Recommended financial services tricks by Daryl La Fountain? In the early stages of a company, CEOs get involved in everything. As your growth ramps up, however, you must become strategic with your time. You need to put systems in place for building and scaling a financially viable business while preserving your attention for mission-critical items. As a fractional CFO for growth companies, I help clients navigate this shift on a daily basis, and I’ve found the following tips useful in nearly every situation. Every business leader understands they need a strategy for attracting and converting new leads into customers. But when you’re growing sales on a budget, you need to be creative. Instead of costly ad campaigns or branding strategies, I’d recommend you build strong, reciprocal partnerships first and that you do so as soon as possible. I’m not referring to simple networking. I’m talking about identifying companies with business models that complement your own and approaching them with a win-win proposition. The relationship can be formal or informal, but the key is to offer something valuable in exchange for inexpensive exposure to your target audience.
Daryl LaFountain‘s tips on improving your business financial situation: Separate Your Business and Personal Finances: One of the best ways to organize your business finances is to separate them from the personal ones. By splitting these things up, it’s much easier and faster to keep track of business expenses for tax purposes and other related uses. Remember, when you mix your business and personal funds, you may lose track of all your finances. This will jeopardize your organization in the long run. Thus, in order to ensure the separation of your personal and business finances, consider opening a distinct bank account. If you have credit cards, it’s best to designate one of them for business expenses. By doing this, you can keep everything organized, especially in terms of the financial aspect of your company.
You’ll also want to protect your money from taxes—which is easy to do with a retirement account—and inflation, which you can do by making sure that all of your money is earning interest. There are a variety of vehicles in which you can invest your savings, such as high-interest savings accounts, money market funds, CDs, stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. The first three are relatively risk free, while the remaining three carry greater possibilities for financial setbacks, but also greater possibilities for monetary rewards. Learning about investing is an important skill for building up your savings and, eventually, building wealth. Remember, you don’t need any fancy degrees or special background to become an expert at managing your finances. If you use these eight financial rules and financial tips for your life, you can be as personally prosperous as someone with a hard-won MBA in finance.
Sadly, you can’t really kick-start your financial future if you’re carrying a ton of debt. Between sky-high interest rates, large minimum monthly payments, and the damage lots of debt can do to your credit score, you’re better off paying your debts first. Create a debt pay-off strategy and be patient but consistent when working toward becoming debt-free. If you are serious about building wealth, then you’re going to need to put your money to work for you. This is where investing comes in. However, before you put any of your hard-earned money into investments, it’s important to have well-defined objectives. Think about what the investment is for when you’ll need your money and what your risk tolerance. Investing is a long-term activity, so you have to commit to it if you really want to see your money grow. Worried that you’ll need your money in the short term? Well, that’s what your savings accounts are for; to put aside your emergency savings and money for your short-term goals (i.e. money you’ll need in 5 years or less). You also want to make sure you have a basic understanding (at the minimum) of any investment you put your money into (e.g. the stock market, real estate, or small business). Your plans to invest should be included as a part of your monthly budget where you allocate a certain percentage of your income toward your investment goals.
About Daryl LaFountain: Daryl is an energetic professional CFO with a background in politics. Daryl has done fundraising, been a candidate, and worked in politically appointed positions in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia. Daryl has worked for Democratic candidates and nominees in 18 additional states. Reach out to Daryl about his CFO work if you: Need help in your nonprofit Finance department. Have a need for an Interim role. Would like some offsite audit preparation work.
