in one go. I find it hard to get in the flow, like I couldn't, the 15 minutes a day that you talked about, I'd find hard because it takes me a while to get into the flow of that article and what I was thinking.

So I do better with an hour or two hour chunk. How do you manage that with your writing if you're doing the, the small amount consistently?

[00:39:44] Luke: Yeah, sometimes, sometimes 15 minutes comes and nothing happens, and sometimes I go way past 15 minutes because it's flowing, um, but it's just, uh, trying to form a habit of writing, um, and it was something, I think Jerry Seinfeld, I saw he did, and that's kind of where I got the idea of doing it, I think it, He might have done 30 minutes every day, but that's, that's how he accredited all his success to that.

[00:40:15] Meryl: So if I was to say, Luke, everything works out how you want it to in business. What would your, you've got multiple businesses. What would things look like in three years time or five years if you need a longer time horizon? Where would you, where would you want to be spending your time and what would things look like?

[00:40:32] Luke: Oh, wow. Um, So ultimately giving back to my community in some form or shape, um, do a little bit of it now, but doing more of it. So right now, like I coach my daughter's sports teams, I'm on our local pool board. So help out a little bit, um, but definitely want to impact the community in a bigger way. But I haven't figured out how yet.

[00:40:58] Meryl: And what would your businesses look like? Would you be focusing 100 percent of your time on the software business? Would you have scaled the CFO business? Or you're doing spending more time writing? I'm curious because you've got these different options.

[00:41:09] Luke: Yeah, uh, to be determined. Um, but probably more pivoting toward the, like what I have written down is pivoting full time into FinDaily eventually.

Parting way I like I still want to be involved in a squared advisors my firm at some point like at some level, like I still have to from a writing standpoint from a software standpoint like I still want to be in the know, and I still love the strategy side of things but definitely. To me, the writing and the software is way more scalable than the fractional CFO side of things.

[00:41:51] Meryl: Awesome. Well, look, it's been a really good chat. It's exciting to see what you're doing and it's interesting seeing an accountant try out these different business models that I really like the way that you're doing all of that, but also still prioritizing. Health and doing things that are fun as well as spending time with your family.

So have you got any final comments for other accountants or bookkeepers or a tip about how they can do that or a reminder of how they can do that in their lives?

[00:42:19] Luke: Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing we talked about earlier is just try that MVP model is so impactful like. There are so many things I've tried and like, no, don't really like that.

Like, I wouldn't have known I didn't like bookkeeping unless I did bookkeeping and the pains that come with that. Um, so trying, like, I feel myself and a lot of accountants have the personality of like, it's got to be perfect. Uh, especially with numbers, but doesn't, um, put something forward, see if it resonates.

See if you like it and then make changes on the fly.

[00:43:03] Meryl: Amazing. And if anyone in the audience wants to learn more about Finn Daily or subscribe to one of your newsletters or connect with you, where's the best place to, for them to reach out?

[00:43:13] Luke: Yeah. So the best place is probably my link tree, which I don't know, we'll put it in the show notes.

We'll put it in the show notes. It's a goofy abbreviation, but it's, and then X it's the link to my ex. My link tree is on X and Twitter, um, and it's just Luke underscore Templin on, on that. So that's the best way to find me. Uh, that link tree has a link to everything I'm doing.

[00:43:40] Meryl: I still can't get used to calling it X.

You're doing well. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us, Luke.

[00:43:45] Luke: Thanks Meryl.

[00:43:51] Meryl: I had a great time chatting with Luke today and there are a couple of parts of the conversation that stood out to me. One was where he mentioned that it's important to try and avoid having your identity tied up with being a business owner or anything else for that matter, really, particularly if it's something that you can't fully control.

And I know that I struggled. a bit with the identity piece when I stepped down as CEO of Bean Ninjas at the end of 2021. And I, it wasn't like I was moving to something else. I was taking some time off to figure out what my next move was going to be. And I know that for many months I felt uncomfortable around that identity.

Who am I now if I'm not the founder and CEO of Bean Ninjas? I liked hearing about how Luke is able to manage. A number of different businesses, but he's still working hard to protect his Fridays. I think it could be tempting to try and make more money by taking on more CFO clients. But that might improve his lifestyle in the short term or allow lifestyle creep where the more you earn, the more you spend, but it would detract from achieving his goals.

long term goal of scaling businesses without a corresponding increase in his hours. I enjoyed the last part of the conversation where I was hearing Luke weigh up the pros and cons of scaling his different businesses and he mentioned that ultimately he'd like to be working on the software product full time.

But the path to get there, actually it makes more sense to focus on potentially scaling the CFO business right now. That feels like a faster path to revenue for him or more revenue. And then I imagined that he would reinvest that revenue into Building the software product. So I think I, I've spent a little bit of time or 12 months working on a software product and it, it can be challenging.

It's a great business model, but if you're selling subscriptions for 50 a month or it might even be less in the case of FinDaily, you need a lot of customers even to, to pay yourself a full time wage. So it was interesting hearing how Luke is tackling that problem.