Episode Three: Money by Design: Insights from a Chief Financial Architect

If a buyer looked at your financials today, what would they see?

In this episode of The Exchange, Tom Lenfestey sits down with Chelsea Williams, founder of Core Solutions Group and a financial expert focused on law firms, to unpack one of the most overlooked drivers of firm value: your financial systems.

From messy books to clear, decision-driving data, this conversation dives into what separates a lifestyle practice from a true business, and why most law firm owners aren’t as far away as they think.

They cover:

• The difference between a firm that “runs” and one that scales
• Why most law firm financials create confusion (not clarity)
• The key mindset shift that unlocks growth and profitability
• How cash flow and profit actually work inside a law firm
• The role of bookkeeping vs. CFO (and when you need each)
• The two biggest levers that drive law firm growth
• Why systems and delegation determine whether your firm is sellable

Chelsea also shares real insights from working with law firm owners at all stages,  including the common patterns that hold firms back and what it takes to move forward.

If you’re thinking about growth, improving profitability, or eventually selling your firm, this episode will help you understand what buyers actually look for — starting with your numbers.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:09

Hey everybody, it's Tom Winfesti again. Excited to bring you another episode of The Exchange, the podcast where we talk a lot about law firm ownership, looking at succession planning, exit planning, buy sell, valuation, what makes a great law firm, anything that can really help you as a law firm owner or as a seller buyer involved in the space to really move forward through your goals of exit or through your goals of growth. And today I will tell you, super excited to have one of my good friends on board, the guru when it comes to the financials of law firms. And overall, to really go through potentially what makes law firms better businesses overall, but really to look at that. And I really went through this, and it's like the question like I'd like to ask a lot of people is if a buyer, right, you're looking to sell your law firm or exit, if they're gonna pull up your financials, if you're gonna share those financials with them tomorrow, would they see a business? Truly, would they see a business that they could buy or would they see a mess? And just because our special guest today and I have talked about this before, we know there's a lot of messes out there, but you have time and opportunity, hopefully, to create it into a really solid business with solid financials. Chelsea, thanks so much for joining us. Super excited to have you. Chelsea, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and core solutions and how your background brought you into the law firm world or the financial side of the law firm world.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Yeah, yeah, Tom, thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. I love what you do. I think it's so, so important for law firm owners to hear I can build this thing to sell no matter where I'm at now, and it's still possible. So I appreciate you and your mission. My name is Chelsea Williams. I call myself a chief financial architect because what I understand is that money can really happen by design. And I love helping people get a grip on money and finance and help them realize it's not so hard, it's not so difficult. We're actually just avoiding other things that are showing up. And so I love what I do. I started Core Solutions Group in 2017. And if you go to my website, there's a story that really encompasses why I chose law firms and why what I do. And the short version of the story is I was looking for proactive legal services and I found this lawyer in the downtown area of where I live. Now there's historic buildings downtown, and I'm a sucker for like architecture, especially historical, like old buildings, the smell of them. I was more excited, obviously, because who's excited for legal services? But I was so excited to see the inside of this law firm just to see the building. And when I opened the door, I was met with like utter disappointment. All I saw, there was like there was a desk somewhere in front of me, and behind that desk, somewhere was a receptionist behind all the piles of paper. And I look around and there's those paper reel boxes just stacked, and I'm not even exaggerating, from the floor to the ceiling, and I'm like, well, this doesn't look cool. And so, you know, I went and had a conversation with the attorney. We were getting ready to check out. I was over it. He was, you could tell he was miserable and just didn't want to be talking to me. And I caught him on his way up the stairs and I was talking to him about the building, and I I asked him, I said, Well, because he said, I've been here like 30 years, and I'm like, Oh, you should you should be close to retirement age, right? And his whole body shrank and slumped. And he said, Oh no, I'll die at my desk doing what I do. And that was the nail in the coffin for me to be like, I can make a difference in this space. It does not have to be that way. And even to this day, I talk to so many law firm owners who are in that position. And I love just doing like what you do, shedding light around what the possibilities are and how to pull levers instead of guests.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Yeah, I think that's it's the awakening moment, right? Once you see and kind of uh a lot of times I talk about seeing behind the curtain, which you know you get to see a lot of as well, and everything else. It's the opportunity to help, truly, to help hopefully be more enjoyable to also realize you don't have to die at your desk. You could, that's a choice. That's awesome. That's an awesome story. So it's truly a calling. And you've been at this how long now, Chelsea?

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Well, almost 20 years in the finance space. And uh 2017 is when I chose to focus with law firms specifically. So a long time, twice over the expert years. It's my jam.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

That's the knowledge of what you get to see, right? And you see by helping, you see by really working with, you know, I think law firm clients probably of all sizes. Chelsea, I do want to get into a little bit because I've always been impressed by how you've built your own business based on systems, based on brand, other aspects, because I think that could really help some of our law firm, you know, owner listeners. When you have a new client that walks in or a prospective client, and you see they maybe bring you or give you access these days to financials, is there something in your mind that really says this is a lifestyle practice? Like this is a lawyer who's gonna die at their desk, you know, forever? Or they're really building a business. Like, can you see that in your first look into a law firm's financials?

SPEAKER_01 5:18

There are two sides of the story that I look at first when I start looking with someone. The first side of the story is the numbers and what the numbers are telling me. But the numbers leave things out. So the second side of the story comes from having a conversation with the law firm owner. Now, the numbers tell me where the possibilities are, and in some cases, they can tell me what a person is avoiding. And and that's the scary part about working with someone like us, right? A lot of people are like, oh my gosh, I don't want to offer my finances to someone, and and it gives them the opportunity. We're scared of being judged, we're scared of being looked at like you are a practicing attorney and you're 40 years old. Why don't you know this stuff? That those are the fears that go through people's minds. And so I like to tell people that curiosity disengages fear. And when I'm going in, I'm truly coming from a place of curiosity because the numbers tell a story, and everybody has their own version of the story when I talk to them. And what is that indicator for me of this is probably someone who is not willing to do the things that have to be done in order to position their firm to be systematized, to grow, to scale, to sell is the mindset. Because money and numbers are 20% mechanics. It's so stupid simple. Once people get past the fear and then see, okay, this is all I have to do to manage my finances, but it's 80% perspective and beliefs and habits. And those are the things that tell me kind of where the boundaries are with how far this law firm owner is willing to go.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

You know, the whole concept, which we talk about a lot, you know, going to law school doesn't teach you how to run a business, right? Unfortunately, there's there's very few, there's small law firm practice, you know, there's courses, and there's good coaches out there, like, you know, out there in the space that are now teaching in law schools, trying to make an impact. But, you know, uh coming from an accounting undergrad, you know, having a CPA, like doing this, like even myself running my own business, there's lots of practicalities. Like I just didn't know, right? And you go into this running a law firm and have to figure it out. And I think that's a concept for a lot of lawyers. We come out of law school believing, like, hey, we may not know it now, but we can be competent in doing so, right? And so, Chelsea, when when those lawyers come to you, and they do, they open up the closet, right? They show kind of the skeletons, they're bearing their soul to you in certain ways from financials. What are those top mistakes that you see over and over again? Of like, man, if you could just start working on these with a solid bookkeeping provider, like this would really help improve your business, right? Make it better for you.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Yeah, and I kind of want to reframe it because I I don't want to call them mistakes because I what I see, it's truly a matter of you just didn't know. Law firm owners just don't know the the practical tools and frameworks to be able to manage finance. And I would say the biggest aha moments, there's two of them that I see, and the things that make the biggest difference in law firm financial management. The first of which is recognizing that the net income that you pay taxes on on your income statement does not equate to cash in bank. And it makes perfect sense if you don't know and understand these things that you would look like right now, it's March of 2026. A lot of us, all of us, are working on preparing our taxes, right? If you look at your income statement from 2025 and you see I made$250,000 in net income, and then your tax preparer is like, yep, and you owe$5,000 to the IRS. And you look at your bank account and it has$30,000 in it, you're like, wait, what? None of that makes sense. And that's a valid point of confusion. And so the thing to really understand with that is your income statement is a tax report. And that's what I call it with my cohorts and my clients. We're not, we don't call it an income statement anymore. We call it a tax report. And then we recognize that cash flow is different from that income statement. And so by understanding the difference between the two and recognizing that cash deserves its own system to be managed, that is huge. That is one of the biggest eye-openers for the people I work with.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Yeah, and I think that that's the big thing, right? Like we've transac deals in the past where you know, we've had buyers interested come in and they're like, look, this seller is not providing the reporting that we need. And the challenge is that seller doesn't have the reporting that you need because they've really been a bank statement, you know, small practice, like how much cash do I have this month to take out and how much, you know, do I carry forward? Even some of them haven't had the PLs, the profit and loss, the income statement or a tax statement, right? From that standpoint to really show it. And so that's that's like maybe my next question in Chelsea, when they do see it, right? When they see the change from just getting that statement, really always looking in the past to really starting to understand the flow of funds through their firm. Like, where is that eye opening and what does it do for these law firm owners? Like, what have you seen where you see the mess, you come in and you help? Like, where does that help them go forward?

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Because of the nature of the system we use, we use a system similar to Profit First. So the book by Mike McAllowicks, it's an amazing book. I highly recommend reading it. We don't follow it to an exact T, I follow it loosely. But the power of that system is that it works right along with what we're already doing as humans. It like how our brain works, how we interpret information. Most of us are just opening up our app on our phone and looking at our bank account and then doing head math, right? So this allows us to allocate buckets and put every dollar to use. Every dollar has a purpose. And what this unlocks for law firm owners is number one, it unlocks that confusion around how much money do I have to spend and how much money do I need to put aside for things like team and taxes, especially, so that there's no more surprise tax bills. It frees them up to focus on the second piece of what I see as the biggest thing missed and the easiest thing to get under control. And that is the two levers, the two strongest levers in a law firm, which is marketing and team and delegation. Those are the two things that are gonna allow you to grow and to scale. And when you don't have to worry about cash anymore, you can start looking at those levers. And once we do that, we work within what I call your profit equation. Everybody lives under the same exact profit equation. Elon Musk, you, me, the people we work with, and that is the money we bring in minus the money we spend equals the money we get to keep and invest. And what happens is a lot of law firm owners are living in a net zero equation because, again, they just don't know these things. So immediately we focus on where cash is leaking. And marketing and team are some of the biggest places where cash is going out the door, and we have to plug those leaks.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Yeah, I love it. You know, from a concept of profit first, but really the identifier is once you understand this, these other things become so important and you can identify where you're strong or weak, right? You had no idea where money was really going or what the return on investment was for marketing or teams, right? So you have to take care of baseline, and then I think the light switch goes off to the others. And again, under a profit-first mentality, it's like, hey, you're an owner. You're not just the employee, you're an owner. You should make money and you should focus on that first that I'm going to make money to distribute to me as an owner. Then it's like, does the model work otherwise and everything else to do it? So, no, I love it. And Chelsea, you were just saying, like, we all operate under the same system, right? And that's one of my questions too, Chelsea. Where have you seen? I'm sure the question is, I would say the recommendation for me is everybody needs a bookkeeper. Like if you're a lawyer that comes in, you need a good, solid bookkeeping team because again, we're not trained to be accountants in law school, right? You're not trained. You can say you're competent, you can say you're using software to do it, but there's so many mistakes that I know you've seen, we've seen. But at what point do you think in revenues or scale or just part of their life cycle, do they jump from bookkeeping to really more of you need a CFO, right? On a fractional side or otherwise. When do you see lawyers get to that growth or that point in their lifespan?

SPEAKER_01 13:53

I love that. And I mean, that kind of ties into this question because hiring a bookkeeper is one of the first things that you should do in your business. And that's not me saying that because that's the industry that I'm in. That's me saying that because numbers can be your compass. They can make decisions so much easier and so much more clear. And so from the beginning, you should be working with a bookkeeper. And if you're a law firm, you should be working with a bookkeeper who understands trust accounting. Because I've seen it to where law firm owners don't know. It's so nuanced, and they work with somebody who just doesn't know, and it causes a lot of problems and work later. And so then your question of when do we transition to a CFO? The easy answer to that is as soon as you can afford it. Because first of all, there's a difference that we need to understand between a bookkeeper, an accountant, a tax preparer, and a CFO. Those are different people, different specialties. A lot of frustration can come from not understanding that these are different specialties. And I hear so many times law firm owners, they're doing the right thing. They're going to their bookkeeper and they're like, hey, what do I, what does this mean? What do I do? What am I missing? What should I do? And what they don't know is that that bookkeeper is good at organizing data. Their strength is not creating the narrative around the data and knowing all of the things in your law firm that affect and can manipulate and guide that data. And so they're getting frustrated. And in the legal space, you are typically gonna pay about$3,500 a month for a fractional CFO. Now, this is exactly why I created a new program called Profit Ready. So I'm not, this isn't a sales pitch, but I was getting so tired of telling law firm owners, yeah, you're not there yet. You can't enroll in our fractional CFO services. Like I'm a money person. I feel it would be irresponsible of me to tell you to spend$3,500 when you're not even paying yourself that each month yet. I can't do that. And so I created a program, it's an eight-week program, and I created it to be affordable for everyone because really and truly, everyone can grow faster and it can compound. It's not just dollar for hour, dollar for hour. Once you understand and you have a CFO perspective on your firm, you compound your growth immediately.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

You know what? One of my biggest mistakes was is again, you put lawyers who always say, you know, we have a competency feeling, like we can learn, right? We can teach ourselves. But having that accounting, you know, background, I mean, one of the things that I waited way too long is to hire a CP CFO for my businesses. And it's not because if I had time and if you could do it, like I could use my accounting, my CPA knowledge probably to build out a lot of stuff. It's because you have somebody who's really digging in there to saying, are you doing this? Right. And then what I think Chelsea is, again, one of the biggest things when you bring in an outsider, which is hard for law firms, right? A lot of law firms, that first outside potential consultant, advisor, whatever else, but is that you get a perspective. And what I always look to is like KPIs. Like a lot of law firms may be doing their own books, they may have a bookkeeping service. But when you go with somebody who knows law firms, there's a certain level of knowledge that comes into that, right? Like all we do is help, you know, transact law firms. That's all we do as law firms. And everybody's like, why just law firms? You should do other professions. Because every law firm can look different based on practice area. Otherwise, it keeps us constantly learning, I'm sure, in the same boat. And, you know, overall that focus. But when you look at a firm that's doing those right things, moving from bookkeeping to CFO, what are some key KPIs that you just, you know, really focus in on to make sure, you know, I'm sure there's lots, but maybe a couple or otherwise that would be key ones that you would share with law firm owners to focus in on.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

I would love to actually flip this back to you because you said you waited too long to hire a CFO. What were like the top couple of things that that CFO worked with you on? Was it KPIs? Was it something different? What were the game changers?

SPEAKER_02 18:04

We started from the base, right? But that's what they did, right? They really started with like set the goal, which I love, right? Because we do that with our sellers and everything else. Like, what does it look like? Paint the picture. And then they backed it up through the data, right? To really using our own data to really build that model out to get to the key KPIs.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Love that. I love that so much. And that's that's so similar to the route that I take because the biggest KPI, look, it's always and never about the money and the finance and the numbers. And I think the biggest sigh of relief that I can give law firm owners listening right now is when you think of accounting, finance, and and things like that, immediately their mind probably goes to those monthly financial statements that they're avoiding and they look at and they don't understand, and it's ick, and they just blah don't want to do it. The good news is you only need 10 minutes a month with these actually, what's most important are the KPIs behind the reports, right? Just like you said. And the biggest KPI when you're a business owner is how much time and money do you need? Time is the most valuable currency we all have here. It's also finite. The only thing we're buying with the money we're making is time and experience with the people that we love and the things that we enjoy. That is it. So the first thing that I have clients do is what I call a vision visual. And it does exactly what you just said. How much do you want to take home in cash? What are you doing right now? And what do you know you need to stop doing in order to get to where you need to go? And how do we reverse engineer this to figure out how much money your firm needs to make? But most importantly, and this is one of the first and most important money KPIs, how much money your firm is able to keep. So the biggest KPI and like the bottom line KPI that where we start is that cash flow as a percentage of revenue. And we track it every month on our dashboard, right? And then uh another important, because we said team and marketing, those are the two like most important things that are going to compound your growth, accelerate it, and make sure that because that they're really easy places for cash to just disappear. I mean, think about marketing. When I first went in business for myself, I saw this company that was like, we have a great LinkedIn thing that we can do for you. And lawyers are on LinkedIn because it's a professional platform. And if you give us$9,000, we will help you get a lot of clients. I didn't get any clients.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

I had$9,000. Brand new, by the way, like living paycheck to paycheck for the most part. My first year in business, marketing is one of the biggest risk areas that we have, but there's definitely ways to manage and minimize that risk. So with marketing, the end all be all KPI, because there's 25 KPIs in between, is your acquisition cost. Out of all the money that you're investing in marketing, when you compare it to the number of actual converted paying clients that you got, how much does it cost you per client? And people can get caught up on well, how do you calculate that? And what should you include and what shouldn't you include? The good news is it doesn't matter as long as your formula is the same month over month. What you're actually looking at are trends. Is that number going up? Is that number going down? And being able to ask and answer why every time you see that trend change. So I would say those are the two really important KPIs. And then, of course, when it comes to team, we're looking at ROI. And I think this is one of the hardest places for business owners. You have to understand this being a business owner yourself. People are the most complicated part of being a business owner. And learning how to be a leader and learning how to motivate people and learning how to manage people and take them through changes in in a way that is productive for everybody. Like the managing of people can be the hardest. And so, one of the things that I see quite a lot of is when I go in and I say, Well, you should be profiting four to five times ROI on your billable team. And we look at it and it's like, Oh my gosh, so many. Many of us are molding positions around a person because of our interpersonal skills.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Or not knowing how to manage that convert hard conversation. And we are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year because our team is not optimized.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Yep. Yeah, I think that's again, it's it's that focus where you really didn't know that things were out of alignment, right? And kind of go from there and really to move that. But I I love that perspective. And again, when you go in and you start from the bottom and kind of do that, there's also something that's very important to us, and I'm sure to you as well. But it's that we have lawyers that start to say, this is a business. It's it's not just my practice that's an extension of me. This is a business. And you're like, yes, it's a business. Now, what do you want that business to provide for you? Right. And once you know that, then it's building up to say, well, there's probably some reasons why it's not providing maybe what you want. Or in order to get there, we've got to fix some things in between. And that just becomes strategic insight, right? I mean, I we talk about that all the time when we go through evaluations, you know, with law firm owners. It's like knowing that and why you're here or there. What you do on the CFO side is so powerful because you're really getting into the meat of this is you want to get here, but you're not here yet. You're not in that profit level that you want to be, but now let's go up the chain and find why not, right? And then that impact it can have on the go forward, which means fix it and you start making more money, you start having a better life. You like the practice thrives and you start making more money, and employees are happier, everything else from that.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Systems and leadership, hands down, period. Nobody wants to buy a job.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

Yeah, built the cell, John Warlow, right? Nobody wants, you know, to buy your job, right? They're happy to be employed somewhere, but they don't need to buy your job, right? Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Look, like they get four weeks vacation at their corporate cush job. Why would they buy your solo practice when you're working 60 hours a week and you can't take a vacation? If you can't remove yourself from your law firm for a month, let's just say, if that if the idea of leaving your law firm for a month terrifies you, and you can see it bursting into flames in your head right now, you have systems that need to be developed and you have a team that needs to be built up. It is absolutely systems and leadership. And that is difficult because it's hard to let go. And that when our mind goes to, well, if you want something done right, just do it yourself. That will kill us as business owners. It will kill the possibility of us being able to do things like go on vacation for a few weeks and know that everything is okay.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

Absolutely. So, you know, that's the big part again, attraction. I think traction's behind you. I see the book, right? But it's that delegate to elevate, which you and I have talked about. It's really if it's about you, right? It then you're it's not the business, it's about you. And we talk about that from like a personal marketing, branding. Like if it's all about you and not your business, then you can sell yourself and you can go join somebody and get paid to transition revenue, but it's not about the business, right? The business value from that side. When you, right, because I know you've done some of this. If you are going to give practical pointers, like step one, step two, to law firm owners about how to go from it's all about you. And you can't take a week off without 18,000 emails and you know, missing things and kind of going through that to now, you can take a week, right? Like you can take a week and your team's got it. Like, what are some of those steps you've been through with law firm owners to really, because I think Chelsea, this is a pivotal point where they go from like being the business to running a business or being the owner of the business? And it all starts with that first week away where I didn't check email, right? Or, you know, now I can take 30 days or I can go from there. So is there like a uh, you know, what you've seen as a good first step just to get mindset or just start walking down that path?

SPEAKER_01 26:03

If you are really brave and you just want to get this ship righted as soon as possible, then do the thing. Go on vacation for a week. And here's what you do before you leave, you tell your team what's happening and you tell them only contact me for X, Y, and Z emergencies. I mean, you have to really define it. And if they call you, make sure that it's actually an emergency. And some you have to battle with yourself in your head about this too, because when you do this, you're probably gonna qualify something as an emergency when it's really not. It's really not. Break it and then fix it. When you remove yourself and you make sure that you have a system in place for tracking what broke, immediately when you come back, you can collaborate with your team and you can fix the things. And you keep doing this and you keep doing this. Now, if that's really, really scary to you and you don't want to do it that way, then the best thing you can do right now is to protect and put boundaries around your time, focus, and energy. And what I mean by that is stop making yourself so accessible to the team, to clients. Use time blocking. It's a a way to manage your time on a calendar to where you can really focus on things intentionally and you gotta let everything else go. But implement that and make yourself less accessible and do the same thing. Be like, look, team, I'm only gonna be available for questions on these two days of the week from here to here. And anything that happens outside of that, bring it to that. Because you're what you're doing is you're separating yourself from your business and you're minimizing that dependency because that's what it is. When your business depends on you, somebody else is gonna look at it and say, Well, I don't want not really what I'm looking for. I want I want to do what I want to do, but I don't want it to depend on me and like stop me from going to New Zealand for a couple of weeks.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

The the best, uh, you know, some of the most exciting deals that we've been part of have been some younger law firm owners who have bought in early to, again, bookkeeping, fractional CFO, right? Fractional CEO. Like they have brought a team together and built a firm based on, you know, systems and team, right? And they have delegated their way out of I'm needed to I'm part of this strategy, right? I'm needed sometimes when I want to commit and go through that. And the exciting part is these are law firm owners that are sometimes in their 30s, but they've built a really good business that is easy to transfer. And the buyer on the other side can see it, right? They can say, like, oh, you know your data, right? You got your marketing, you know all your data, you got a great team, you got great systems. Yeah, you took a month or so out. And I mean, that was one of the stories that I always, you know, am just excited about is like, you know, mid-30s, you know, female entrepreneur who had built a great business having a second child. During the process, she went out on maternity leave and the firm didn't miss a beat. Like the firm continued to grow. And so as a buyer story, it was really great because we could go tell the buyer, you know, look, right now she's out on maternity and the firm's continuing these financials and growth and everything else because of what's been built. And that's ultimate confidence, right? To a buyer, you're gonna get better terms, better price, everything else from that. All right, Chelsea, I'm gonna hit you with what I think is what our trusted partner, because you're one of the law practice exchanges, trusted partners, but really where I think you impact and have significant value in this law firm space. If we were to bring you an owner, right, or an owner's gonna come to you and they're a two million dollar firm, you can equate however you want to get there, but revenues, whatever else, but they're at two and they really want to double. They want to get to four. Like that's their exit price. Anything else, where do you start with them, right? Like, what does that look like? Because that's probably more CFO strategic piece, but where do you go with those owners and to really help them increase their exit value? Because I do believe like what you do is a key component of you don't like your number right now. Okay, well, go work on it. And here is a good trusted advisor to do that.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

I love this question. And the the place that I start is I ask them first, what do you think is holding you back? Because a lot of times we know kind of what it is and what needs to be done and what we're avoiding. And the words we choose to use are really powerful. So when you know how to really listen and hear somebody's response to that question, a lot of times it gives me a direction to go. And then I look at their time and I say, where are you spending your time at right now? And the biggest question that you have to ask yourself when you're looking at doubling your business is what do I have to do to make that happen? And then arguably more important, who do I have to become to make that happen? Because I truly believe that as business owners, when we choose to stop growing and evolving, our business is going to stop growing and evolving. It's the idea of what got you here will not get you there.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

And you know I think yeah, I think a lot of it is I always talk about growth is going to mean that you are going to things are gonna break, right? Like the knowledge you have, you're gonna run out of that knowledge and you're gonna have to learn or you're gonna have to bring in that knowledge, right? Your systems that you had got you to here, but if you got there, like they're probably gonna break at that next level, and that's okay. That's a sign of growth, right? So, to your point of well, where do you want to go? And then knowing, like if we back up, just like those KPIs or otherwise, if we back up, these things are gonna probably have to be improved. These things are gonna break as you go. So you might as well work on those scenario to really get to that, right? So, yeah, I think that's great. But I mean, I do believe, just to let you know from uh transactional experience, been doing this almost 15 years, those that come in with solid bookkeeping and a CFO on tow, right, are going to sell for more value. The due diligence is gonna be way easier, the terms are gonna be better, and it's just one of those key components. And so, Chelsea, you've been very gracious with your time. But maybe my last question for you is really like, what's the small things that you see law firm owners do that maybe is they just do it because, you know, like from a bookkeeping perspective or CFO, but it really has a potential to compound over time that's really gonna hurt them as they go forward, whether it's on profit, exit value, otherwise. But just that small daily thing maybe that doesn't really seem like much, but really does compound.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

I think the one thing that is universal that keeps us moving in the right direction is consistency. And whatever that looks like for you, and and consistency in the things that are gonna move the needles. So some people have, and again, it doesn't even have anything to do with the money, right? This money is a reflection and the result of what you are doing on a daily basis and with your time. So it's being consistent with those daily things that are going to help you become who you need to be in order to get to where you want to go.

SPEAKER_02 33:05

All right, Chelsea. I wanted to ask you the little things sometimes add up to be bigger or they have a compounding effect over time. For law firm owners, what do you really see that they potentially maybe not they don't notice or they don't really pay attention to? But those little things over time are gonna lead up to, you know, potentially massive and missed profits or lower exit value from that side. Are there things that you see that you would basically say, watch the little things today? Because they have a potential to compound.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

Absolutely. And it goes back to what we talked about at the beginning of our conversation, where when you start this process, you really have to define how much money do you want and how much time do you want to give? Like what is your vision, right? And the little things that make a difference are the things that we do every single day. It's in the consistency, it's in keeping that in mind. And every time you're faced with something that say wants to steal your time, asking yourself, should I be protecting my time because this is what's gonna move the needle to get me closer to that vision of where I want to go and who I need to be to create it. So the little things truly are the little things that we choose to give or not give our energy to every single day. And one thing I'll mention when it comes to money specifically, the little things that are gonna hurt you are not asking those questions. Always ask your questions. Do not abdicate your own understanding of your financial position. You can delegate it to someone like me, to someone like you, but do not abdicate it. Ask every single question. And I know what you're thinking when you're listening to this, because I hear you say it to me all the time. This is probably a silly question. This is probably a stupid question. No, it's not. All of your questions matter, so ask all of them shamelessly.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

What you've already talked about is doing those little things on a consistent, like have your goal and then really carry that forward on a consistent basis. And that's what I believe, some of the biggest things that, again, you know, you or your team can provide. It's accountability, it's making sure, like, are we doing these things on a consistent? And one of my big takeaways from this conversation, what I love is not going too reactive. You called it a tax statement, correct? Your profit and loss, your income statement is a tax report.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:22

Tax report, right? It's a tax report. It's just going to tell you how much you're potentially going to owe in the future. But does it really tell you? And it's moving forward to like use that based on goal setting, going back forward, figuring out those KPIs to really get to a proactive basis where you know how much, like you really probably know what that tax report's going to show you, you know, but earlier in the process. And you know what is working, what's not to really focus in. And in our world, that just has you focusing in on your business value. So, Chelsea, I appreciate everything you do in the space for law firm owners. I think it's hugely needed across the industry, across our profession for having law firm owners give up control over their bookkeeping. Get away from the mess, as you put it, you know, structurally, it's okay, right? You don't have to be afraid to do that. You don't have to feel bad about it. But it's the overall to get it right, it's going to have an impact for you, whether you're looking to build to exit, or whether you're just looking to do the right things or you want to be a buyer and grow. Make sure your financials are right, your systems are right. And I think that's what you do as a CFO. It's so much more than just the numbers. It's really focusing on the business, the strength of that business and how to really improve. If you're a law firm owner and you have a goal of what you want to make, then it's really knowing the rules are somewhat the same. I'm sure Elon's got some rules that apply to him. But overall, it's that somewhat that structure, it's really what you do as you go back from that. And that's where, again, having a great CFO, a great bookkeeping team can really help you focus on that for the now and for the future exit. Chelsea, thanks so much for your time. I greatly appreciate it. I look forward to connecting again soon and uh appreciate all you do for the lawyers in our community and beyond. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

Of course, and you too. Thank you.