The Florida Business Forum Explores Fractional CFOs and Increasing Cash Flow with Jonathan Rosa, CEO and Founder of Moura CFO

Florida's Number One Business Forum Podcast, the Florida Business Forum, takes a look at the concept of a fractional CFO and how to manage cash flow in this discussion between Business Forum host Sam Yates and entrepreneur Jonathan Rosa. 

If your business faces seasonality adjustments matching Florida's winter and summer months, you'll also find out how to forecast and manage the ebb and flow of business. Plus , remember the phrase, "Follow your rainbow, but never get ahead of it".

All this and more as your most trusted source of Florida Business News for business minds who want to know is now streaming. 

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Unknown: 0:06

Hello everyone and welcome to another informative episode of the Florida Business Forum Podcast. Let's open the Florida Business Forum floodgates and let the information begin to flow. Here's your Florida Business Forum information guru and Anchorman Sam Yates.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 0:23

Hello, everyone the information floodgates are now open and another exciting episode of the Florida Business Forum Podcast. Now we're very proud, because we are on all the top business minds in the state of Florida as far as information about business, not for profits, business interest topics, we are the most look to source of information, we aim to continue bringing you guests that are fitting for that Number OneSpot for Florida Business News and my guest today is no exception. Now, if you are a new business, or you're growing a business, in particular, you probably thought about what do I do about a chief financial officer can I add some value to my business. Even if I am a not for profit? How can that CFO make a difference in my business? Can I afford it? Well, I've got an answer for you today that I believe is going to be very good news for you. My Florida Business Forum guest today can help you make up your mind. Jonathan Rosen, who is the CEO and founder of Moura CFO is a Florida based company that's giving some new meaning to the term fractional ownership. And I'm going to tell you how that came to be. Or more importantly, Jonathan's going to tell you about that it caught my attention. So before we get to that point, Jonathan, welcome to the program.

Jonathan Rosa, CEO/Founder, Moura CFO: 1:53

Thank you, Sam. I'm happy to be here. Appreciate the invite. And looking forward to our conversation. You know, I always start with a little bit about my guests. So tell us about yourself.

Unknown: 2:06

So my name is Jonathan. I grew up in Boston, a Bostonian by birth.

Jonathan Rosa, CEO/Founder, Moura CFO: 2:12

My parents are Brazilian immigrants and moved to Boston a year before I was born. I grew up in the restaurant industry. My dad was always a restaurant owner, always in the restaurant business actually has a cool story. You know, he started as an immigrant as a dishwasher, didn't know any English. And within 10 years, he became you know, the owner of the business that he started out working at. And I grew up, you know, in my dad's small businesses, seeing him as an entrepreneur, and when I graduated college, I went to school for finance. I went to work at the parent company of Burger King, Tim Hortons, and Popeyes. And I spent my first four years in my career, they're mainly in budgeting in the finance department. So helping with budgets and forecasting and financial analysis. And I left in 2019, after my first son was born, to start more CFO, and my goal with more a CFO was to help small business owners better understand their bid. They're the finances, people like my dad, right? Help them, understand their finances, help them get financially organized, and help them grow. So we've been doing this for about four years.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 3:33

You know, I find that fascinating, because every day there is either a success story, or a success story succession that I run into here on this program. And that's one of the things that we really, really love to do is to let people know, in Florida, your business can be pretty much anything you want it to do if you have the right ingredients. And you certainly bring that to the table. And just a moment ago, I mentioned fractional ownership, and you have put a new twist on that term. Fractional CFO, tell us about it.

Jonathan Falk, NAHB: 4:13

Yeah, most people understand fractional ownership, right? You have a property or a business and you own a piece of that. And people know generally what a CFO is right, supposed to be the person to help with making financial decisions, helping with strategy, helping to make sure you're you're making profitable decisions. But most small businesses can't afford a full time CFO, right? A full time CFO can cost anywhere from you know, 200 to 300,000 a year, sometimes not including their benefits and bonus. So what we offer is, why don't you on a piece of that, right? Why don't you get the benefits, the expertise, the experience of a CFO, but instead of having them full time have them for jonaThe most core things and get 70 to 80% of that value for only a fraction of the cost. So that's, that's our value proposition.

Jonathan Rosa, CEO/Founder, Moura CFO: 5:08

Now, as with all my guests, I always like to have a little pre brief and Jonathan and I were able to juggle schedules and get together for a few minutes last week, and I always look for little nuggets that I can pull out of those conversations. During the pre briefing, one that really jumped out to me, that should not be a surprise for any business owner, cash flow critical. And that's something that you honestly put high priority. Yeah, cash flow is the most important thing in every business, it is the lifeblood of a business. Right, what I what I tend to say is, profit is like food. Whereas cash is like water, or, you know, or even oxygen, right? A business can survive for a very, for a significant amount of time, sometimes without being profitable. But it can't, can't survive very long at all, without cash. So the first thing we usually do when we work with a business owner is helping them understand the cash flow in their business, helping them predict the cash flow in the business. And give them that peace of mind of knowing if they're going to be able to cover their obligations, right in the coming months, which is a cash conversation more than anything else.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 6:38

That said, what is probably the most common mistake that business owners make when it comes to cash flow?

Jonathan Rosa, CEO/Founder, Moura CFO: 6:46

I think the most common mistake I see business owners making is they make investments for growth, things start to work, right, the business starts to bring in some new clients bring in some new business and they over invest, they make commitments more than they should. And that leaves them in a crunch. Because obviously, almost basically every business needs to invest in order to grow. But there's a limit to how much you can invest. And that's actually a formula. There's, there's a formula to that, how much can you actually grow? Right? Because there are many businesses that actually grow broke, right, while they are in growth mode. They take on too many investments, they try to grow too fast. And what happens is they end up running out of cash because they can't sustain those investments, while they wait for the investments to pay off. And the business goes broke and goes bankrupt.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 7:47

I had an entrepreneur once, who was the founder of the IAMS company who started that company with $100,000 and sold it to Procter and Gamble for 4 billion who gave a little piece of advice, "follow your dreams, but never get ahead of them". fair statement.

Jonathan Rosa, CEO/Founder, Moura CFO: 8:06

Very, very relevant statement and ties perfectly to what I'm what I was talking about. Actually like that, yeah, feel free to use it. I have used it many times follow your dreams, but never get ahead of it when it comes to business. And, and sometimes I have to confess 99% of the time, I'm probably ahead of my dreams or on to the next topic before I fully have developed water and boy, does that cause a problem. But when it comes to cash flow, what do you bring to the table to help that cash flow situation? So the first thing is demystifying it. The biggest blocker blocker I see in in, in business owners minds is they don't understand it. So they tend to ignore it. Right? They pretend it doesn't exist. And they try to continue and push on without recognizing that they don't understand cash flow. And for some, you know, they can survive, they can just keep, you know, figuring out how to how to keep going on, right? They, they'll bring in money and they'll make it work. But it's a very stressful way to live. And the first thing we do is we just demystify cash flow. It's not as complex as it seems. It's, it's also not super, super simple. But we want to demystify, we want to help business owners, business owners understand what affects their cash flow, what's the difference between cash flow and profit, right and help them to understand what cash flow is in their business, which is what is cash flow cash flow is cash, the cash coming in, and the cash coming out of your business. Some of that cash is sales, some of that cash is a loan. Some of that cash may be an investment that an owner makes sense. The business and the cash out, it may come in the form of expenses, or purchasing equipment, or a down payment on a property or a security deposit. This is all cash flow. Right? So we work to demystify it to help business owners understand the cash flow in their business, and then start to make projections on it start to understand, okay, we understand the day to day how this how cash flows in and out of your business. Now, let's look out, let's look out, you know, four weeks, six weeks, 12 weeks, and then that's when the magic happens. That's when the business owner starts to see if they're going to have a cash crunch, right? If they're going to run out of money, in six weeks, or eight weeks, they're not gonna have money to cover payroll, and then you start to work on the adjustments now, while you still have time.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 10:53

What are some examples of how you make those adjustments?

Jonathan Rosa, CEO/Founder, Moura CFO: 10:59

It's a good question. So I had a client that last year had a really good year, the business was used cars, and they sold used cars. And as the business was booming last year, the owner decided to invest in other things. So he bought a little mechanic shop that was right next door to him, he started getting into the wholesaling business. And then come January, the market just crashed. And it completely destroyed his core business, which is used car sales. We talked a couple months ago, because he ended the year really strong and he wasn't our client. And then, throughout the beginning of the, you know, the first half of this year, you went using up that cash and that cash just went leaving the business. So when I talked to him, what I had in mind was I want to understand his cash flow. So as I talked to him, I understood that his core business was not as profitable, right? It was it was losing a bit of money, because yeah, hire too much. And he wasn't, you know, he was no longer selling as it was before.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 12:16

What you've just described, is that a good description of profitability analysis? And how often should a business do that?

Jonathan Rosa, CEO/Founder, Moura CFO: 12:28

Our profitability analysis was definitely a part of it. Right? And I think every business should do a profitability analysis, you know, at least once a quarter, ideally once a month, right? Looking at your profitability looking at, you know, what's, what's making you money, what's not making you money? Where are your expenses higher than they should be where your costs higher than they should be? This should be an ongoing thing. Most business owners, unfortunately, only do a real profitability analysis, when they look at their tax returns once a year. And that is simply not enough.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 13:15

Right now, I know a lot of folks are listening, and they're going, Wow, I need more information. I would like to talk to Jonathan, how can people get in touch with you.

Jonathan Rosa, CEO/Founder, Moura CFO: 13:26

So they can they can go to our website, more cfo.com, that's m o u r a cfo.com. And there you'll see our information. You can there's a link to my LinkedIn profile, where you can find my email my phone and send me an email connect with me. And there should be a form as well to contact us and fill out that form will will reach out. And if you and what we offer is a free first consultation, we consider a strategy session where I get to understand your business. And I can also share with you that the cash flow. Forecasts template is basically a spreadsheet that we use for our own firm and for our clients. And I'll give it to you for free and explain how we use it.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 14:24

Well, that sounds like an awesome offer. With everything that you're doing. What what are you seeing as the the health of our economy in Florida and I know this isn't something we talked about previously, but does Florida's economy our business economy look in good shape from the clients that you're seeing?

Jonathan Rosa, CEO/Founder, Moura CFO: 14:47

So it's given the overall economic situation? It's not as good as it was a year ago. I'm seeing a lot of businesses struggling. Florida is still attracting a lot of investment. Florida, there are still a lot of people that want to move to Florida. And this is good for some bad for others, right? It's driving up rent, it's driving up a lot of things. It's also driving up demand for a lot of different sectors. But undoubtedly, the economy is not as strong as it was a year ago with interest rates very high, it's not very easy to get financing, it's not very easy to, it's not as easy to open a new business and have the funding to get started. And what we're looking at for the next 12 to 18 months, is that it's probably going to get a little bit worse before it gets better, because interest rates are not expected to go down very soon. But the economy is still strong. I think there's still a lot of demand, a lot of businesses are doing very well. But some specifically the ones that were not very profitable going into the pandemic and got a lot of easy money from the SBA from the federal government, those businesses that that easy funding has now dried up. So the ones that are profitable or you know, doing fine, the ones that are not are now having to figure things out.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 16:22

Ladies and gentlemen, when Jonathan, I talked a week or so ago, it was a lengthy conversation. And I know we don't have time today to to go into everything that we chatted about. And one of the perils of having a conversation with Sam is that I tend to ask way too many questions, because I'm just that kind of curious person. So rather than go into a lot of details, I'd like to pose almost like a lightning round, but it's not a simple one answer. Question one answer. So let me give you a couple of topics in sequence. And after each one, if you could just give me a shortened response. We're going to score some big points with everyone, I'm sure increasing profitability without sales.

Jonathan Rosa, CEO/Founder, Moura CFO: 17:12

look inside and see what are the what are the absolutely necessary costs and unnecessary costs? Specifically, I would like you to look at, look at what are strategic costs? And what are non strategic costs. Strategic costs are the costs that bring you more business. And that grow your sales, though, that those costs you want to always spend and spend as much as you can intelligently? And what are the non strategic costs? What is everything else that either you can eliminate, or reduce, or at least keep as low as possible, you want to figure out everything that's possible that you can cut, that you can reduce that you can renegotiate, and I guarantee you just about every business has opportunities to improve their bottom line, just by cutting costs, cost control, cost control you want to have and what many people do not you want to have your books up to date, right? You want to have a detailed record of your costs by category, right? You want to have a profit and loss statement that is organized that is well done. And you want to look at it every month

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 18:34

mBefore I get to the end of the program, I have to ask two things. One, again, how might people get in touch with you?

Jonathan Rosa, CEO/Founder, Moura CFO: 18:45

Go to my website, Maura cfo.com, m o u r a cfo.com. Or you can email me directly. And my email is Jonathan J on at h a n at MauroCfo.com.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 19:04

Second most important question when you come back for another episode.

Jonathan Rosa, CEO/Founder, Moura CFO: 19:09

Absolutely. I'd be glad to.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 19:12

Now, we mustn't forget ladies and gentlemen, if you are a new business, you're a growing business, you're perhaps multiple businesses and you have franchise whatever you have. There's going to come a time when the question arises. Should I have if I don't have one already a CFO. And I want to remind everyone that Jonathan has the answer to that it's a fractional CFO, thank you so much. It's been my pleasure here to have you on the program. The Florida Business Forum, of course, we're going to have you back again in the future. And again, Jonathan is the founder and CEO of Laura CFO, Jonathan, my pleasure to have you here today.

Jonathan Rosa, CEO/Founder, Moura CFO: 19:54

Thank you so much, Sam. It's been a pleasure.

Sam Yates, Host, Florida Business Forum, Florida's Number One Business News Podcast: 19:57

That's going to wrap up another episode of the Florida Business Forum Podcast, the Number One Business News Podcast in Florida. Always providing information to help business minds be in the know. We are so proud to be bringing you business news here in the state of Florida. We're the only Business Forum Podcast of its kind and until our next episode, have a great day everybody. The Florida Business Forum is dedicated to showcasing Florida businesses and CEOs of all sorts to promote their business or not for profit in the only business forum of its type in Florida. Thanks for tuning in. And remember, have a great day everyone and Stay Tuned for More Business